After weeks of speculation and mounting anxiety amongst disability groups, the government finally announced its plan to overhaul the welfare system, aiming to tackle what it calls an “unsustainable” and “spiralling health and disability benefits bill”.
The biggest cuts to disability benefits on record were unveiled in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper. The paper claims to open up employment opportunities for future generations with £1 billion worth of employment support measures to help disabled and long-term sick people return to work. It also says the overhaul will unlock economic growth by saving £5 billion by 2030.
Yet while campaigners welcome the investment in employment support, they say ripping £5 billion from the benefits system will completely undermine this positive step. They also fear the reforms will only widen existing inequalities for people with learning disabilities and autistic people and push more families into poverty.
The main elements include proposed changes to Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance.
From 2028, subject to parliamentary approval, people with learning disabilities and autistic people will no longer have a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to decide whether they are fit for work and qualify for Employment and Support Allowance or Universal Credit. Instead, there will be what the government calls a “right to try” work guarantee.
Any extra financial support for health conditions in Universal Credit will be solely based on whether that disabled person qualifies for PIP. In addition to the existing eligibility criteria, from November 2026, PIP will be targeted more at those with higher needs by requiring a minimum of four points on one daily living activity.
These activities range from preparing food and managing toilet needs to engaging with others face-to-face and making budgeting decisions.
People will, therefore, no longer qualify for support with a score that could describe less severe difficulties (ones and twos) across a broad range of tasks. This could mean that between 800,000 and 1.2 million people are set to lose entitlement to PIP (worth at least £4,000 a year by 2029-30) and any benefits that they (or others) receive that are linked to PIP eligibility.
There will be a consultation on whether those who lose entitlement will need any support and what this support could look like, such as transitional protection.
The mobility element of PIP will not be affected.
The government will also seek to reintroduce reassessments for people on incapacity benefits who are capable of working to ensure they have the right support and aren’t indefinitely written off. However, people with learning disabilities who will never be able to work and have lifelong conditions will not be subject to reassessments to ensure they can live with dignity and security.
It also says it will consult on delaying access to the health element of Universal Credit until someone is aged 22 and reinvesting savings into work support and training opportunities through the Youth Guarantee. This means that potentially disabled young people will be able to get Disability Living Allowance (DLA) until they are 18, but they won’t be eligible for the health element until they are 22.
Incapacity benefits under universal credit will be frozen in cash terms for existing claimants at £97 per week from April next year, and for new claimants, this amount will be reduced to £50 per week in 2026/2027.
The government is also proposing that people with the most severe, life-long conditions who receive additional disability-related support on Universal Credit will see their incomes protected through an additional premium.
The standard rate of universal credit for all those seeking work will also increase above inflation, adding up to £775 a year extra by 2029/30.
A record 2.8 million people are out of work due to long-term illness, and spending on disability and incapacity benefits for working-age people is up by £19 billion in real terms since 2019-2020.
The government says that since the pandemic, the number of working-age people receiving PIP has more than doubled from 15,300 to 35,100 a month. The number of young people (16-24) receiving PIP per month has also risen from 2,967 to 7,857 a month.
If no action is taken over the next five years, the number of working-age people claiming PIP is expected to increase from 2 million in 2021 to 4.3 million, costing £34.1 billion annually.
All this has driven the spiralling health and disability benefits bill, forecast to reach £70 billion a year by the end of the decade, or more than £1 billion a week. This is equivalent to more than a third of the NHS budget and more than three times as much as is spent on policing and keeping communities safe.
The government says that the reforms are based on five key principles:
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “We inherited a fundamentally broken welfare system from the previous government. It does not work for the people it is supposed to support, businesses who need workers or taxpayers who foot the bill.
“This government will always protect the most severely disabled people to live with dignity. But we’re not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people – especially young people – who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system. It would be morally bankrupt to let their life chances waste away.”
None of these changes will happen immediately, and some might not happen at all. As with all green papers, there will now be a consultation period. However, not all elements of the widespread reform are included.
