MH & Ors v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP)

Mobility descriptors 1d and 1f in the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013 are not confined to navigation. They include the ability to make one’s way along a route safely, including where supervision is needed for safety. Overwhelming psychological distress may prevent a claimant from following a route and may therefore satisfy those descriptors.

However, where descriptor 1e applies because the claimant cannot undertake any journey owing to overwhelming psychological distress, that same distress is not considered again under descriptor 1f. Anxiety must amount to overwhelming psychological distress; lesser anxiety is insufficient. Mobility activity 2 requires a physical inability to stand and move, though physical symptoms genuinely experienced as arising from a mental condition may qualify.

Three conjoined appeals concerned awards of the mobility component of personal independence payment. The claimants suffered mental-health conditions, principally anxiety, depression and agoraphobia. Their appeals raised the proper construction of mobility activity 1, especially descriptors 1b, 1d, 1e and 1f, and the relationship between activity 1 and activity 2.

One claimant contended that severe anxiety entitled him to points under descriptor 1f and activity 2. A second challenged a tribunal’s conclusion that anxiety could not affect the ability to follow an unfamiliar route. In the third appeal, the Secretary of State challenged an award under descriptor 1f. The central issue was whether, and in what circumstances, overwhelming psychological distress affected the ability to follow the route of a journey.

1. Disposition. Mr H’s appeal was dismissed. Ms C’s appeal was allowed and remitted to a differently constituted First-tier Tribunal. The Secretary of State’s appeal in Mrs D’s case was dismissed.

2. Descriptors 1d and 1f are not limited to a claimant’s ability to navigate. The natural meaning of following the route of a journey includes making one’s way along it safely. Thus, a claimant who needs supervision because they cannot safely walk along a pavement or cross a road alone may satisfy the descriptors. Commonplace disruptions, such as roadworks, also form part of following a route.

3. A claimant’s inability to seek directions after becoming lost is not itself part of following the original route. A difficulty in engaging with others, including an award under daily living activity 9, does not therefore necessarily affect entitlement under mobility activity 1.

4. Descriptors 1b, 1d and 1f may overlap. Prompting under descriptor 1b can be required before or during a journey. Overwhelming psychological distress may make an unaccompanied claimant unable to navigate or make progress and can satisfy descriptor 1d or 1f. The distress must meet the high statutory threshold; being anxious, worried or emotional is insufficient where the claimant can complete the journey unaccompanied.

5. Descriptor 1e and descriptor 1f must be read together. If descriptor 1e is satisfied because the claimant cannot undertake any journey owing to overwhelming psychological distress, that distress is disregarded when considering descriptor 1f. Otherwise descriptor 1e would be deprived of effect.

6. Mobility activity 2 ordinarily requires a physical inability to stand and move. A mental-health condition may qualify where it causes physical symptoms genuinely experienced as limiting movement. But symptoms arising only if the claimant undertakes a journey, where descriptor 1e already applies, cannot found a further award under activity 2.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): In [2016] UKUT 531 (AAC), the tribunal dismissed Mr H’s appeal, allowed Ms C’s appeal and remitted it to a differently constituted First-tier Tribunal, and dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal in Mrs D’s case.
• First-tier Tribunal: The Bexleyheath tribunal’s decision of 15 January 2015 in Mr H’s case was upheld. The Sheffield tribunal’s decision of 25 November 2014 in Ms C’s case was set aside for error of law. The Sheffield tribunal’s decision of 17 November 2015 in Mrs D’s case was upheld.