Disability Benefit “Not Fit for Purpose”, Review Warns
The government’s interim review of Personal Independence Payment — the first comprehensive look at the benefit since it was introduced in 2013, co-chaired by the disability minister Sir Stephen Timms — concludes it is “not fit for purpose” and needs bold reform, describing its assessment as dehumanising. Pip supports around four million people in England and Wales with the extra costs of disability, and its cost is forecast to exceed £41bn by 2030; the review drew on nearly 40,000 responses. Timms said “fiscal sustainability… is going to be a concern” but insisted he was “not expecting” the final report to contain “crude proposals”.
The review reopens the most dangerous domestic fault line of the outgoing government — last year’s attempt at £5bn of welfare cuts collapsed under a backbench revolt — and hands it, unresolved, to Andy Burnham, who has promised no “crude cuts to benefit levels”. The tension is structural: a bill rising towards £41bn against a fiscal watchdog warning of an unsustainable path, set against the reality that Pip is what keeps many disabled people out of poverty. The final recommendations land in the autumn, on the new Prime Minister’s desk. Watch whether Burnham commits to seeing the review through, and how it squares fiscal restraint with his anti-austerity pitch.