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

I did it on behalf of a friend who is severely ill.

It asks whether you get PIP, and whether you think you were given that award on the basis of having ME/CFS. (I guess she's thinking that some folk with ME/CFS may only have qualified for an award because they have another disabling condition as well.)

Bearing in mind that I did this hours ago and my memory's shocking, I think the specific questions were:

• Do you have severe ME/CFS? Yes/No
  
  
• Do you get PIP? Yes/No
  
  
• Were you awarded PIP for ME/CFS? Yes/No

It doesn't ask what level of award you receive, or whether it's for mobility, daily living, or both.

The reasoning behind it seems to be that a person with severe ME/CFS is by definition disabled enough to qualify for PIP. She wants to know how many of them aren't getting it.

 

By 'PIP DLA' I think she means the daily living component of PIP. If you look at the part in white that shows the letter to her from the DWP, it refers to a daily living award, which is the non-mobility part of PIP.

 

Either that, or she meant to type "PIP/DLA" and missed the forward slash key.

That's how I read it, anyways. People under 18 and those who reached state retirement age before the introduction of PIP are still on DLA.

 

I appreciate some people are still on DLA - I am one of those people, but the letter and the questionnaire only mention PIP, which is why I assumed it referred to the PIP daily living award/component.

 

Here are the documents she got from the FOI.



Here is the link to the tweet. Maybe that gives more context.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1924020610117542094


Hope this helps.

 

She would like to ask first whether people who are severe are getting PIP, before she acts. Still makes no sense to me.

 

I feel like there should be some caution around “all the pwME who aren’t even claiming” as well. The way things are in the public discourse just now, it will add credence to the “they’re not really ill, then, if they’re not even claiming and are managing without”.

Everyone wants stats on pwME, guess what - there aren’t any. We don’t exist.

 

The responses on the tweet said that some people were not awarded PIP. Some other people said that they were warned that the chances of getting PIP were low, and so they did not apply.

 

Not just for me/cfs, but I know a lot of people with disabilities who have discouraged and never applied just based on hearing how hard it was.

 

Just wrote to my MP to object to the PIP reforms. I have had severe ME for 25 years. No other benefits just a tiny occupational pension. Mostly bedridden.
I checked my PIP award letter. I will be one of those who will lose their PIP as I did not score 4 or more in any category.
I asked my MP if he thought that it was acceptable to take PIP away from people who are bedridden and can't work to replace the lost income.
He won't reply. He never does.
I pointed out that if only about 30,000 people are claiming PIP for ME, and there are allegedly about 400,000 of us, the the government is actually getting off pretty lightly at the moment.
I would urge everyone with ME to claim a PIP. Claim what you are entitled to. Grind the system to a halt with applications.

 

Shame on your MP. At least he/she could have responded.

 

Our £5bn disability benefits cut will stop welfare state collapsing, says Kendall
Exclusive: Work and pensions secretary to double down on changes despite growing pressure within Labour

https://www.theguardian.com/society...wp-double-down-labour-disability-benefit-cuts

Analysis by the Disability Poverty Campaign Group, circulated among Labour MPs, pointed to more than 200 of them whose majority is smaller than the number of Pip claimants in their constituency.

However, labour market experts have warned that any increase in employment as a result of the additional support is likely to be dwarfed by the impact of the cuts

 

https://www.icontact-archive.com/ar...4b7e81a15d03a3040ca2700682dadb514b7c01a8d57f0

DWP BURIED DAMNING REPORTS

The DWP very quietly published a series of damning disability benefits related reports at 4pm on Friday 2 May, on the eve of a bank holiday.

The reports show, amongst other things that:

additional work coach support makes almost no difference to disabled claimants’ employment prospects, in spite of being one of the main tools for getting people into work set out in the Pathways To Work Green Paper;

Employment and Health Discussions also make almost no difference to disabled claimants, in spite of being another of the pillars of the Pathways To Work Green Paper employment drive;

few claimants find out about PIP from the media or social media, undermining the claim that “sickfluencers” are at the heart of a rise in PIP claims.

When he became disability minister, Stephen Timms claimed that he would create a new era of transparency at the DWP, as part of an effort to restore trust in the organisation.

