Planned and ongoing changes to disability security changes – UK DDPO CRDP Monitoring Coalition
Before the 2024 General Election, the Conservative government announced plans to enact an unprecedented shake up of social security for Deaf and Disabled people.
Under these plans, hundreds of thousands of claimants would become ineligible for out of work disability benefits, forcing them into poverty.
The new Labour government is carrying on with these changes despite wide opposition from Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs), charities, the welfare advice sector and trade unions.
The proposed changes have been justified by rhetoric and misrepresentations demonising disability benefit claimants, exaggerating the generosity of the social security system and denying both the existence of disability and the scale of barriers to employment that Deaf and Disabled people face.
Disabled people – in particular those living with mental distress – are being blamed for labour shortages that are not our fault!
A recent report from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Disabled People found that:
“There is a pervasive framework and rhetoric that devalues disabled people and undermines their human dignity. Reforms within social welfare benefits are premised on a notion that disabled people are undeserving and wilfully avoiding employment (“skiving off”) and defrauding the system.”
Deaf and Disabled people and our organisations are deeply concerned at what little awareness there seems to be regarding the changes to disability social security, the serious adverse impacts they will have and the fact that many of them are already in process.
This briefing summarises what we know about the proposed changes. We expect greater clarity to be provided in the 2024 Autumn Budget which Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce on 30 October.
The media has reported that this will include cuts of £3bn from the welfare budget. For those on disability benefits already living in constant fear of having essential income removed and struggling to cover costs this is a terrifying prospect.
The idea that benefit cuts “incentivise” Deaf and Disabled people to move into employment is demonstrably false.
Disability benefit cuts will not solve the problem of labour shortages. They will increase disability poverty rates and increase child poverty. They will lead to greater pressures on the NHS, social care services and the mental health system. They will place significant additional long-term costs on society. They will entrench and intensify the grave and systematic human rights violations to which Deaf and Disabled people are already subjected. They will unquestionably cause more benefit deaths.
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Summary of proposed changes
Measures being carried forward from the previous government:
- Interim cuts to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA)
- Cuts and changes to the way Personal Independence Payment is delivered
- Accelerated migration to Universal Credit
- Roll out of in-work conditionality
In-work conditionality is where claimants are expected to engage in work search and work-related activity at risk of having their social security payments stopped if they are judged by work coaches to have failed to comply.
Changes requiring primary legislation in a new Parliament:
- Abolition of the Work Capability Assessment
Announcements from the Labour government since the 2024 General Election:
- Scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners
- New Fraud, Error and Debt Bill to be introduced in this Parliamentary session
- Work coach visits to mental health patients when they are in hospital
Changes in more detail
Work Capability Assessment interim cuts
The WCA will be changed to make it harder for those with mental distress and mobility impairments to access anything more than the standard allowance of Universal Credit and to bring more Deaf and Disabled claimants within the conditionality and sanctions regime.
Those affected with mobility impairments will be required to undertake mandatory work-related activity – including work preparation and work focused interview requirements (not required to take work) – in exchange for their payments. If they fail to engage, their payments can be reduced.
The group of people with mental distress who will be affected are those thought to be a risk to ourselves or others if forced to look for work. The fact that this group are currently protected from mandatory activity is considered a necessary protection for this group, and one which, when properly applied, saves lives. Although under the proposals this group will not be subject to mandatory activity, they will be encouraged to engage with work coaches. This is likely to cause distress and introduce risk of harm.
The cuts also include the removal of the work allowance – a disregard of earnings for those who do undertake some work – thereby removing an incentive to work.
DWP estimates that by 2028-2029 424,000 Deaf and Disabled claimants will lose essential income as a result of these changes.
They will not be entitled to the Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity (LCWRA) component of Universal Credit – currently paid at £416.19 per month.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimate that only 15,400 people in this group will move into employment as a result.
Following an 8 week consultation which ran from September to November 2023, these changes were announced in the 2023 Autumn Budget.
The government was preparing to lay the regulations before the 2024 General Election was called in July.
Before regulations are laid, they must be scrutinised by the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC). Prior to the election the SSAC confirmed that they were planning to take a ‘closer look’ at some aspects of the WCA proposals over the summer, announcing on X ‘We will say more when we can in July about how you can contribute to this important piece of work.’ There has been no update since.
Note – the government is duty bound to consider SSACs report on the proposed regulations however they are not bound to accept any recommendations.
