Written evidence from the Disability Rights UK BPI0054
Disability Rights UK (DR UK) is a pan disability membership organisation led by Disabled people seeking change.
Our membership includes individual Disabled people and organisations working on their behalf including Disabled people led organisations.
DR UK operates a second-tier welfare rights advice line where we assist their front-line advice workers with supportive information and advice.
Introduction
DR UK believes that the welfare system should not only provide a financial safety net for Disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.
Instead, the level of support should be such that Disabled people can live independent lives.
Yet, since 2008, changes to welfare benefits have led to this safety net failing, causing people to feel abandoned by a cruel and unfair system.
Welfare reforms introduced in that period include the introduction of the work capability assessment, personal independence payment (PIP), the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the two child limit, and universal credit (UC), all of which have negatively impacted on Disabled people.
Disabled people have lost benefit payments of around £1,200 on average each year, as a result of the changes. Non-disabled people have seen a reduction of around £300.
Disabled people on low incomes encounter many of the same problems as others, but also have additional, disability-related costs.
We don’t just lose money – We lose access to transport, their independence, and in some cases, their jobs. The support we receive through welfare benefits provides only for the basic standards of living, but not the extra costs disabled people face.
In April this year, Scope published its new Disability Price Tag 2023 research report.
Its analysis shows that Disabled people continue to face unfair extra costs. The higher cost of specialist equipment, higher usage of everyday essentials and energy, and an inadequate welfare system, are all making it harder for disabled households to meet the extra cost of disability.
The report highlights that -
Disability benefit payments, like Personal Independence Payment (PIP), are designed to help offset these costs. However, even after taking PIP into account, the average disabled household (including at least one disabled adult or child) faces extra costs of £975 per month.
Government Cost of Living payments in 2022 and 2023 were designed to help families meet these rising prices. However, 80% of disabled people said these payments were not enough to meet the increased costs we face.
We would also highlight that Disabled people much less likely to be employed than the wider population.
As reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the employment rate for disabled people is 54%, compared to 82% for non-disabled people.
In addition, disabled people that are employed are typically paid less. The ‘disability pay gap’—the gap between median pay for disabled employees and their non-disabled counterparts- was 13.8% in 2021, meaning that disabled people earn almost £2 per hour less on average.
Due to their poor employment position, Disabled people have a greater need to have the support of the benefits system.
In its recent research report, UK Poverty 2023, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) reports that although benefits were increased in line with inflation for 2023, that the basic rate of benefits remains “close to destitution levels”.
The JRF also highlights that -
“Disabled people face a higher risk of poverty and have done so for at least the last 20 years.
“This is driven partly by the additional costs associated with disability and ill-health, and partly by the barriers to work disabled people face.
As a result, disabled people and/or families where someone is disabled frequently rely on benefit payments as a source of income, which at current rates will almost inevitably lead to higher poverty rates”.
We understand that there has been no official study of benefit adequacy since (unpublished) research in the early 1960s.
We would like to see policy in relation to benefit rates informed by independent research on minimum income standards along the lines of that conducted annually by the JRF.
The Government should regularly commission such independent research, not least in relation to the benefit rates that particularly pertain to Disabled people. Without such information, it is difficult to see any rational basis for the amounts chosen.
This is not merely a matter of subsistence.
Independent living requires that disabled people should be able to afford to take part in the range of social and cultural activities that most of society takes for granted. And additional spending power lower down the income scale has wider, positive economic effects, particularly locally.
On 24 April 2023, in answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister for Disabled People Tom Pursglove admitted that -
“No assessment has been made of the adequacy of PIP for people with disabilities.
PIP is intended to provide a contribution towards paying for the additional costs faced by disabled people. Individuals then have a choice and flexibility in prioritising according to their needs.”
Yet choice and flexibility are only available is income is adequate to someone’s needs,
It is likely that the lack of an adequacy assessment is the same for disability living allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA).
