MPs have criticised a benefits assessment that they say is limiting disabled people’s access to payments and is even leading to people taking their own lives.
Nine MPs including three Labour politicians have pledged their support for a motion saying the work capability assessment is “fatally flawed” and the the DWP is using it to “limit the access of disabled people to long-term disability benefits”.
The motion warns the policy is “linked to a growing public mental health crisis and suicides” and calls for an independent panel with “full powers” to investigate DWP-related deaths and suicides.
The assessment is used to determine a benefit claimant’s capacity for work and so how much effort they need to put to get ready for work or look for a job.
Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, announced this week a series of benefits reforms in efforts to encourage people back into work.
This includes scrapping the work capability assessment, although this change will not come into effect until 2028.
In a green paper setting out the reforms, the Government said: “We will scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). This will end the state categorising people into binary groups and labelling them as either ‘can or can’t work’.
“Instead, any extra financial support for health conditions in UC will be assessed via a single assessment – the PIP [Personal Independence Payment] assessment – and be based on the impact of disability on daily living, not on capacity to work.”
PIP is a benefit that helps cover the extra costs of a person with a health condition or disability. There are different payments depending on your level of need, with claimants often assessed to see how their condition affects them and how much they should get.
The motion also warns: “The chronically ill and disabled community are living in fear of DWP as they are threatened with additional cuts to the welfare budget, guaranteed to cause more human suffering on a vast scale.”
The Government announced in the reforms that the qualifying conditions for PIP would be tightened. An additional rule will mean you have to get at least one score of four on the 10 daily living activities, to qualify for the daily living element of PIP.
At present, you only have to score eight in total across the 10 activities, and a total of 12 to get the higher rate.
At the time of writing, the motion has been signed by these nine MPs:
- John McDonnell – Independent
- Andrew George – Liberal Democrat
- Brian Leishman – Labour
- Neil Duncan-Jordan – Labour
- Ayoub Khan – Independent
- Jim Shannon – Democratic Unionist Party
- Iqbal Mohamed – Independent
- Shockat Adam – Independent
- Steve Witherden – Labour.