On 9th July a group of anti-poverty, health and disability charities – including Z2K, Child Poverty Action Group, Mind and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation – called on the new Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to scrap the WCA plans. To date, there has been no response.
Contradictory media stories on Friday 18 October reported that the WCA changes both would and would not be part of the £3bn welfare savings package to be announced in the budget on 30 October.
The judicial review on the WCA that Ellen Clifford is taking is currently scheduled to be heard on 10-11 December 2024 at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) cuts and changes
A consultation on changes to PIP introduced by the previous government ran from the end of April until mid July 2024.
Proposals included changing the eligibility criteria, removing the assessment process for specific health conditions or impairments, and exploring alternative approaches to ongoing cash support such as one-off grants or vouchers.
The result was expected to be that fewer people will be eligible and that the main group impacted will be people living with mental distress. The justification was that PIP costs are rising and instead of cash social security payments, support could be given to end claimants’ need for the benefit.
Criticisms of the plans included lengthy wait times for mental health support and inadequate provision that is focused more on short-term interventions. Support provision cannot therefore be an adequate substitute for cash benefits.
PIP was intended as an extra costs benefit. Scope’s Disability Price Tag research found that disabled households with at least 1 disabled adult or child, face extra costs of £975 a month on average. However, increasingly, Disabled people now need PIP to cover the costs of essentials such as food and heating. Restricting PIP will push even more Disabled people into poverty.
PIP is non-means-tested and many Disabled workers fear they will lose their ability to remain in employment without PIP. Lobbying against changes to PIP was the winning motion at the TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference in May 2024.
The consultation closed on 22nd July and over 16,000 responses were received.
On 16th October the Government confirmed that it will not be issuing a response to previous government’s consultation on PIP reform and that it is ‘considering our own plans for social security in due course and will fulfil our continued commitment to work with disabled people so that their views and voices are at the heart of all that we do.’
In addition, responding to a separate written question on whether the government will carry out an assessment of the impact of replacing cash payments for PIP with vouchers, DWP minister for social security and disability, Stephen Timms, said:
“As we develop proposals, we will consider the potential impacts of reform on disabled people. This government is committed to championing the rights of disabled people and people with health conditions, and to the principle of working with disabled people so that their views and voices are at the heart of all that we do.”
Accelerating Universal Credit migration
In April 2024 the previous government announced that legacy benefits claimants would be moved onto Universal Credit sooner than originally planned.
Three quarters of those left on legacy benefits are Disabled claimants.
The migration system requires all claimants to make an application for Universal Credit, which is digital by default.
Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations, charities and the Work and Pensions Select Committee have repeatedly called for automatic migration to avoid Disabled claimants in vulnerable situations falling through gaps in the system.
Benefit deaths such as that of Laura Winham demonstrate how the lives of isolated claimants are at risk without automatic migration.
Instead, the government has given additional funding to Citizens Advice to provide Universal Credit migration advice. This service is telephone-based and inaccessible to the claimants most likely to fall through those gaps.
In April, DWP announced that they planned to start sending out managed migration notices to income related ESA claimants from Autumn 2024 and that it will take a year to complete. They have been undertaking a pilot transfer for a small group of ESA claimants to UC, including enhanced support measures. However, ultimately the status quo remains that if you fail to engage with the process, your benefits will be stopped.
From July 2022 to June 2024, almost a third of claimants who have been sent a migration notice failed to claim universal credit by their final deadline. DWP says that the majority of notices issued to June 2024 were to tax credit only claimants ‘whose likelihood of claiming may be different from legacy benefit customers’.
For ESA claimants migrating to UC so far, many are being treated like jobseekers – being expected to provide fit notes and to look for work because it is taking time before the Universal Credit system ‘knows’ the claimant was on ESA and in the support group. The DWP says it is working on a “fix”.
In-work conditionality
When fully rolled out, 27% of those affected are Disabled people. Other group disproportionately represented are women, people from racialised minorities and those with caring responsibilities. Many have more than one of these characteristics.
Disabled workers face similar barriers to work search as disabled people out of work. They may be unable to take on more hours of work and/or hours work searching on top of their paid jobs. It will be at work coach discretion whether to take these factors into consideration or to sanction them.
Implementation: In-work conditionality is already being rolled out and was accelerated through the Prime Minister’s announcement on 19 April.
Regulations were laid so that from May anyone earning less than the equivalent of 18 hours per week at the National Living Wage became subject to more intensive conditionality, affecting 180,000 Universal Credit claimants.
