This week I met with the disability charity Scope to support their campaign to give disabled people the right to request an appropriate assessor when applying for disability benefits.

My inbox is always full of people who have been given a wrong decision by an inappropriate assessor and then face having to go through a stressful appeals process.

In England, Scotland and Wales, seven in ten tribunal appeals about benefits have been successful since 2018. Over the same period, some 500 people died before their initial challenge was decided. A further 421 tribunal cases were halted because the appellant died.

Time and again assessors are getting benefits decisions wrong, taking vital support away from disabled people and their families and creating enormous amounts of stress and anxiety while pushing many into poverty.

Less than half (48%) of people who had an assessment were given Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

Three quarters (72%) of people who go to tribunal over their PIP decisions are given benefits.

Two thirds (66%) of Work Capability Assessment decisions were overturned on appeal.

Between 2017 and 2019 the Government spent more than £120 million fighting benefits appeals.

The benefits system should be working FOR disabled people. Not against them.