Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. Like everyone else, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on securing the debate and on the way she introduced it. I pay tribute to her for her consistent focus on this very important topic for a long time. To everyone who has spoken, I say that it is absolutely right to be passionate about this topic.

The “Pathways to Work” Green Paper, published in March, set out to deliver three things with a properly thought-through plan—contrary to what the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) just said. First, we will provide proper, tailored employment support for people who are out of work on health and disability grounds, with the biggest reforms to support for a generation and a funding commitment rising to an additional £1 billion a year by the end of this Parliament.

Secondly, we will remove the disincentives to work that were left behind in the benefits system by the previous Government’s haphazard benefit freezes, which forced too many people to aspire to so-called limited capability for work and work-related activity status, when it should be supporting people to aspire to work and providing the support to enable them to achieve those aspirations. As has been mentioned, we have announced the first ever permanent real-terms increase in the universal credit standard allowance.

Thirdly—this is where we have focused in the debate—we will make the costs of PIP sustainable and address the unsustainable increases that have led to an almost doubling of the real-terms cost of the benefit, from £12 billion to £22 billion, since the year before the pandemic. Last year alone, it increased by £2.8 billion beyond inflation. I think everybody who has spoken would recognise that we simply cannot let that trend carry on.

I think I am right in saying that 30 years ago my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and I served together on the Treasury Committee. She knows as well as anybody the need for funding to be sustainable. It is not in the interests of those for whom PIP is a lifeline, in anything beyond the very short term, for the Government simply to allow the costs to rise as they have done over the last five years.

[Nadia Whittome]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I will give way just once, as that is all I can manage.

[Nadia Whittome]

Has the Minister seen the latest analysis from the New Economics Foundation, which estimates that fewer than 50% of disabled people are claiming these benefits, and that the acceptance rate has remained static? It is not actually the case that people are claiming who should not be claiming: people are claiming benefits to which they are entitled.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The people who are getting PIP are the people who meet the criteria. My point is that we cannot simply carry on increasing spending at the current rate. That has to be addressed.

I well understand the concerns among people who claim PIP, and I want to take the opportunity of this debate to address those concerns. We are talking to disabled people, disability charities and disabled people’s organisations. The Green Paper consultation will continue until the end of June, and a White Paper will follow later this year. But we need to act ahead of a White Paper. Claims to PIP are set to more than double this decade, from 2 million to more than 4.3 million. That increase is partly accounted for by a 17% increase in disability prevalence, as mentioned, but the increase in the benefit caseload is much higher. It would certainly not be in the interests of people currently claiming the benefits for the Government to bury their heads in the sand over that rate of increase.

Following the Green Paper, we are consulting on how best to support those affected by the eligibility changes. We are looking to improve the PIP assessment; as mentioned, I will lead a review of that. The current system produces poor employment outcomes, high economic inactivity, low living standards and high costs to the taxpayer. It needs to change. We want a more proactive, pro-work system that supports people better and supports the economy as well.

I will turn specifically to the changes to PIP eligibility. PIP is a crucial benefit that contributes to the extra living costs that arise from disability or a health impairment. The changes we have announced relate to PIP daily living; the PIP mobility component is not affected. We are clear that the daily living component of PIP should not be means-tested, taxed, frozen or anything else that has been suggested. We are committed to continue increasing it in line with inflation. For the majority of current claimants, and categorically for the most vulnerable, who have been highlighted in this debate, it will continue to provide, in full, the support that it currently provides. Employment support for those who are able and want to work will be substantially improved as well.

As has been referenced, we have published data that shows that just over half of those who claim PIP today scored four points in one daily living activity in the last PIP assessment. Understandably, as we have heard, almost half of those who currently claim the benefit will be concerned that they will not be eligible in future. However, we have also published the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment, which is that by 2029-30 only around 10% of those who currently claim the daily living component of PIP will lose it as a result of the changes. That is the assumption that has gone into the spending forecasts. We are projecting that spending on PIP will continue to increase in real terms every year, but not at the unsustainable rate of the last five years.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am afraid I cannot give way again.

The OBR is right on this. Its assessment is based on previous experience of changes of this kind. The behaviour both of the people claiming the benefits and of those who conduct the assessments changes. For example, I have met people who were awarded two points for one of the activities last time around, when I thought they were entitled to four, but it did not change their award, so it was not challenged and nobody minded. In future, someone in that position could well score four points on that activity and so retain the benefit, even though they did not score four points on any of the activities last time around.

Changes to the PIP assessment will not be immediate; they will take effect from November 2026.

[Imran Hussain]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I cannot give way again; a lot of points were made in the debate.

For a given individual, the changes will take effect only at their first award review after November 2026. Award reviews take place on average at three-year intervals, so for many PIP claimants the change will take effect only a year or two after November 2026. In line with existing practice, people who are above state pension age will not normally be reassessed and so will not be affected at all.

If and when people are reassessed, it will be by a trained assessor, and the assessment will be of their individual needs and circumstances. We are consulting on how best to support those who lose entitlement, including those who will lose carers’ allowance, who are explicitly flagged up in the Green Paper. We set out in the Green Paper our plans to improve trust in the way that both PIP and WCA assessments work, which many of us have heard worries about, through reviewing our approach to safeguarding; recording assessments as standard so that when something goes wrong with the assessment, we can look back at the recording, see what happened and improve the assessment for next time; and moving back to having more face-to-face assessments, while continuing to meet the needs of people who may require different methods of assessment.

I think I have time to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon).

[Anna Dixon]

I apologise for not getting here earlier; I have been listening to carers who have been sharing their stories. I spoke to a woman who is caring for her husband, who has a neurodegenerative disease and currently scores only two points across the board. Their family would be penalised under the tightening restrictions. Does the Minister agree that somebody with a neurological and degenerative disease should be counted as severely disabled and protected from the changes?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I would be happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the details of that particular case. I think the threshold we have set is the right place to set the eligibility criteria in the future. I am happy to discuss that point specifically. Our goal is a system that is financially sustainable in the long term so that it can be there for all of us who need it in the future.