Universal Credit: Disability

(asked on 30th March 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of Universal Credit assessments for people with (a) autism and (b) other non-visible disabilities.


Answered by
Tom Pursglove Portrait
Tom Pursglove
Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This question was answered on 19th April 2023

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) determines entitlement to the additional health-related amount of Universal Credit (UC), as well as Employment and Support Allowance. It assesses the impact of an individual’s health condition or disability, not the condition itself. The assessment criteria cover the full range of conditions: physical, mental, cognitive and/or behavioural.

We are committed to supporting people, including those who have autism and other non-visible disabilities, through the assessment process. Healthcare professionals conducting the WCA receive training on autism, as well as other non-visible disabilities.

In Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, published on 15 March 2023, we announced that we will legislate to remove the WCA and introduce a new UC health element linked to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), so that in future there is only one health and disability assessment – the PIP assessment. This will mean that there will be no need to be found to have limited capability for work and limited capability for work-related activity to get additional income-related support for a disability or health condition. Removing the WCA will reduce the number of assessments people need to take to access their benefits and enable us to provide more personalised levels of support in a new system.

The degree of change in our proposals will require primary legislation which we will aim to take early in a new parliament, when parliamentary time allows. These reforms will then be rolled out to new claims only on a staged, geographical basis, from 2026/27. We expect the new claims roll out to be completed by 2029, when we will then move the existing caseload onto the new system.

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