UK: Disability benefits (UC, ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2024 and 2025

I don't understand why the media keep going on about Incapacity Benefit when it doesn't exist anymore.
People were moved onto ESA back in 2012.

 

No, the £775 increase is the annual amount, not the new monthly payment.

Press release Biggest shake up to welfare system in a generation to get Britain working

 

Whaaaaaaattttt!?!?!? Im not reading any more. They can get in the bin.

 

And the £775 isn't till 2029/30.

So a really smelly bin.

 

I have a strong sense that this business is going to sink Mr Starmer's cabinet unless someone backs out sharpish. And it will be the quickest way to lose the upcoming by-elections.

It seems a bit like taking a pawn with your queen while putting her in direct line of a bishop.
I am often wrong but I predict this will not pass a Common's vote.

 

On the BBC yesterday was the following article

Too many are being signed off sick, GP tells BBC published at 09:49 17 March

Professor Sir Sam Everington is on the council of the Royal College of General Practitioners and has been a GP in east London since 1989 – he spoke to BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning.

Asked about the rise in health related benefits since 2019, and the forecasts of rises to come, he says it's a "massive problem".

He warns of a process called "deconditioning", saying: "If you take an 80-year-old and put them in a hospital bed for 10 days, they lose 10% of their muscle strength, and it’s the equivalent of 10 years inactivity.

"Well we now know that you get virtually the same in the younger age group when you sign them off sick."

He says there is no doubt too many people who could be working are being signed off sick, warning the impact on mental, physical and social health can be "dreadful”.

He says there are situations in which people cannot work, but says in general there needs to be a reversal from "sick note" to "fit note" - to describe what people can do, rather than a binary decision about "sick or not sick".

“We need a cultural understanding, particularly in the medical profession, that work is absolutely part of the treatment," he says.

My bolding.
If he has been a GP since 1989 how on earth can he not know that the very thing he was suggesting was introduced in April 2010!

 

If the changes do go through, PIP's going to be a nightmare. It's bad enough now, with people waiting a year for the outcome of reassessments, but the changes to UC for new claimants could have a really big impact.

People who can't work (but aren't categorised as profoundly disabled) might be more or less forced to apply for PIP. Even with the uplift to the basic rate and a small health top-up, UC will be unliveable if they have extra costs.

At the moment, some folk assessed as having limited capacity for work make do with the additional disability payments UC gives them, either because applying for PIP is really difficult or they've already been refused and couldn't face appealing.

But some of them will already be paying part of their rent from UC because the housing allowance doesn't cover the market rate, and then there's the fact that when you've been unable to work for a long time you start to run out of stuff.

I left salaried work with resources I took completely for granted—kitchen appliances, computer and phone, comfortable mattress, enough clothes and shoes—but they don't last forever. I needed my PIP income to replace things like that, because the means-tested elements only covered my monthly outgoings.

 

Where do you even start addressing this hogwash.

 

Yes, I don't believe that is universally true. I have been off ill for 11.5 months now (resigned from my job). Not all my fitness is gone. If there was an emergency I could run a bit or lift something heavy... But I certainly can't do either as part of my day as it would involve my body punishing me. And can tell the strength is still there though.

 

Interesting article from Benefits & Work:

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/dwp-launches-entirely-bogus-green-paper-consultation

 

From the Green Paper

So BACME and our so called ME charities are going to love that - we will be expected to undergo 'rehabilitation' as part of the PIP claim process or as a condition of receiving the benefit no doubt.

 

I think he remembered a quote about an 80 year old but couldn't remember the rest so came up with the figure 10 three times. 10 days, 10%, 10 years.

 

So if we follow the logic, this magical rehabilitation paradigm has been tried and failed for decades for severe chronic fatigue and ME/CFS. It has then been expanded to mild generic chronic fatigue, for which it also doesn't work, then to basically any and all odd symptoms. So now they will expand it to basically everyone, for whom it also doesn't work. Because we do not live in the land of unicorns who poop chocolate, which is about the only magical place where any of this could actually make sense.

So, really, instead of accepting that this garbage doesn't work, they doubled down again and again and again, never caring that it doesn't work. And it kind of all started by trying to deal with us, when you look at the big picture. And failing at it, miserably. But they can't deal with reality, so they just keep doubling down, because there are never any consequences, they can simply expand the failure and people will cheer it.

Then when you read or hear how they justify it, like this odd fellow with his nonsense and blatant lies who says 10 days of inactivity is the same as 10 years of inactivity, which melts muscle to the point of being as functional as an 80 year-old (which is the level of activity that was deemed as recovered by PACE), you get the clear impression that either everyone involved is either lying or insane, because there really aren't many other explanations, certainly none that can make sense of this mass insanity and fraud.

Then you look at the general state of things, how the world is doing generally, and it sort of starts to make sense. It's all the same dysfunction and magical thinking everywhere. At all scales and everywhere. It's really hard to see humanity surviving if we are this bad at, frankly, everything. The only thing we seem very good at is destroying. Damn is this weird species of (mostly) hairless monkeys great at that, though.

 

Also from the Green Paper, they will be ending Contributions based ESA, something that would have to happen if the WCA is to be scraped (I mentioned this back when the Conservatives had stated they would end the WCA last year). The new version will be time limited.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zThvIOBvRw

More about using 'rehabilitation' etc, to get people not just back to work but off PIP. It also makes me wonder if they will try to restrict PIP to working age people in the future.

 

Own goal! Also if GPs are signing too many people off and it’s wrong, why isn’t he telling his colleagues and professional body to act appropriately? instead of tattle tailing to the press.

Honestly you don’t even need a GCSE in Media Studies to see what’s happening here…

In addition, I think you’ll find everyone hates their job, and doesn’t want to work all hours, defined by “presenteeism” working extra late hours with impossible workloads. Fix that, and you fix a lot of sickness!

 

They are in the land of pure imagination here, pure fantasy.

 

Doctors' unions wanted the public to support them when they went on strike, citing patient safety. It would be nice to think that they might speak out in return now.

 

Isn't that what was once called medical care? Being able to see a GP, see a consultant, having prompt NHS treatment, surgery, effective medications? Not to mention high quality social care?

 

Not the way they’re thinking of it, I can bet you it involves an app and exercise…