Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill: Second reading in the House of Commons
How the Bill could impact on health and employment
The Health Foundation agrees that the welfare system needs radical reform and that, on current trends, spending on benefits is not sustainable. We support proposals in the government’s Pathways to Work Green Paper to enable more people to stay in work. As our Commission for Healthier Working Lives found, the current system for supporting people in ill health intervenes too late and is failing to help people to stay in and get back to work. However, the measures to cut benefits set out in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill will worsen health and we do not support them.
We welcome the amendments the government has indicated it will table in response to concerns raised about the cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit (UC) set out in the Bill. Limiting cuts to PIP to future claimants will protect an estimated 370,000 current claimants who would no longer have been eligible for PIP under the original proposals by 2029/30. We also particularly welcome reports that additional funding for employment support will be brought forward and that draft regulations will be laid to implement a new ‘right to try’ under which claimants would be able to take up an offer of employment without fear of having their benefits reassessed if it did not work out. This mirrors one of the central recommendations of our Commission for Healthier Working Lives.
However, the changes will create a two-tier system that will leave an estimated 430,000 people who would have expected to qualify for PIP by 2029/30 ineligible for it. Our analysis of current recipients indicates that those most affected by the tightening of eligibility for future claimants will be people with anxiety, depression and conditions such as arthritis, back pain and chronic pain. The changes will also disproportionately affect people on low incomes, further entrenching health inequalities, increasing poverty and undermining efforts to boost employment.
Read our full response, including how the Bill could impact on health and employment, and who would be affected.