News

It all looks so bleak for us all for tomorrows vote, maybe it’s because I’m in mental health crisis at the moment but I can’t see us winning and the next few years are going to be dystopian for anyone to ill to work. What the hell are we to do? 

Timms letter:

They think that someone in gov reported on them to get it shut down

Obviously there’s no way to prove this but the disabilityrebellion are very active disability campaigners and the timing of this ‘silencing’ is very suss

What's playing out in the Commons is utter madness. We don't even know what the new scoring criteria will be when the new scoring system comes in.

There's not a single MP, including the secretary of state, including the prime minister, who knows what they're actually voting on

I struggle to think of any legislation that has had such a ludicrous passage through Parliament. Fag-packet rewrites days before key votes, and huge blank spaces where answers should be.

If the Timms review doesn't have the ability to go beyond the budgetary envelope prescribed by the government's savings plan, it's window dressing for cuts and will be seen as such

Given how much the government is now relying on the Timms review to address MPs' concerns, that question is now central - can the "co-produced" Timms review go beyond the existing budgetary envelope

Ms Kendall replied: “For existing claimants, they will remain under the new rules unless they request a reassessment until November 2026, and from November 2026 onwards, there will be that four-point minimum.”"

Doesn't this mean that the so called protection for existing claimants is only as good for current claim periods? That as soon as we are reassessed, we fall foul of the 4 point rule? How is this any different from the original? 

Sarah Owen, chair of the Commons women and equalities committee and one of the MPs who signed the Hillier reasoned amendment, again asked why the government is legislating before the outcome of the review into the problem the legislation is supposed to address. She said:

What is the logic of making changes to future claimants before finishing the Timms review, now co-produced for disabled people? Could this lead to not just two tiers, but three tiers – those existing claimants, those new claimants who will lose out and those post Timms review?
Kendall stressed that existing claimants were being protected. In future, it wanted to aim Pip at those with “higher needs”, she said.

Stella Creasy (Lab) said she did not doubt Kendall’s commitment to getting this right. But she said these plans would breach the government’s commitments under the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Kendall said she would not be making any proposals that were against the law.

———————

Anyone remember that part of the manifesto?

Debbie Abrahams has also told ITV that the government has gone back on the concessions it offered last week, Jessica Elgot reports.

🚨 MP Debbie Abrahams said that one of the offers the government is making today is not what rebel negotiators thought they had negotiated.
Says there has been “row back” and tells ITV that “We’re not there yet.”

Timms Review of the PIP Assessment
Terms of Reference

This government is committed to ensuring that Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a non-means tested cash benefit which is there for people, now and into thefuture. While we are acting now, via the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, to make sure the system is sustainable to support generations to come, we are committed to doing this in the context of holistic reform.
That is why we are also launching a wider review of the PIP assessment as a whole, to make sure it is fair and fit for the future in a changing world and helps supportdisabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater independence.

Rationale for the review

PIP was first introduced in 2013, to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) foradults. It is now over a decade since the assessment criteria were designed and much has changed during that time. While there have been two independent reviews
of the PIP assessment in 2014 and 2016, these focussed on the quality and consistency of decision making and the claims process. The assessment itself has never been fully reviewed.
Since PIP was introduced, there have been shifting trends in long-term health conditions and disability, as well as changes in wider society and the workplace.
Close to 10 million working age people are disabled (23%), and this number has grown by nearly 3 million since 2013/14. There have been greater increases in the prevalence of disability among young people and a rise in mental health conditions.
Alongside this, PIP claims have grown very considerably in recent years. In 2019, there were 2 million working age people in receipt of PIP. This number grew by 50% in the following five years, and is set to more than double from 2 to over 4 million people by the end of the decade. More people are living with a disability, but the
increase in the number in receipt of disability benefits is double the rate of increasing prevalence among working-age adults in England and Wales. Increases in claims have led to a doubling of spending on PIP, from £11 billion in 2019/20 to £22 billion
for working age claimants last year (with spending forecast to rise to over £30 billion a year by 2029/30).
To ensure the sustainability of the safety net in this context, the Government is legislating to target support towards those with greater needs, via a requirement that
all new claimants to PIP must score a minimum of four points in one Daily Living activity. We have also announced that the PIP assessment will become the single gateway for health-related and disability benefits when the Work Capability
Assessment (WCA) is scrapped, placing additional importance on this element of the system. We will be setting out plans for how access to the health element of UC will work when the WCA is removed as part of the forthcoming White Paper.
Against this backdrop it is critical that the public and most importantly disabled people themselves, can trust in the fairness and fitness of the PIP assessment.
We are therefore undertaking this wider review with the aim of making sure that the assessment fairly reflects the reality of the impact of people’s conditions in the modern world. PIP is intended to improve people’s independence. Given the insight assessments provide into the challenges people face, we also want to ensure that Government is not missing opportunities to connect people to a system of active support that helps them manage and adapt to their long-term condition or disability in ways that expand their functioning and improve their independence. It will generate
recommendations and proposals for change, for consideration by Ministers and Parliament.