In May 2024, the then Employment Minister, Jo Churchill, was questioned on the AET by the House of Lords Select Committee. Her evidence failed to address its dissatisfaction with DWP’s explanation for not publishing robust evidence to support previous increases in the threshold. However she did provide an undertaking that the administrative earnings threshold (AET) in universal credit will not be increased again without a ‘sound evidence base’.
Abolition of the Work Capability Assessment
The previous government announced abolition of the Work Capability Assessment in its white paper Transforming Support: the health and disability white paper published in March 2023. They planned to replace the Limited Capability for Work Related Activity (LCWRA) component of Universal Credit with a health component of UC which would hinge on eligibility for PIP.
The Labour government has said it won’t implement the previous government’s proposals and will develop their own.
We have yet to hear what they will be.
Rhetoric from the new government emphasises the importance of good support to get Disabled people into employment, while at the same time denying prevalence of disability and the seriousness of barriers to work that we face.
Meanwhile we are expecting £3bn cuts to the welfare budget to be announced in the Autumn budget.
Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners to be limited
In July, the government said the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) would now be made only to those on low incomes in receipt of pension credit and certain other benefits.
The changes mean that more than 10 million pensioners will no longer receive the payment.
While some previous recipients say they do not need it, charities and many MPs are concerned about those still on a relatively small income who will miss out. An estimated 880,000 eligible pensioners fail to claim pension credit.
Four in five pensioners living below or just above the poverty line will lose WFP as a result of the changes.
71% of Disabled pensions – 1.6 million – will lose their entitlement, despite their often greater dependence on heating their homes.
The Social Security Advisory Committee has urged the DWP to take “every reasonable step” to support those who may be entitled to a WFP this year, along with a recommendation of temporary passporting to WFP pensioner households on full housing benefit, and a wider assessment of decisions to exclude housing benefit as a qualifying benefit. Full recommendations can be found here.
The chancellor’s decision only covers England and Wales, but the Scottish government has also said it will end pensioners’ universal entitlement to the payment.
Fraud, Error and Debt Bill
The previous government’s Data Protection and Digital information bill, which included plans to allow DWP to access claimants’ bank accounts, failed to make it beyond Committee stage following the announcement of the General Election.
This bill had drawn heavy criticism from Parliamentarians, Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations and charities as well as civil society and human rights organisations for its potential to discriminate against Disabled claimants and introduce unprecedented intrusive financial surveillance into the UK.
In September 2024, the new government announced that it will bring forward a new Fraud, Error and Debt Bill in this parliamentary session to crack down on “fraud in the social security system”.
This new bill will give DWP greater powers to investigate suspected fraud and new powers of search and seizure; allow DWP to recover debts from individuals; and, require banks and financial institutions to share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments.
The government says the bill will include safeguards and that DWP will not have access to people’s bank accounts or any information on how they spend their money.
However, the new bill appears very similar to the previous one and there is a lack of detail on how it will work in practice. For example, in her written statement to Parliament on the bill, Liz Kendall states:
“Our Eligibility Verification measure, require banks and financial institutions to examine their own data sets to highlight where someone may not be eligible for the benefits they are being paid. This will help DWP identify incorrect payments, prevent debts from accruing for the claimant and help identify where there may be fraudulent activity. Banks will only share very minimal information, and this will only be used by DWP to support further inquiry, if needed, into a potential overpayment.”
The new legislation will mean Disabled claimants will face heightened scrutiny and many have already expressed fear and anxiety about their bank accounts being constantly monitored, while the risk of wrongful investigations triggered by algorithmic errors could lead to devastating consequences, including mental distress, increased stigma, and wrongful benefits suspension.
Evidence overwhelmingly shows that mass surveillance and AI-generated suspicion are neither appropriate nor effective solutions for DWP. The Information Commissioner did not see sufficient evidence that the previous proposals were proportionate and had they passed, they could have been unlawful and in breach of equalities legislation.
Work coach visits to mental health patients when they are in hospital
In a recent BBC online article, Liz Kendall has announced that job coaches could visit mental health patients when they are in hospital to help them get back to work as part of her drive to shrink the UK’s annual disability and incapacity benefits bill, and that trials of employment advisers giving CV and interview advice in hospitals produced “dramatic results.”
No further detail was provided and it was not confirmed whether such visits would be mandatory. The plans have been heavily criticised by Mind and Rethink.
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