‘Dangerous’ rollout of universal credit ‘poses threat’ to disabled claimants

The “dangerous” rollout of universal credit to half a million more claimants is a potential threat to the “safety and well-being” of disabled people who currently rely on so-called “legacy” benefits to survive, disability campaigners have warned.

Tens of thousands of disabled people will be affected by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to “migrate” claimants of certain benefits onto universal credit from this month.

Those receiving only the out-of-work disability benefit employment and support allowance (ESA), as well as claimants on ESA and housing benefit who do not receive tax credits, will not be moved across until 2028, under current government plans.

But many other disabled people, including those receiving both income-based ESA and child tax credit, will be migrated onto universal credit in the coming months as part of what DWP calls “managed migration”.

Many thousands of disabled people who receive income-based jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit only, and other mainstream benefits, will also be affected.

Campaigners and activists have raised significant concerns about whether disabled people will be able to access the support they need to claim universal credit for the first time, and whether many of them will simply drop out of the social security system entirely.

The government’s announcement of its rollout timetable for 2024 came just days before a new report from the Resolution Foundation concluded that disabled people would on average be “among the biggest losers” from the move to universal credit.

Although many of those moving across from legacy benefits will receive so-called “transitional protection” – so their benefits remain at the same level – that protection will be eroded over time due to inflation, and can even be lost completely if their circumstances change.

The Resolution Foundation said that some single disabled people who received ESA and personal independence payment (PIP) would be about £2,800 per year worse off on universal credit in 2024-25 than on legacy benefits, once any transitional protection has been eroded or lost.

Other single ESA claimants who do not receive PIP would be £1,400 better off on universal credit.

The report says that universal credit’s “creation of winners and losers” was making disabled people “much more likely to be among the poorest, and workers less likely”.

It says that the full roll-out of universal credit will move 550,000 people in families that were previously entitled to ESA into the 10 per cent of people in the country with the lowest incomes, while 890,000 people from working families would move out of this group.

The findings echo figures secured by Disability News Service (DNS) in April 2022 – after three years of pressure on DWP – that showed that of about 1.2 million remaining ESA claimants, an estimated 600,000 would be better off on universal credit, but about 500,000 would eventually be worse off.

In total, the figures showed, about one million ESA claimants would gain from universal credit, while about one million would lose out, once the rollout had been completed.

Disabled activist Gail Ward, a long-standing member of grassroots groups Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle Campaign, and founder of the Hand2MouthProject, which helps and trains those claiming universal credit on how the system works, said many disabled people were “terrified” about the latest rollout.

Some people with mental distress are already “in a panic” before even starting their claim, she said.

Ward said some claimants had told her they were going to let their claim close “rather than jump through hoops”, because of the impact on their mental health.

She said disabled people were facing significant barriers in accessing support to claim universal credit, even those trying to use the DWP-funded Help to Claim service run by Citizen’s Advice.

She added: “Forcing disabled people into work without taking into account the barriers many face will harm disabled people and we may see yet again some fall between the cracks or possibly further fatalities.”

Mikey Erhardt, policy and campaigns officer at Disability Rights UK, said: “For years, disabled people and our organisations have been sounding the alarm about the universal credit system.

“It’s not just a complex maze; it’s a potential threat to our safety and well-being.

“The unspoken agenda of the rollout has been to reduce the number of disabled people receiving the crucial support we rely on.

“At the end of the day, we all want the right support when needed, but this dangerous rollout, if unchecked, will make the UK’s social security system, already one of western Europe’s least generous, even worse.

“We need a new system underpinned by a new ethos of dignity, respect, trust and support, which focuses on supporting disabled people to live the lives we want – with no sanctions, conditionality or caps.”

Under managed migration, a claimant will have three months to make a claim for universal credit – after receiving a DWP migration notice – before their existing legacy benefit claim is terminated, although they can apply for an extension.

So far, managed migration has focused on claimants who only receive tax credits, which should have been the easier cases to move to universal credit.

But in its ongoing project that monitors the “managed migration” process, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) said that even some claimants on tax credits had struggled with the process.

It said earlier this year: “Through evidence collated as part of our research we know that some claimants have difficulties dealing with unfamiliar demands, uncertainty, stress and change.

“Other claimants will, because of their vulnerabilities, find it difficult to open or understand their migration notice.”

CPAG said, in its February project update, that for the claimants set to be affected by the next stage of the rollout, the “stakes are much higher… as benefits will be their primary, often sole, source of income”.

It added: “Those who do not successfully move to UC may find themselves without any financial support at all – at risk of destitution or threatened with homelessness.

“While many will eventually manage to make a claim for UC, they will have lost their entitlement to transitional protection and had to cope without benefit income in the interim, facing mounting debts or rent arrears.

“Most concerningly, some claimants may fall out of the social security system altogether.

“Situations like this could be avoided but, as things stand, the most vulnerable claimants are at the greatest risk in the face of the DWP’s plans for a sprint finish.”

The National Audit Office (NAO) warned in February that about one in five households on tax credits who received a migration notice did not claim universal credit and had their benefit stopped, although DWP said it expected only four per cent of households on other legacy benefits not to move onto universal credit after a migration notice.

NAO said in February that the migration of tax credit claimants had been “expected to be relatively straightforward”, but that DWP was “likely to face greater challenges as it moves on to claimants of other legacy benefits who are potentially more vulnerable and in need of more support”.

DNS has spoken this week to one self-employed disabled woman who previously received working tax credits and was moved onto universal credit.

Tania Howell, from Wales, received a letter telling her to make a new claim for universal credit earlier this year.

She has been a self-employed artist since 2008, but most years earns only a few hundred pounds a year.

She said: “They are telling me I have to make £1,400 a year. They want to know the ins and outs.

“I worked annually before, but they want it all monthly now.

“It’s hard enough when you have a brain injury. You don’t want some horrible people telling you what to do.”

Her first meeting with a work coach took place last month, and she said she had had to ask three times for a drink of water, which she needed to help with her speech.

Eventually, the work coach replied, and told her: “We don’t usually give people a drink of water because of the risk that they will throw it at us.”

This was just after she had been locked in the jobcentre toilet after the door jammed.

Howell said that universal credit had caused her considerable anxiety.

She said: “What they don’t tell you is that they are going to micro-manage your every move.”

Because she does not use the internet, she does not have to fill in the online universal credit journal, but must instead call DWP every month with all her income details. It usually takes her about an hour to get through to an adviser.

At the beginning of the process, she was receiving three text messages a day from DWP.

She said: “It was just too much. It was starting to make me feel quite ill.”

She fears the migration process will affect many disabled people.

She said: “I am quite tough, it takes quite a bit to rock my boat and upset me, but I think it will upset most disabled people.”

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