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

The question is not necessarily can you work but are there any actual jobs in the national economy that you can do that will produce enough money (i.e. surplus value) for capital to make it worthwhile hiring you? Tomlinson is using a lot of weaselly language (though whether deliberately or through ignorance is difficult to know). He is right that it is not an either/or issue. What illness and disability do is constrict the number of jobs you are able to work at and the amount of surplus value you can produce. And at the end of the day, if you must sell your labor (which you will need to do unless you own the means of production or are independently wealthy) you must modify your labor to meet the needs of capital not the other way around.

My brother has Down Syndrome. There are some very specific jobs that he can be trained to do and he is very fastidious and thus, does them very well. The problem is, he needs a great deal of supervision---far more than someone of average intellectual capacity. Which, of course, means whoever employs him will make less money from his labor. And so here in the US we had something known as the sheltered workshop in which employers could pay him less than minimum wage arguing that it costs more to employ him. In my state, we've banned subminimum wages. So his employer (Goodwill) fired him and other employees like him. He has a new job (though I'm unclear how it's getting around the subminimum wage law given that my sister says he might actually be paying to work in this job ) and he's so thrilled! My partner has a family member there in the UK who has been on PIP for many years now due to autism. He, too, in specific situations would be an excellent employee and would be thrilled to have such work. And work---doing something useful in your community---is something that is a core part of being human. It can provide a great deal of meaning to our lives. But how many "specific situations" are really available?!

Is this just making work because "work will set you free" (i.e. a Bullshit Job) or work that is truly needed? Is this just one more way for capital to exploit an especially vulnerable population? (I think we all know the answer to this...) Moreover, among the likely reasons so much of the adult population is on disability is because we have consolidated jobs that used to be done by three people into a job done by only one person, making that job far more demanding and requiring someone to be even fitter. Thus, more constraints on the number of jobs that can be done by people with any sort of medical impairment. If Labour really want to make work more accessible to people with disabilities (and I think we can all agree that is highly dubious), they are going to have make capital more willing to take a bit less surplus value from the labor they are demanding.

And, of course, for those of us with conditions like ME or lupus or congestive heart failure, etc., who the hell is going to hire someone who is not able to be a reliable employee?! How much surplus labor could that possibly provide anyone? But hey, it'll make a tidy sum for grifters private consultants to coach sick people on useless CVs, and they'll have nice PowerPoint presentations with lovely met targets and a nice press release in a few years and that's what matters, no?

 

I was shocked when I had to get repeatedly signed off for 8 months. I just said I needed it online and got it with never even being questioned.

This is definitely something that should be changed. Not every GP "knows" the patient and there should be at least some form of contact.

 

This.

 

GP’s are overworked and underpaid, too. Fit Notes were supposed to come in with some sort of government-run Occupational Health type service who would assess people on behalf of the workplace and suggest adjustments…never happened. Just left to GPs.

 

I saw a good post on social media today. I think a pwME. Along the lines of-
Government wants me to work. Log in to DWP Gov Job site. Used the filters to find disability confident employers>work fully remote/from home>part time. There are 7 jobs advertised. How are we all going to get jobs if there are only 7?

And I looked, guess what…there are 8

2 involved having vulnerable people staying in your home for a weekend and you’d care for them, or meet up with them in public for activities (casual contract)

1 was advertised in Welsh

2 were university lecturer positions which require specific knowledge and skills (casual contract)

1 was working with traumatised children requiring a specific qualification and skills

1 was managing a learning team requiring flexibility, dealing with high pressure and deadlines etc

and the last one….data admin from home, requires 9-12 visits per year to head office in Milton Keynes.

so not really any jobs I could do. None.

 

Thank you. The point I made above exactly.

 

Sorry it was too much for me to read through

 

No worries. I'm often like that too.

 

The 20 most common conditions people claim PIP for - https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/pip-common-conditions-anxiety-adhd-3567908

Who's definition are they using because it's certainly not ours. No mention of LTSE - Long Term Symptom Exacerbation.

 

NHS? Which still puts emphasis on tiredness.
The ME/CFS composite term serving us well again in the media.

