A landmark government review of disability benefits has warned “challenging discussions” remain on how to overhaul and pay for a system it concludes is unfit for purpose and too often leaves vulnerable claimants dehumanised and degraded.
The Timms review of the personal independence payment (Pip) concluded the benefit, claimed by nearly 4 million people in England and Wales, suffered from systematic and deep-rooted problems that had undermined public trust in the benefits system.
Its interim report, published on Thursday, concluded Pip was “not working” and committed to making bold and radical proposals to overhaul the benefit to ensure it continued to support disabled people “both now and into the future”.
It said the onerous Pip application process and the hostile eligibility assessments claimants undergo to maintain their benefit could be so distressing and “soul destroying” that they led people to give up work and their social lives.
“People describe Pip as something that ‘breaks’ them, rather than a support that enables them to live independently and participate in society,” it said, citing an individual who gave evidence to the review.
But the review also indicated there would be no blank cheque and any changes it proposed in its final report to ministers later this year would have to be sustainable within current official Pip spending projections.
While Pip helped disabled and chronically ill people live independently, it was “unclear if other forms of support would be more effective”, it said, leaving open the possibility that non-cash alternatives may be proposed in the final report.
“Pip cannot be everything to everybody so as the review looks at the role and purpose of Pip, the steering group will have some challenging discussions,” the report said.
Its final recommendations, which will probably land on the desk of a new prime minister and chancellor in the autumn, will have to balance meaningful reform of a dysfunctional system it accepts has badly let down disabled people with political pressure to keep a lid on social security spending.
Campaigners and thinktanks broadly welcomed the report’s diagnosis of longstanding problems with Pip but warned any changes would fail if they were driven primarily by the desire to make benefit cuts.
“The focus should be on reforming Pip so that it reflects how people actually experience disability, rather than on making short-term savings that have motivated the last two attempts at reform,” said Louise Murphy, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation.
Last year the government was forced to U-turn on a £5bn a year programme of disability benefit cuts in the face of a Labour backbench rebellion fuelled by outrage that the plans would push hundreds of thousands of disabled people into poverty.
Pip is not means-tested and is not an out-of-work benefit but is intended as a contribution to the extra costs of living with a disability – often related to food, fuel and transport. Payments are up to £194.60 a week depending on need.
The review confirms that while spending on Pip has risen rapidly over the past seven years, driven in part by an increase in young adults claiming for mental health conditions, overall spending on benefits as a proportion of GDP has remained stable.
Although the rise in spending is often blamed by rightwing media on young “snowflake” Pip claimants who they say exaggerate mental health symptoms, this issue was barely raised in the near-40,000 submissions to the review.
Evidence to the review suggests cuts to wider public services, long waits for NHS treatment, a decline in healthy life expectancy pulling more working-age people into ill health, and soaring living costs may have helped drive the rise in Pip claims.
The review, the first of its kind in the 13 years since Pip was introduced, is being co-produced by the Department for Work and Pensions and a panel of disabled people, with a steering group co-chaired by the minister for social security and disability, Stephen Timms, and disability experts Sharon Brennan and Clenton Farquharson.
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Brennan said: “We’ve heard loud and clear: Pip is highly valued as a benefit but is not fit for purpose. We are committed to making changes so that Pip can fulfil its purpose.”
After eight years of experience with the Pip system, Rob Lewis, who has multiple sclerosis (MS), is blunt in his assessment, describing it as devastating. “Things need to change completely,” he says.
Lewis, 36, of south London, first applied for Pip in 2018, two years after his MS diagnosis, and was awarded the higher rate of the daily living element and the lower rate of the mobility element of the benefit.
Despite severe mobility problems, in his first assessment, which was face-to-face, he was shocked to be asked to touch his toes and pick up a cup. “You’re made to feel like a liar, as though you shouldn’t be asking for help or money,” he said.
In 2022, while planning to go to university, he realised because of his mobility issues, he would need a car. To be eligible for the motability car scheme, Lewis needed to be awarded the higher amount of the mobility part of Pip.
After a successful reassessment, he became eligible for a lease car. But within months he was told to attend a mandatory reassessment, this time over the phone.
He says that because the reassessment failed to recognise MS is a lifelong condition where symptoms fluctuate, he was deemed to no longer qualify for the motability scheme and his car was taken away.
He appealed against the decision at tribunal. By this point he says he was struggling with worsening symptoms because of the stress of the process.
He won the appeal, but suffered “major” damage to his mental and physical health. “We shouldn’t be made to prove ourselves again every couple of years when it’s hard enough getting out of bed in the morning sometimes,” he says.
Lewis is due to have another mandatory reassessment next year: “I’m going into battle to fight for it again,” he says.
