A new cross-party report from MPs has raised significant concerns about the impact of the government’s disability benefit cuts and reforms on the poverty and safety of disabled claimants.
The Labour-dominated Commons work and pensions committee calls in the report for ministers to delay introducing billions of pounds of cuts to the health element of universal credit until it has carried out “an independent and comprehensive assessment” of the impact the changes could have on disabled people.
The report on the government’s Pathways to Work green paper warns that, even though the government’s universal credit bill was substantially watered-down during its process through parliament, the cut to the health element from April 2026 for most new claimants is still set to drive 50,000 disabled people a year into poverty by 2029-30.
And it calls on the government to explain what discussions it had with disability organisations about the eligibility criteria for its new “severe conditions” group, which will offer protection from the cut to the health element for a small proportion of new claimants.
It also asks whether the government has assessed the types of “serious conditions, especially mental health conditions” that might not qualify for the severe conditions group.
Among those disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and grassroots groups that gave evidence to the committee’s inquiry were Crips Against Cuts (CAC), Disability Rights UK (DR UK), Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel, Disabled People Against Cuts, and Inclusion London.
Among their criticisms, they attacked the government’s failure to consult on key elements of the green paper, with CAC suggesting to the committee that this had breached the UN disability convention and DR UK calling the Pathways to Work consultation “a sham”.
The report is one of the first government or parliamentary reports to point out that spending on working-age social security spending as a percentage of GDP* is “not much higher than it was in 2008”, despite repeated claims by politicians that it is spiralling out of control.
Inclusion London told the committee that spending was “not out of control” and that evidence showed the UK had one of the least generous social security systems in the OECD**.
Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, told the committee during its inquiry that the government had to cut disability benefits because there had been a substantial increase in health-related social security spending, but he accepted that overall working-age spending as a percentage of GDP was not much higher than it was in 2008.
The bill will introduce a small increase in the universal credit standard allowance, and the report calls on the government to give “serious consideration” to further increases before the end of this parliament (likely to be in 2028 or 2029).
The committee also warns the government that it will follow the progress of the personal independence payment (PIP) review “very carefully” to ensure that Sir Stephen keeps his promise that it will be co-produced with disabled people.
The universal credit bill is now just awaiting royal assent before it becomes law.
Meanwhile, a new report from the Resolution Foundation thinktank has suggested “concrete principles” for supporting employers to create more opportunities for disabled workers.
The Opening Doors report calls for an “improved” and “strengthened” Access to Work scheme, rather than scaling it back, as the Pathways to Work green paper suggests ministers are considering.
It also calls for mandatory reporting by employers on their disability employment gap and disability pay gap; incentives for employers to “reintegrate” workers after periods of sick leave, and to recruit new disabled workers; greater efforts to support part-time work where potential employees would struggle to work full time, including a focus on disabled recruits; and “a clear ambition to create better working environments for all workers”.
The report also dismisses claims by the last Conservative government that it had narrowed the disability employment gap, as previously reported by Disability News Service.
When factoring in the increased likelihood of people with lower support needs to describe themselves as disabled, the report concludes that disability-related labour market exclusion has in fact worsened over the last decade.
The report concludes: “The policies set out in this report offer a practical way forward, one that shares responsibility between the state, employers and workers, to give disabled people a fair chance to find and stay in work.”
Professor Ben Baumberg Geiger, a research associate at the Resolution Foundation and one of the report’s authors, said: “The government has, rightly, set an ambitious target of 80 per cent employment.
“But it will fail to get anywhere close to this unless it tackles the huge employment gap faced by disabled people.
“While some metrics – that don’t account for the increased incidence of disability – seem to show a decreased employment gap for disabled people, prevalence-adjusted measures show that disabled people’s labour market inclusion has in fact been getting worse in recent years.
“Supporting this group into work will be a vital part of getting Britain working.
“Halving the disability employment gap would take the government more than halfway towards meeting its 80 per cent employment rate target.”
His co-author, Louise Murphy, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Much of the debate around supporting disabled people into work has centred on reforming benefits to incentivise employment.
“But while important, this has neglected an even more central issue – the role of employers in helping more disabled workers to join, remain and thrive in the workplace.
“The government should do more to incentivise firms to employ disabled people, especially those who have been out of work for long periods.
“But employers need to do more in return.
“A new Right to Reintegration could help disabled workers back into work in the same way that maternity rights transformed women’s employment prospects a generation ago.”
*Gross domestic product, the size of the country’s economy in a particular year
**Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose 38 member countries include the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Mexico and Korea
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