Labour claims it has set out the “biggest employment reforms in a generation” with an investment of £240m to help disabled people into work. This includes plans for intensive and personalised employment support, and a youth guarantee to ensure young people are working or earning.
However, experts have warned that cuts will undermine the government’s agenda by eroding trust in the system, worsening poverty and heaping pressure on public services.
Ahead of the announcement, disabled people told the Big Issue they were “terrified”. Many believed they would lose their benefits, and some have admitted feeling suicidal, as government ministers spoke of their mission to cut the disability benefits bill without details of how they planned to do so.
Asked about whether he had any regrets about recent government rhetoric, Timms responded: “All this started when the previous government announced the idea of swapping PIP for vouchers. That was what really made people anxious and worried.
“And I do regret that people have been caused anxiety, and I think that’s one reason why it’s a good thing we’ve been able to set out exactly what our plan is. The speculation in the press that has caused problems is over.”
The DWP has promised to protect those with the most severe disabilities from cuts and reassessment, but there remain significant concerns about Labour’s plans.
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The new rules for PIP will mean that people have to score more than four points in at least one of the daily living activities to be eligible for that component of the benefit. People who, for example, score three points in all elements will lose their daily living element of PIP.
Charity Z2K has found that people with “severe disabilities” it supports will lose more than £300 a month.
This includes Carlos, a 60-year-old who has had a stroke, is unable to move his right arm and has memory problems. It also includes Anatoli who had his left foot and the toes on his right foot amputated – his wife has to help him with dressing, using the toilet and bathing. And it includes Mohammed, who has psychosis and experiences hallucinations and delusional thinking. He is under the care of a social worker and a psychologist.
Asked how the DWP can justify taking money from these people, Timms said: “What we’ve done is ensured the sustainability of the system, while also ensuring that the support provided to the most severely impaired people is fully protected. Indeed, for many of them, there are some significant improvements that they will see in the new system.
“Now, if you don’t score four points in any of the 10 daily living activities for PIP, then yes, you will not have your PIP anymore, but for a lot of the people that you’ve just been referring to, I would be expecting them to be scoring four in more than one of the daily activities.”
Ayla Ozmen, director of policy and campaigns at Z2K, responded: “It’s concerning that the government does not appear to understand who will be affected by its planned changes to the PIP eligibility criteria. We are calling on the government to rethink these dangerous plans, which will see severely disabled people plunged deeper into poverty.”
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Timms urged people to “look at the detail of the plans”. He added that the government was spending £12bn on PIP five years ago, and is now spending £22bn.
“If we did nothing, in five years, it’d be over £30bn. That’s just not a sustainable path to be on. We are wanting to make sure this system can deliver for us in the long term, and these changes will allow us to do that,” Timms said.
However, experts have said that the cuts will likely fail to make the savings the DWP has set out. The Disability Policy Centre estimates that the NHS and social care systems will face an additional £1.2bn in costs, as poverty levels are likely to rise and people’s physical and mental health will worsen with the loss of financial support.
It estimates that there will be £0.4bn extra spent on administrative and tribunal costs – for context, the DWP is already wasting tens of millions every year fighting and mostly losing disability benefit appeals. And it will mean that disabled people have less money to spend, equating to a loss of an estimated £0.5bn for the UK economy.
Experts argue that there is little evidence that cuts alone push people into work. Meanwhile, disabled people still face significant barriers to employment.
Disabled applicants have historically made 60% more job applications than non-disabled people, according to research by charity Scope, but only around half of disabled applicants get an interview. This is compared to two thirds of non-disabled applicants.
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But Louise Murphy, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, warned that even if more disabled people are encouraged to look for employment, “living standards gains risk being completely eroded by the scale of income losses faced by those who will receive reduced or no support at all, irrespective of whether they’re able to work”.
Big Issue put to Timms that these cuts will likely increase poverty and put further pressure on public services, undermining the savings the government is hoping to make.
The DWP minister responded by highlighting the increase to the standard rate of universal credit, the “first ever permanent real-terms increase in the headline rate” which he said will be “extremely helpful to a very large number of low-income families round the country”.
“We will be coming forward later on this year with our child poverty strategy. So there’s a lot going on here, which is going to support people. And I think people can be encouraged by the prospects that we’re now opening up,” Timms added.
However, charities have said that the uplift of £7 a week to universal credit will not “meaningfully address the issue” of the “inadequacy of the basic rates of benefits”, which Timms himself highlighted when he spoke to the Big Issue ahead of the general election.
According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell, universal credit falls short by around £30 each week of the money people need to afford their essentials like food and heating. The charities argued that the government should implement an ‘essentials guarantee’ to ensure that universal credit is enough for people to afford the basics.
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Timms told the Big Issue previously: “I think that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell have done a very good job of this, looking at how much it takes to survive. It’s quite hard to look at the essentials guarantee and conclude they have been over-generous.”
While the DWP will increase the standard rate of universal credit, the health element of universal credit will be frozen for current claimants and cut by £47 per week for new claimants, from £97 per week to £50 per week in 2026/2027.
Disabled people are already at greater risk of poverty – they are three times more likely to face hunger, and three quarters of people who rely on food banks are disabled or live with someone who is disabled.
Murphy said: “The irony of this health and disability green paper is that the main beneficiaries and those without health problems or disability. And while it includes some sensible reforms, too many of the proposals have been driven by the need for short term savings to meet fiscal rules, rather than long-term reform. This result risks being a major income shock for millions of low-income households.”
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