Scope

The review will be led by the Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, and be coproduced with disabled people, along with the organisations that represent them, experts, MPs and other stakeholders, so a wide range of views and
voices are heard. The review will ultimately report to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for final decisions.
The review will include consideration of:
• The role of the PIP assessment – as the future single gateway to health-
related and disability benefits – in enabling disabled people and those with long term conditions to live independently and fully participate in society.
• The assessment criteria – including activities, descriptors and associated
points – to consider whether these effectively capture the impact of long-term health conditions and disability in the modern world. The review will consider both the Daily Living and Mobility elements of the PIP assessment.
• Whether any other evidence should be considered alongside the functional assessment to fairly reflect the impact of living with a long-term health condition or disability, including related to an individual’s personal circumstances and environment.
• How the PIP assessment could provide fair access to the right support at the right level across the benefits system.
• What role the assessment could and should play in unlocking wider support to better achieve higher living standards and greater independence.

Principles

The review will be underpinned by several key principles:
• The goal of the review is to ensure that the PIP assessment is fair and fit for the future – reflecting the reality of people’s conditions and their goals and ambitions – taking account of changes in society since it was first devised and introduced.
• The review will ensure that PIP remains a crucial part of the health-related and disability benefits system, providing non-means-tested support, because anyone can be impacted by a long-term condition or disability.
• The review will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, clinicians, experts, MPs and other stakeholders, so a wide range of views and voices are heard. We will engage widely over the summer to design the process for the work of the review, including to ensure that expertise from a range of different perspectives is drawn upon.
• The review will take account of other reforms announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, in particular the work underway on how access to the
health element of UC will operate, via the PIP assessment, when the WCA is
removed. The Government will set out its approach to this issue in the
forthcoming White Paper.
• The review will take account of related work underway across the wider health and social care system and other linked benefits and services, including the independent commission into adult social care chaired by Baroness Louise Casey.
• The purpose of the review is to ensure the assessment is fair and fit for the future rather than to generate proposals for further savings.
Because of our commitment to coproduce, the precise timeline for the review will be determined over the summer, based on the design work with stakeholders to ensure the review can fulfil its aims. But we expect it to conclude by Autumn 2026. The review will report to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, so that the Government can then make any decisions flowing from it. These could take the form of changes to primary legislation, secondary legislation, as well as a range of potential non-legislative actions

Kendall says Pip claimants who get reassessed after November 2026 will be reassessed under new rules, not current ones
Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned as a Labour whip over the bill, asked if the Timms review would have the power to review the budget savings being achieved by these cuts. And she asked what would happen if someone requested a reassessment because of worsening health conditions. Would they be reassessed under the old criteria or the new one?

Kendall said that the Timms review was not being driven by the need to save money.

(That did not fully address the question. Foxcroft wanted to know if it would be able to recommend more spending.)

And Kendall said people can request a reassessment. If that happens before November 2026, that will be under the old system. After that, it will be under the new system, she said.

——————————————

I though Timms reassessment reforms weren’t due to come in till 2028 earliest - Kendall clear suggests here that pip assessments due reforms will be in place at the same time that the 4pt rule comes in (November 2026)

Basically this means that the gov concessions are worthless because we don’t know what descriptors and activities will be in the new assessment. The pts for a descriptor a claimant gets now may no longer be on the pip review form come nov 2026

This government are bear faced liars and all rebels who can’t see the obvious screw over in Kendall’s commons statement and vote for this bill should be shamed and lose their seats asap

There’s a quote from the hunger games series that seems relevant:

“If we burn, you burn with us”

Time to force the gov to bin this dehumanising bill and start from stratch (and fire mcsweeney, reeves, Kendall and timms as a peace offering)