Subject to parliamentary approval, primary legislation on the PIP and Universal Credit reforms will be introduced during this session of parliament, and implementation is suggested for 2026 and 2027.
The government also says that the Right to Work Guarantee will be delivered through separate primary legislation, which will be introduced in due course.
Consultation on other measures ends on June 30th, although no easy read versions are yet available, which could delay the process. In January, for example, the High Court found that a Conservative consultation on changes to the work capability assessment (WCA) was unlawful, meaning that the changes could not proceed.
The judge held that the Department for Work and Pensions had failed to adequately explain the proposals, failed to explain that the main purpose was to save money rather than to get claimants into work, and failed to provide sufficient time for the consultation.
Disability campaigners also say that the current green paper consultation questions are misleading, as they assume that participants accept that people should lose their PIP.
Scope has said that disabled people should not be blamed for the country’s economic issues. It added: “There are 16 million disabled people in the UK. Some of us are in work, others want to work but are denied the opportunity. Others may never be able to work. The government must listen to disabled people. They must work with us to reform the benefits system, rather than making it worse.
“Countless disabled people, charities, MPs, and experts are urging the government to think again. And we’re not backing down. The consultation is likely to receive an overwhelming response. We urge the government to listen to disabled people and think again.”
Anna Bird, CEO of Contact, said: “The cuts to disability benefits announced by the government today are worse than we feared. These significant changes will undoubtedly have a devastating impact on many of the families we support who are already experiencing poverty and struggling to pay for the basics – heating, housing, disability aids and therapies.
“The safety net for families with disabled young adults was already seriously strained and now feels like it has been ripped away.”
Mikey Erhardt, Policy Officer at Disability Rights UK, said: “The rise in claims is driven by the increase in the retirement age, record NHS waiting lists, inadequate education and mental health support for young Disabled people and a complete failure to tackle the disability employment and pay gaps. Yet the government has decided to create a rhetorical smokescreen around the depth of cuts it’s going to make.
“The government intends to bar young Disabled people from receiving the Universal Credit health component until they are 22. That is alongside their promise to significantly increase assessments at scale without making the assessment process safer for those going through the system right now. These measures mark dangerous cuts for all Disabled people. Furthermore, altering the PIP award criteria will make it harder for those who need support to qualify.
“Let’s be clear: there is nothing ambitious about cutting support from those who need it and that’s what today’s announcements were really about. Rising claims for personal independence payment reflect not a problem with Disabled people but rather reflect successive government’s failure to do even the bare minimum to create a more equitable society.”
Jon Sparkes OBE, Chief Executive of Mencap, said: “While it is welcome that the Government is trying to break down barriers to work and improve employment support, today’s unprecedented proposals to cut disability benefits risk pushing thousands of people with a learning disability into poverty.
“Nearly 200,000 people with a learning disability rely on PIP to support them with the unavoidable price of being disabled. These aren’t optional costs, and they won’t simply disappear because of cuts to PIP. This is coming at a time when anxieties are already high, bills are rising, and social care budget are stretched.”
Tim Nicholls, Assistant Director of Policy, Research and Strategy at the National Autistic Society, said: “Thousands of autistic people who rely on benefits to live their life will be really scared about what today’s announcement will mean for them; especially the proposed changes making it harder to get PIP.
“The current system doesn’t work for autistic people, who are misunderstood during the assessment process and already face long delays when trying to access benefits. Restricting eligibility will make PIP assessments even more difficult, pushing more autistic people into poverty. This is a shameful decision.
“What about the support for autistic people on unemployment benefits? With only three in 10 autistic people in work, the Government’s priority should be the removal of extensive barriers to employment, not the safety net that autistic people rely on to survive.
“We will work closely with the Government to make our views clear and will continue to do all we can to protect autistic people from these potentially devastating cuts.”
*Most of the measures apply to the whole of Great Britain. PIP applies to England and Wales only. However, if there is a cut in the budget for PIP, a proportionate figure will be cut from the amount the Treasury gives to the Scottish government.
