UK: Disability benefits (UC, ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2024 and 2025

Benefits & Work have done some work on this:

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/almost-nine-out-of-ten-standard-rate-pip-awards-fail-new-test

 

It’s the same FOI they’ve quoted

 

The Government is sending out surveys on how you spend your PIP. The Canary is urging people not to fill out any such survey, whether from Government or the There For ME survey

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/04/17/dwp-pip-survey/

 

I have shared this article and these comments with the project group as I helped create the survey

Calling people taking action useful idiots is deeply unsupportive and has probably undermined what we are trying to do to help the community push back against these cuts, as people probably won't fill in our survey now and we are using ita the basis of a briefing to meet with Jo Platt, chair of the ME & LC APPGs and Stephen Timms.

 

Thank you

If you are being forced to spend pip on food then clearly universal credit is insufficient to cover your basic needs?

Agree..I have specific health related dietary additional costs

The output will hopefully provide trends to be able to demonstrate to the minister how utterly and completely unfeasible it is to remove benefits.

 

Yes, I don't know why Steve Topple has lumped your survey in with the DWP one as problematic @JellyBabyKid.

A btl poster on Benefits and Work is a constituent of Jo Platt and had contacted her about the benefits cuts. That poster said J P was very supportive of the cuts and it had been a waste of time contacting her.

 

I don't mean you shouldn't be meeting her and Stephen Timms. It's great that you are. Just a heads up on J P's position. It's another blow that the head of our APPG has this attitude.

Thank you for the work you are doing.

 

Thank you..I appreciate that

This experience is exactly why people do not want to get involved in advocacy though, as there is always somebody waiting to tell you how whatever you are doing is wrong.

It is extremely disheartenening

No good deed ever goes unpunished

 

Only by some, though. Just because they have loud voices doesn't make them right!

 

Oh I didn’t realise that was the survey you posted!

I don’t necessarily agree that completing a survey gives ammo for nefarious purposes. Let’s face it, if nefarious intentions are at work, they will work in any case and the results of surveys (including “no results”) can be spun in any way.

I am really worried about austerity 2.0 being enacted.

ETA I do in fact spend all of my PIP on medicines, medical devices, psychotherapy, home help and additional water and electricity costs.

 

Is this a public thread or members only?

it might be useful to delve more into why they are doing this and what they are collecting

obviously working out how it will be used and what might be going on in their heads . Or is it just collecting it in case it’s useful to them?

it seems strange to collect private info without detailed assurances of precisely why and how it will be used to explain each piece asked for in the form it is in.

For a start because people need to often know to understand how to answer

but also because it seems there is often a lot of information already known on certain things

it’s always that understanding of the contextual stuff eg how even something simple like a bad leg actually translates across a whole life (because if the world making it harder than need be, there only being so much an aid can do and it still means each task takes more planning energy and faff) .

So imagine once you get into ‘compound’ issues like having a bad leg and eg an illness limiting energy or also a bad arm or voice issues. Which I’m guessing is what most in reality actually have. I’m intrigued if the survey / those behind it even understands this

I’m not filled with confidence seeing some of the verbatim quotes from politicians about disabled people that flag a concerning not getting it attitude already and seem to keep happening and I wonder if the contents of this sheds more in that too?

 

I have to say I am getting worried because I can see a line of argument to justify cuts. First it was “giving a voucher to pay for your aid/appliance” now it’s “how do you spend the PIP cash?” Both have the same underlying Current - prove you spend PIP on specific items related to your disability. And if you can’t prove you spend £x on x, you’re not in need of that money.

And then lots of “cost cutting substitutions” like, you don’t need to pay for psychotherapy, you can get it on the NHS, so you don’t need that money. You don’t need a carer to shop for you because you can get everything online and delivered, so you don’t need that money. You don’t need to pay extra for electric because we brought back the winter fuel payment so you don’t need that money….

 

I have the same concern about being asked to account for it.

