Disabilities minister, Stephen Timms, has said that changes to PIP eligibility are needed to make the benefit "sustainable for the long term". He said that he is satisfied that Labour has done enough to safeguard people who are poor and vulnerable amid the welfare cuts. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00The costs of personal independence payment have almost doubled in the last five years
00:04since the year before the pandemic. If that carried on then the whole future of the system
00:12would be in doubt. So we're making changes now to make sure that it is sustainable long term
00:18so that those who depend on it, and it's a large number of people who will continue to depend on
00:23it, will be confident that it can be there for the time that they need it. What we said yesterday is
00:30that in order to be eligible for PIP you'll need to score at least four points on one of the 10
00:37daily living activities that the criteria set out. Now there are some of those descriptors
00:44that only count for two points. If you only score on one of those in all of the activities,
00:50or fewer than one, none at all, then you won't be eligible in the future. If you score
00:56more than one, and indeed if you score on some of the descriptors which attract more than
01:01two points, four, then you will be eligible. And so what we're doing is making sure that
01:08more severely impaired people will continue to be able to claim and receive this benefit in cash
01:17meeting their needs. Less severely impaired people, some of those will not. The key thing
01:24is that the changes we're making will make this benefit sustainable for the long term.
01:31Lots of people really need it. We don't want to put its future at risk.
01:37The changes that we're making will secure it for the long term.