 

I've been following this on news & social media, and I just wanted to give my support and a virual hug to those who want one.

I find it especially cruel and diabolical that Starmer poses himself as an ally and disability hero for cutting benefits for the fantasy that it saves disabled people by forcing them into non-existent and/or non-executionable jobs.

The patronization and prejudiced ignorance are off the charts, and I'm so, so sorry that disabled UK residents have to go through this. You are in my thoughts.

 

ME/CFS at about 57 000 claimants was just above Multiple Sclerosis, which has a helluva more focused research effort, although it says these numbers have risen sharply. Does this help guide as to the numbers severely affected?

 

The previous messing about with disability benefits, trying to in effect to remove the idea of disability (and sickness in the process of doing it) is something that no one seemed to have questioned before when it was 'happening'.

And although the media are still going on about Incapacity Benefit (replaced by Employment Support Allowance), none of them seem to have twigged that PIP (Personal independence payment) replaced Disability Living Allowance. (some of us are still on it).

They 'sold' the idea of PIP partly by saying that some people would actually be able to get more than they were getting on DLA.
But what has gotten lost is that DLA was a non-means tested basic payment for anyone with a disability regardless of whether they were working or not.

 

BMJ to the Rescue (!? A bit late) ... Just Now In The Guardian

'There is now substantial evidence that cuts to social security since 2010 have fundamentally harmed the health of the UK population.'

'Benefit cuts will lead to more deaths, experts say'

The British Medical Journal, a leading medical publication, has published an article by four public health experts saying the sickness and disability benefit cuts announced last week – the single biggest cut in today’s spring statement package – could lead to deaths.

The article says:

A key proposal in the green paper is to tighten access to Pip [personal independence payment] – a benefit covering the extra costs of disability or long term health conditions – by raising the eligibility threshold.

The Fraser of Allander Institute, an independent economic research centre, estimates that saving £1bn a year could mean about 250 000 fewer people receiving Pip. Existing evidence suggests this is unlikely to increase employment rates.

Previous governments have sought to restrict eligibility to, and levels of, these benefits. Most notably, just over one million existing recipients had their eligibility re-assessed between 2010 and 2013, with benefits removed if the assessor thought they were fit for work.

This led to an increase in 290 000 people with mental health problems, increased antidepressant prescribing, and an estimated 600 suicides.


One of the group, Prof Gerry McCartney – a specialist in wellbeing economy at the University of Glasgow, said:
There is now substantial evidence that cuts to social security since 2010 have fundamentally harmed the health of the UK population.

Implementing yet more cuts will therefore result in more premature deaths. It is vital that the UK Government understands this evidence and takes a different policy approach.'


.
BMJ 25/3/2025 - Editorial

'Cuts to disability benefits will worsen health and the economy'

https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r593

.

 

I am listening t parliament talking on tv. There is so much talk about enabling people to work... I wish someone would point on what they really mean to say is they don't believe sick people are sick. They think taking away the money will suddenly make people no longer sick.

It's so discouraging. If I could work I wouldn't have reigned in December after many months off ill. I sure would prefer to be well and working but wishing doesn't make it so.

 

Feeling a bit freaked out to be honest. I’d be looking at losing 40% of my current income.
Honestly I feel like I want a PIP assessment where I will spend the days beforehand absolutely overdoing it, so they can see what happens if I don’t rest. They don’t understand it in writing so I’ll have to demonstrate.

 

I am thinking that we are going to get some major front bench resignations and we may end up with Ms Reeves changing jobs. This is almost as suicidal as the lady in the 40 day lettuce race.

 

I just don’t get it, the way this government speaks about the disabled and announces cut after cut for the disabled. The way they speak you would think people are unwilling to work.

When in fact a lot of disabled are working or would want to work, but can’t.

This coupled with the unwillingness for developing true treatments for me/ longcovid, it is treating people very cruelly. And that from a left wing government.

 

Which frontbenchers have indicated that they might resign?

 

I thought that too. Got the energy to dig up my pip papers. I am at least relieved it isn't review at two years as I swear they told me, but February 2027. Though says update if better or worse but I don't dare say worse as that triggers an early review.