Dear Secretary of State for Work and Pensions,

We are writing in response to contradictory media reports about whether the measures to tighten the Work and Capability Assessment (WCA) changes announced by the previous government in November 2023 will or will not be going ahead.

The consequences of these measures will be devastating for the Disabled people affected. 

They will also add to already unreasonable workloads and working conditions for frontline DWP staff.

In March 2024, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Disabled People condemned further planned cuts to social security for Disabled people.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the proposed changed to the WCA will have affected more than 450,000 new Disabled claimants by 2028-29. Many of these will lose hundreds of pounds a month with only around 15,400 able to escape into paid work.

It is clear that these measures will do nothing to address current labour shortages. 

They will however contribute to current deprivation levels.

Poverty rose dramatically among Disabled people even before the cost-of-living crisis, as evidenced by DWP figures published in January 2024. 58% of all poverty in the UK was linked to disability in 2021-2022. 

The planned changes will also unquestionably lead to more benefit deaths, a characteristic of the UK social security system which is the subject of an ongoing inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

163,000 of those affected by the changes will be people in the “substantial risk” group. 

These are not people with “mild” mental health conditions, as portrayed in sections of the media. 

These are people at substantial risk of harm to themselves or others if coerced into looking for work. They include victims of child and sexual abuse and those carrying severe trauma.

Under the proposals, this group will lose income but not be expected to engage in mandatory work search activity.

However, expectations on this group to engage with job centres will increase. 

This is entirely inappropriate; it takes years of specialist training for counsellors and therapists to learn how to engage safely with this group of people which work coaches do not have. The new measures will unquestionably cause additional incidences of self-injury and attempted suicide among claimants while contributing to the mental health and recruitment crises among DWP staff.

The social security system has become dominated by a climate of hostility, anxiety and fear. It moves claimants further from employment while turning the role of the work coach from helping to dehumanising.

Tightening the WCA will produce some short-term savings, although savings will be off-set by increased numbers of benefit appeals. 

It will also have long-term cost implications through increased pressures on the NHS, on social care and mental health services and on Access to Work as well as through creating additional poverty among Disabled people and their families.  Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that dealing with the effects of poverty already costs the UK £78bn a year.

We can find no justification for the proposed measures.

Analysis shows that rates of out of work disability claimants have remained broadly stable over the past decade. 

Projections that they are set to rise indicate rising disability prevalence, within which falling living standards across the UK are a major factor. 

Intensification of labour and worsening employment conditions pushing Disabled people out of the workforce are additional factors, as is the inadequacy of current benefit payment levels which means that more of those who are unemployed and Disabled need to apply for additional components to top up their standard Universal Credit allowance.  

Instead of pandering to populist narratives that deny disability and demonise Disabled claimants, we urge the government to:

•  stop all further planned cuts to disability benefits 
• engage in evidence-based, trauma-informed social security policy development co-produced with Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations, PCS union and the trade union movement
• fulfil all recommendations of the UN special inquiry under the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People 

CC Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer