Incapacity Benefit

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate her Department has made of the average cost of re-assessment of an existing incapacity benefit claimant as part of the programme to migrate the current incapacity benefit population onto the employment and support allowance by 2013; and how much her Department plans to spend on assessing the existing incapacity benefit population in (a) 2009-10, (b) 2010-11, (c) 2011-12 and (d) 2012-13. (288519)

The average cost of a medical assessment for an incapacity benefits claimant is commercially sensitive and can not be provided.

Planned expenditure on medical assessments for existing incapacity benefits customers is detailed in the following table.

*Medical assessment expenditure*
	£ million
2009-10	20
2010-11	45
2011-12	35
2012-13	35
Notes: 1, Figures include the planned expenditure on reassessing incapacity benefits claimants under the Personal Capability Assessment and the additional funding to reassess incapacity benefits customers under the Work Capability Assessment. 2. Figures are rounded to the nearest £5 million.

Volume 496: debated on Monday 20 July 2009