What do we know about the planned Spring Statement cuts so far
- The Government has not published the equality impact assessment for the Green Paper proposals. These are expected to be available after the Chancellor has given the Spring Statement. Until then we can only speculate how many hundreds of thousands of Disabled people will be affected and how badly.
- It is estimated that through the Government’s proposed Personal Independence (PIP) cuts, between 800,000 and 1.2 million Disabled people will lose between £4200 and £6300 a year by 2029 to 2030 (Resolution Foundation, 2025).
- Claimants and their families who lose eligibility for PIP will also lose eligibility for Carer’s Allowance and other passported entitlements.
- According to the proposals, from 2028-29, getting PIP will be the factor that determines whether you get the health element of UC – meaning there will be no support specifically for Disabled people unable to work. Those who would otherwise qualify for the health element of UC – but not PIP (currently 600,000 people) – will therefore not get the element and be worse off by £2,400 per year (today’s prices; assuming they are new claimants who would otherwise have got the reduced health element
- If the cuts to PIP are taken together with the Government’s proposals to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and replace current out of work disability benefits with a new “health” component of Universal Credit with eligibility tied to PIP, some claimants risk losing £9600 per year.
- The current PIP fraud figures are 0% according to the DWP’s Fraud and Error in the Benefits System Annual Report of 2024, so the government’s crackdown on benefit fraud and its impact is inconsistent with the figures and very low rates of PIP fraud.
- According to the Purple Pound, whose report into the true cost in accessing retail services for Disabled people, in 2024, UK retail sales reached £517 billion, £274 billion of this was spent by Disabled people and their families, so over 50% of the total retail sales in the UK.
DISABILITY AND SOCIAL SECURITY – THE REAL PICTURE
Welfare spending is not out of control
- It is lower than a decade ago and not set to rise within the next five years: Government claims of ‘spiralling’ spending on benefits are false and ‘ideological’, official figures show – Disability News Service
- What is true is that disability benefits as a share of overall welfare spending has risen. This is due to many factors, one being the increase in State pension age, but also NHS and mental health support waiting lists, the effects of Long Covid, and escalating mental distress among young people: see research by academic Ben Geiger These are all very real issues which we need the government to address.
- Nearly £23 billion worth of social security and social tariffs currently goes unclaimed due to lack of awareness, stigma and the complexity of the UK social security system. See Missing out 2024: £23 billion of support is unclaimed each year | Policy in Practice. Unclaimed social security includes universal credit, pension credit, child benefit, carers allowance and housing benefit for pensioners. Social tariffs include council tax support (a rebate, not a payment/benefit), free school meals, free TV licence and various energy/broadband support schemes.
- In the Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024, The DWP estimates that 4% (£870 million) went underclaimed for PIP and 11% (£750 million) for DLA: Unfulfilled eligibility in the benefit system Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024 – GOV.UK.
Actual benefit fraud requires a court of law to establish that a claimant knowingly or dishonestly claimed benefit. Only 820 people were convicted on this basis in 2023. The DWP statistical definition of fraud is much less rigorous – it is an assessment by the DWP of those who were not entitled to benefit but could ‘reasonably be expected to know.’ DWP estimate that rates for this type of overpayment were 2.8% (£7.4 bn) in 2024. Rates of overpayment for claimant error were put at 0.6% (£1.6bn) and DWP official error at 0.3% (£0.8bn). See Fraud and error in the benefit system, Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024 – GOV.UK.
Tests for eligibility for disability benefits are not too easy
- Deaf and Disabled people who need disability benefits are too often found ineligible by assessments that are arduous, harrowing, frequently inadequate and result in arbitrary decisions. These are the same assessments that Labour criticised when in opposition and which were the subject of a number of highly critical Work and Pensions Committee reports: Health assessments for benefits – Committees – UK Parliament
- The rate of assessment decisions over-turned at appeal is at an all-time high. Currently around two-thirds of PIP appeals are overturned in favour of the claimant compared to around half of universal credit and ESA appeals: Tribunals statistics quarterly: October to December 2024 – GOV.UK.However, many give up either before or after Mandatory Reconsideration stage because they cannot face the battle and due to lack of welfare advice and support to challenge unfair decisions.
- Recent research demonstrates that people claiming benefits for reasons of mental health are living with high levels of mental distress: Mental distress among people receiving benefits: new evidence. This is in contrast to deliberate misrepresentations contained within political rhetoric and media reporting of people supposedly found eligible for benefits who have low levels of anxiety or depression.
- This picture is further supported by OBR’s calculations that of the 163,000 benefit claimants with mental distress impacted by the proposals to change the WCA, only 3% would be able to find and undertake paid work.
