Welfare Payments and Needs

What steps she is taking to ensure that the welfare payments that people receive meet the needs of the recipient.

By law, benefit levels must be reviewed annually to determine if they are at the appropriate level. The most recent review resulted in the uprating of 1.7%. On disability benefits specifically, spending this year has increased by almost 5% from £19 billion to £20 billion.

Recently, I was pleased to meet my constituent Tony Davies who sadly lives with motor neurone disease. On behalf of Tony and the MND Association community, will the Minister kindly announce when he is likely to publish the outcome of the review of access to benefits for the terminally ill?

We have been clear, following our comprehensive review, that there will be three themes: we will change the six-month rule, we will improve consistency and we will raise awareness of the support available. Only last week, I met the MND Association and the Minister for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care as we work at great speed to bring forward those much-needed changes.