Yet his department deliberately buried reports that cast enormous doubt on the two main tools to be used to move claimants, who have had their benefits cut or stopped, into work.

WORK ON COMBINED PIP ASSESSMENT HAS BEGUN

In a desperate effort to distract attention from the growing anger over the proposed PIP cuts, Liz Kendall announced that work has begun on designing a new assessment which will combine the doomed work capability assessment (WCA), due to be abolished in 2028, with the PIP assessment.

The change means that from some time in 2028 eligibility for the additional UC health element will be based on receiving any rate of the daily living component of PIP, rather than passing the WCA.

Many Labour MPs may be wondering about the electoral wisdom of launching yet another attack on both PIP and UC claimants, possibly only months before the general election in 2029.

TWO PIP ACTIVITIES PROVIDE MOST PIP 4-POINT SCORES

Two PIP daily living activities are responsible for the majority of 4 point or higher scores, according to figures released by the DWP.

38% of claimants score 4 points or higher for activity 1, preparing food.

32% score 4 points or higher for activity 9, engaging with other people face-to-face.

The next highest is activity 7, communicating verbally, where 14% of claimants score 4 points or higher.

7% of claimants get 4 points for managing toilet needs and dressing and undressing, whilst 6% get 4 points for washing and bathing

Just 1% of claimants get 4 points for managing therapy.

It is hard to see, based on these limited options for higher scores, how the Office for Budget Responsibility’s prediction that only 10% of claimants will lose their daily living award as a result of Labour’s plans will be fulfilled.

42 LABOUR MPS SAY GREEN PAPER CUTS "IMPOSSIBLE TO SUPPORT"

42 Labour MPs have written to prime minister Keir Starmer to warn him that the Green paper cuts are “impossible to support” and calling for any vote to be delayed until the Autumn, when all the impact assessments relating to the cuts have been published.

The letter has been signed by veteran MPs and new intake MPs from all wings of the party.

 

From the tweet it looks as if she wants to know how many severely ill people don't get PIP.

That is a useful question, and one we don't have an answer to.

By limiting it to severely ill people, she's identifying a group that is by definition disabled enough to qualify—yet she's getting the impression few of them receive it.

If she gets responses from 100 severely affected people and only 43 have managed to get PIP, she can legitimately ask why.

The one thing I don't know is whether there are further questions if you answer the survey by saying Yes to 'Are you severely affected?' and No to 'Do you receive PIP?'. In that case, it would obviously be useful if there was a further one asking 'Have you applied and been turned down?'.

I answered on behalf of a friend who does receive it, so the survey ended when I ticked Yes/Yes.

 

As I didn't qualify for the survey, as I am borderline severe, I emailed yesterday, as she included an email address in later tweet in the thread in response to someone else, and I have copied in my MP.

Worth shouting from every rooftop? My GP got it both barrels last week.

 

They seem to have been in denial for decades about the crisis in public health, which has been nicely helped along by a disproportionate number of older people in the population (which we've known was coming down the line for 40+ years), but also by factors that only national governments can address.

Distortions in the consumer market, where unhealthy food that makes people prone to weight gain is much cheaper than healthy food. The removal of good employment practices, so vast numbers are in poorly paid and insecure work, and even those in decently paid jobs are often in rigid systems where they have little or no autonomy. The war zone of the housing market, so the people who have real security are disproportionately older ones who're less likely to be working and those who need so much support they may not be able to work.

It all takes a heavy toll on the mental and physical wellbeing of people who started out perfectly healthy.

 

Yes, it’s as if we aren’t actually able to work, isn’t it?

 

I was listening to the news today and it was a brown haired woman from Labour speaking. She seemed to be implying the benefits make people unable to work and now those people would be saved with the changes. I was really mind boggled by that idea.

I would LOVE to return to the type of job I had (I am currently unable to work)... but removing my PIP and informing me I can work sure doesn't change my health in a positive way.

 

They've got figures showing that a lot of people who claim sickness benefits for six months or less return to work, but people who claim for longer than a year are less likely to ever work again, and yes, they're spinning this as meaning that long-term support makes you sick.

The analogy would be that some house fires burn themselves out without causing massive damage, but fires which completely destroy buildings are more likely to be attended by the Fire Brigade, therefore if we abolish the Fire Brigade it will prevent houses from burning down.