Claimants and campaigners may want to start giving thought to how they will challenge any last minute tweaks Labour seek to introduce to the Green Paper proposals in the hope of winning over back bench MPs,
Two potential changes are currently being floated in the press.
One suggestion is to allow claimants who score 12 daily living points without getting 4 points or more for any activity to still get PIP.
This might mean that to get the standard rate of PIP you would have to either score 8 points, including one four point or higher descriptor, or 12 points made up of six two point descriptors.
Alternatively, while claimants who score ten points for five two point descriptors would get nothing, claimants who score 12 points for six two point descriptors would leapfrog the standard rate and get awarded the enhanced rate.
Either way, the changes would only be likely to affect the 210,000 claimants who currently get the enhanced rate of PIP daily living without scoring four points for any activity. It would be of no help for over one million claimants who currently get the standard rate without any 4 point or higher descriptors.
The second suggestion is to allow six months of transitional payments to claimants who lose their PIP daily living component. This time would supposedly allow the claimant time to claim other benefits – though what these might be is not specified. Alternatively it would allow claimants time to secure paid employment to make up for the loss of PIP.
There may be little time to challenge these suggestions if they are announced only as the reform bill is published, which is expected to be in June. So it may be worth claimants considering now what they would write to their MPs about these tweaks if they do indeed materialise.