- Recent media headlines about 200,000 claimants found unfit for work who are ready and willing to work now were deeply misleading. The survey question to which these claimants responded was whether they could work now with the “right job” and the “right support”. There was no follow up question about the likely availability of either. The 200,000 figure was extrapolated from a much smaller claimant sample. People who have learning disabilities and/or are autistic were twice as likely to respond yes to this question. 49% of respondents felt they would never be able to work or work again. 62% of these customers were over the age of 50, and 66% felt their health was likely to get worse in the future: Work aspirations and support needs of health and disability customers: Interim findings – Department for Work and Pensions
Disability benefits do not act as a disincentive to work
- Disability benefits keep Deaf and Disabled people out of absolute poverty.
- In 2022/23, 16 million people in the UK living in families in poverty. Of these there were 8.7 million people in poverty who are Disabled themselves, or who live with a Disabled person, up from 6.9 million in 2019/20. 33% of people living in the lowest income decile are Disabled compared to just 9% in the top.
- Even if you receive both out of work disability benefits and the higher rates of both the mobility and care components of PIP – currently on 2024/25 £783.16 pm ESA support group and £1400.50 pm UC LCWRA)- this is just 33% or 60% respectively % of the Minimum Income Standard (£28k pa) for a single adult.
- The rate that Universal Credit standard allowance is paid at is deliberately set to be too low to survive on for anything but a very short, temporary amount of time. For those unable to earn a living through paid work, an out of work disability benefit component is essential in addition to the standard allowance.
- Personal Independence Payment is a non-means tested extra costs benefit intended to contribute to the additional unavoidable expenditure that Deaf and Disabled people face. Scope estimates that Disabled people face on average extra costs of £1067 per month compared to non-Disabled people: Disability Price Tag 2024 | Disability charity Scope UK
- Claimants in receipt of out of work disability benefits have the highest levels of support need. These include people with terminal illness and neurodegenerative conditions and people with profound and complex needs. Many claimants in this category spend a considerable amount of time in too much pain or distress or fatigue to function. Time during the week is taken up with medical and therapeutic appointments, accessing drugs and treatment and with assessments and monitoring linked to the services and support we rely on.
- Many PIP claimants will not be able to continue in work if they lose access to this benefit. This is because engaging in paid work places extra demands on us that can exacerbate our conditions which in turn increases our unavoidable disability related expenditure. It also gives us less time on top of managing our impairments and illnesses to be able to function in other necessary areas of our lives such as domestic tasks. The OBR states that one sixth of PIP claimants are in work: Trends in working-age disability benefit onflows – Office for Budget Responsibility
- The rise in PIP claimants can be explained by the cost of living crisis. Research obtained through a Freedom Of Information request by Disability News Service found that the majority of new applicants need the benefit in order to pay for essentials: Research that ministers sat on for three years shows no evidence to support call for PIP cuts – Disability News Service
- Cutting disability benefits will push more households into poverty. Reports we are hearing say the cuts to be announced will impact a million Disabled people. The charities fear that 700,000 additional households containing a Disabled person will be pushed into poverty as a result of these cuts.
- Disability-related poverty had increased dramatically even before the cost of living crisis:
- 54% of all poverty in the country is now disability related.
- The proportion of people in families with at least one Disabled child and one Disabled adult who were living in poverty rose by 7% from 2019–21 up to 46% in 2021-22. This is compared to a consistent figure of 17% for individuals in families with no Disabled members across these two years. [LINK]
- Poverty moves people further from employment. In 2021–22, the poverty rate for individuals in a household in receipt of a disability benefit was 20%: Benefit levels in the UK – Work and Pensions Committee.
Cuts to disability benefits will cost the economy more in the long-term
- Poverty costs money. In 2016 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that poverty costs the economy £78 billion per year and that £1 in every £5 spent on public services went towards mitigating the harms caused by poverty: Counting the cost of UK poverty | Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Cuts will cause substantial additional pressures on the NHS, mental health services, and social care services and will lead to an increase in survival crime. They are entirely inconsistent with the government’s pledge to reduce shoplifting! Disabled people impacted by cuts may be forced to find paid work in unsuitable jobs such as sex work.
- Disability benefit cuts will also push up child poverty rates. 870,000 children live in families who receive PIP with 290,000 of these children already in poverty: Cuts to disability benefits would undermine government plans to tackle child poverty, warns charity – Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
What we need from government
- Research and improved data collection to build an evidence-base for the amount needed to support Deaf and Disabled people to have a decent standard of living.
- Investment in public services to improve health and well-being, bringing Deaf and Disabled people closer to employment.
- Investment instead of the planned cuts to Access to Work to fix the problems and reduce the backlog. As of the end of 2024 there were a reported 55,500 unresolved cases: Written questions and answers – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament
- Work with employers to increase the availability of suitable jobs with decent pay and working conditions and with ultimate flexibility for employees with unpredictable and fluctuating conditions.
- Work with DDPOs to identify bureaucratic issues with the social security system and engagement with DWP that push claimants further from employment.