Eligible disabled people across England will get free bus travel all day, every day, after the Prime Minister announced today (Tuesday 18 August) that the government will lift time restrictions on concessionary passes. From 1 April 2027, people who hold a disabled bus pass can travel on buses for free, no matter the time of…
Disability
Disability benefits reassessments are wasting money and harming disabled people, new report says
A new report by anti-poverty charity Z2K has found that hundreds of thousands of disabled people are put through unnecessary Personal Independence Payment (PIP) reassessments, despite their conditions being lifelong or progressive and unlikely to improve. What are PIP reassessments? PIP reassessments are periodic checks on an existing award, meant to make sure a claimant…
Cuts to non-health-related benefits shift claimants onto disability benefits
https://ifs.org.uk/news/cuts-non-health-related-benefits-shift-claimants-disability-benefits Disability benefits are intended to support people living with disabilities with the additional living costs they face as a result of their condition. They form just one part of the working-age benefit system, and people can claim disability benefits at the same time as other benefits such as universal credit. Studying four cuts to…
CPI inflation has held steady at 3.8% in September.
CPI inflation has held steady at 3.8% in September. This means the Universal Credit standard allowance will be uprated by at least 6.2% in April – a boost worth nearly £6 per week. Had inflation hit 4% in Sept, as widely forecast, UC would have got a lightly bigger 6.4% boost next spring.
No need for a moral panic about the welfare system
https://www.ft.com/content/ee67c643-01bc-41f6-a4e2-c738deef129e Britain is in the grip of a moral panic over welfare benefits. The preferred adjective for the costs of social security benefits to those not yet at pension age is “spiralling”, and it is used as much by Labour ministers as by the opposition. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has expressed horror at 6.5mn working-age…
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether existing claimants of Employment Support Allowance, who leave the social security system and later need to return to claim (a) Employment Support Allowance and (b) Universal Health, will be considered new claimants.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-08-29/71743 Answered on5 September 2025 Customers who leave the social security system and later need to return to claim New Style Employment Support Allowance or the Universal Credit health element will be considered new claimants, unless they stopped receiving Universal Credit as a result of increased earnings and then return to payment within six months….
Not so Universal: the two-tiered health element. How the Universal Credit Bill will create a two-tiered system for disabled people.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/policy/publications/not-so-universal-the-two-tiered-health-element-how-the-universal-credit-bill/ The government’s decision to remove cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from the Universal Credit Bill (UC bill) was the right call. However, damaging and unjustified cuts elsewhere in the health and disability benefits system have been overlooked. The UC bill will have a devastating impact on disabled people and their families. An estimated…
Welfare reform: health-related and disability benefits
Keep up-to-date with the main changes
https://cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/whats-new/welfare-reform-health-and-disability-benefits Keep up-to-date with the main changes included in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, the Universal Credit Bill and the Employment Rights Bill, affecting personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA), jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) and statutory sick pay (SSP), including proposals for PIP health assessments, work capability assessments, and…
Disabled people want to live a full life. Instead, we’re forced to scrap over our right to food and a wash
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/15/britain-disabled-people-right-food-politics?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other Britain’s political and media class advocate policies that leave disabled people hungry and dirty. Why are we expected to settle for this?
The government has today published a list of amendments to the new welfare reform bill ahead of its Committee stage next week.
among the amendments put forward in the name of the Work and Pensions Secretary are changes relating to – ‘personal independence payment’ being removed from the title of the legislation, so that the Act will be the ‘Universal Credit Act 2025’;the removal of Clause 5 relating to personal independence payment eligibility;providing for universal credit to…