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The Tories' welfare chief has brazenly claimed the number of disability benefit appeals is "extremely low" - on the day they reached a record high.

Damian Green told MPs to "go away and look at the facts" amid fury over tomorrow's changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

But he ignored his own department's statistics - released today - that show November, December and January had the highest rates on record.

In those three months alone, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) closed 102,000 internal appeals of people who were denied PIP, and reversed 18% of them.

In each month more than 31,000 of these "mandatory reconsiderations" were closed - a monthly total never reached before.

Since PIP launched in 2013 there have been more than 550,000 "reconsiderations", of which 93,500 (18%) restored people's benefits.

Another 67,000 PIP claimants since 2013 have won their case at a full appeal tribunal - 62% of those who took that step and 3% of all PIP claimants in the country.

Both sets of statistics had a record high in the last three months. For tribunals, that period ran from October to December.

The Work and Pensions Secretary made his remarks as MPs debated the "nasty" choice to stop people with mental illness getting £3.7bn more in PIP.

Laws coming into force tomorrow will block a tribunal that said people with "psychological distress" when they go outside should be paid more.

Prime Minister Theresa May had claimed "no one is going to see a reduction in their benefits."

But that claim was disputed by the government's own watchdog .

And for the first time, Mr Green today admitted "there may be a handful of people" who were already receiving higher rates that will now drop.

Yet he claimed that was justified - because the DWP won't "claw back" what they've already been paid, just cut payments in future.

Tory MP Heidi Allen added: "The court ruling has highlighted there are still flaws in the PIP process and more can be done for mental health claimants.

"Rather than legislating to ignore this ruling shouldn’t we use it as a catalyst to look at the whole PIP process from the beginning?"

SNP MP Corri Wilson said: "They cannot keep shifting the goalposts every time you lose a battle at court. If a person needs help, he or she needs help.

"The UK government needs to be consistent and stop mucking people about."

Labour MP Ian C Lucas revealed one constituent e-mailed him an hour before the Commons debate saying they considered suicide.

He said: “This system is broken. It needs to be completely revisited and completely reconstructed. You can’t mend it.”

Labour MP Mary Glindon warned 900 mobility vehicles a week are removed from PIP claimants - only to be returned on appeal.

And Labour MP Angela Eagle said people had been "coming to my advice surgeries in tears."

Yet Tory minister Mr Green claimed some appeals were because people "simply disagree with the decision".

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

He said: "The appeal rate against PIP is extremely low. So actually the facts again do not suggest those kinds of problems."

Later he stumbled as he told MPs: "3% of all claims are, er, er, a lot of cases and clearly we, as I said, um, er, on various, er, times, er, during this session, um, I am always looking to improve the situation and make sure that assessments are more consistent and better.

"But I think having only 3% of them overturned does not give rise to the picture painted by many on the opposition benches that this system is in some way broken."

Appeals against PIP assessments - for which outsourcing giants Atos and Capita have been paid more than £500million - are soaring as it replaces the old Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

Some 21% of DLA claimants retested for PIP are rejected and another 23% end up worse off. More than a third of mandatory reconsiderations involve people moving from DLA.

Work and Pensions Committee chief Frank Field warned people with mental health issues are "finding it difficult to qualify”.

But Mr Green said it was "simply wrong" to claim people with mental health issues were "being treated unfairly".

He told MPs: "It would put millions of people in a state of unnecessary distress if they thought that PIP was not fair to people with mental health conditions.

"The truth is PIP is much better as a benefit for people with mental health conditions than predecessor benefit DLA."