MP, Shadow Work and
Pensions Secretary, commenting on the Government
defeat in a landmark court case against “discriminatory” Personal
Independence Payment (PIP) legislation, said:
“This landmark ruling is a damning indictment of the Government’s
discriminatory approach to PIP support and its refusal to make
this support available to people with mental health conditions.
So much for the Prime Minister's commitment to deliver parity of
esteem for mental health.
“When the Government should have been listening to successive
court rulings on PIP payments and correcting injustices for
people with debilitating mental health conditions, they decided
to undermine the legal basis for the judgments and introduce
emergency legislation. This was a step too far, even for this
Tory Government.
“Labour is committed to overturn the emergency regulations and
make PIP available to people with mental health conditions, as
well as scrapping the PIP assessments to develop a personalised,
holistic assessment process which provides each individual with
support and a tailored plan.”
Ends
Notes to Editor:
-
• The
claimant, known as “RF”, brought the case against the government
because she believes changes this year to Personal Independence
Payments (PIP) will have a “significant negative impact” on her
life. The case was specifically against Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions, and changes to PIP
regulations.
-
• Judges
agreed with RF, ruling the regulations were discriminatory and
must be quashed. The ruling will not come into force until the
Court of Appeal decides whether the government can challenge the
judgement.
-
• Last
year, two tribunal judges ruled that the criteria for awarding
PIP payments were insufficient, specifically for people who live
with “overwhelming psychological distress” when travelling alone.
However, the government disagreed and introduced February
introduced emergency legislation without consultation, a debate
or a vote, to block the judges’ legal rulings. Its analysis
showed that this would deny the enhanced rate of PIP to 164,000
people [pdf, p.36] a cut in support of £3.7bn. Also, it was this
legislation that RF was challenging. http://www.debbieabrahams.org.uk/2017/pip-regulations-emergency-debate