I couldn't easily say what I spend mine on anyway because it changes so much. Some of it's for things like the products I need for eczema or the higher costs I pay for food, some of it's to make up the fact that I'm on a low income, and some of it's for mobility. My whole mobility allowance is eaten up by the cost of leasing an accessible van, but I still need to buy and service powerchairs; I don't spend money on them every month, but whenever I do it's a substantial sum. I have to keep savings for it.

One of my worries is that a proportion of disability benefits may go on making up housing benefit shortfalls and paying to heat damp or poorly insulated homes, because people's basic incomes are far too low. Those costs aren't optional, so if ESA/UC doesn't cover them, PIP is the only choice. If there isn't much left to spend on disability-related costs, that could be twisted into another argument that people don't need as much money for them.

 

Thank you, if I get one I will pretend it must have gotten lost in the mail.

 

This is the thing isn’t it. It doesn’t sound unreasonable to say that the money you get to cover the extra cost of your disability, should be spent on your disability.
But we know the reality is that UC isn’t enough to live on, low paid part time work and UC isn’t enough to manage on, Councils and the NHS don’t/won’t pay for help they should.

And to circle back to surveys - it doesn’t matter what people write, this weird accountability (with a bonus of cost cutting) has obviously been thought about years ago and will be enacted upon us anyways.

Next thing you know, UC will be replaced with Food Stamps.

 

MOST AT RISK PIP HEALTH CONDITIONS REVEALED

A Freedom of Information request by Benefits and Work has revealed the conditions most likely to be hit by the PIP cuts

The figures, show that they are overwhelmingly aimed at older, but still working age, claimants with physical health conditions, many of whom will have been employed for most of their adult life and some of whom will still be employed.

Almost half (46%) of all working age PIP claimants are at risk of losing their PIP award on review from November 2026, because they do not score 4 points or higher for any activity.

The percentage of claimants under threat includes:

• Back pain 79%
• Arthritis 77%
• Other Regional Musculoskeletal Diseases 71%
• Chronic pain syndromes 68%
• Cardiovascular diseases 62%
• Respiratory diseases 55%
• Anxiety and depression 48%
• Multiple sclerosis and neuropathic diseases 48%

Further figures at:
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/n... Work&utm_content=V2 23 April 2025 Newsletter

 

Interesting to see Conversion Disorder (hysteria) listed as one of the illnesses in “other”

 

Important analysis/fact correcting.

The PR being put around about the 'reason for cuts' for example seems to have talked a lot about young people with mental health or ASD/ADHD and be claiming somehow it is about saving them from a life of not getting into work. And then when questioned by a few eg presenters using the old exceptionality clause (of course they will make sure x won't be caught up in it) of it not affecting whatever their own interpretation of 'the severely disabled/ill' is.

Even though this is about cuts and not support and the two never needed to be linked. And putting aside the issues on those cited conditions as to whether what is inferred is even accurate - as PIP was about support for those working, particularly at that level?

I sensed that this isn't what the actual cuts were in practical terms actually doing.

Those who are disabled, but also bystanders who might just happily parrot the (what turns out to be inaccurate) 'facts' on who it will affected, need to at least be informed. And then they can take responsibility for whether they support or don't support at least based on eyes-wide open being honest with themselves about who is having what done to them

 

Thank you for flagging this information.

You are right the more I think of this the more it could present a catch 22 if the person who would advocate for ME/CFS and the specifics of how pwme would be specifically impacted/what to watch out for (and might need to learn details on that to understand the different levels and situations) is supportive of the cuts. Do we have any idea to what extent?

And yes if the meeting is also the minister behind the policy (ie this isn't a pre-meeting) there is that same question again, of what is/isn't safe to hand over as information etc?

Do you or does anyone else know or have thoughts on what would be useful to say vs what eg information might be used or twisted and people should be cautious of - do we know what any other organisations or advocates for other conditions are doing with regards this?

other than if they have sought it in their own survey we don't know whether that is fishing or even has any clues of what they are looking for and for what purpose.