Given that PIP, DLA and AA are the benefits intended to compensate for the extra costs of disability this failure to assess their adequacy is deplorable.
The new Scope disability costs research highlights that the average disabled household needs £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.
However, the monthly combined equivalent of the enhanced PIP daily living component and PIP mobility component is £748.58.
A substantial shortfall of some £226 per month.
In order to make sure the levels of payments of disability benefits better reflect the actual cost of living with a disability or long-term health condition, regular, independent surveys should be established to understand the actual costs people face.
Such surveys and assessments of benefit inadequacy must include ‘extra costs’ benefits such as PIP, DLA and AA.
Causes of benefit inadequacy
Some claimants achieve a standard of living below even that represented by the formal benefit rates. This can be for a number of reasons that include:
We would highlight the following four particular issues: take-up; the benefit cap; two-child policy; and “Local Housing Allowance” (LHA).
A March 2023 Policy and Practice research report estimates that a staggering £19 billion of benefits support goes unclaimed each year.
Benefits cannot hope to provide an adequate income if they remain unclaimed.
The failure to claim entitlements should be addressed via regular and well-funded take-up campaigns.
There is also a need to update our understanding of non-take-up. It has long been known that lack of awareness of the existence of a benefit, or of the eligibility criteria; difficulty in navigating complex claims processes; and the effects of stigma, are all factors discouraging take-up.
It could also be that some groups of Disabled people are less likely to claim than others. The DWP should commission research to update our understanding of under-claiming.
Non-take up of benefits is also caused by barriers that act as gatekeepers to access, such as arduous disability assessments and the threat of sanctions.
Benefit Cap
The benefit cap is flawed for all claimant groups (as in-work benefits were excluded from the DWP’s original in- and out-of-work income comparisons, so the cap level was highly inaccurate even before the threshold was further arbitrarily reduced).
In addition, the extra costs caused by being disabled or having a long-term health condition make these claimants particularly vulnerable.
Some disabled people are currently in a protected category (such as receiving PIP or being in the ESA Support Group or UC equivalent) but many are not.
Under the White Paper proposals, with the removal of the work capability assessment and the Health Addition only paid to those receiving PIP, those who met the support group criteria but not the PIP criteria will be as risk of being capped.
We therefore strongly recommend that the benefit cap be discontinued for all claimants.
The two-child rule has been much criticised, not only for the hardship it causes, but also for the worrying underlying notion that people on low incomes (including where financial disadvantage is associated with disability) should have more restricted choices regarding family size than their more affluent counterparts.
The policy also lacks logic.
Even if its dubious underlying philosophy is accepted, there is also the assumption that parents are in a position to predict their income security for the next 18 years or so.
In the real world, this is only true of a small number of people with very large financial reserves to fall back on: everybody else is vulnerable to the potential financial shocks of life risks such as illness, unexpected disability, or loss of a partner or job. We strongly recommend that the 2-child policy be discontinued.
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is the amount of rent eligible for HB or the UC rental element in the private rented sector and is now set at the 30th percentile of local market rents.
While LHA rates were raised in April 2020, they have remained frozen since, despite rental costs soaring.
A Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysis in 2022, found that it is impossible for those on housing benefits to rent a home across large areas of Britain, with the situation has often leaving some cutting back on heating and dipping into other benefits to meet their housing costs.
The Bureau’s analysis of tens of thousands of rental properties also showed 98% of those advertised over a single month were beyond the means of people in receipt of universal credit or housing benefit.
LHA rates are intended to cover the cheapest 30% of the private rental market. However, the Bureau’s analysis suggests that across Britain it can pay for only 2% of properties available to rent.
On average, LHA would need to be increased by £194 a month to meet the 30% target. But in some areas it was much more – those looking to rent a two-bedroom property in central London would need an additional £1,444 a month.
While HB and UC cannot be expected to meet any rent, however high, but the serious inadequacy of the LHA is in urgent need of review.
The ‘Bedroom Tax’, came into effect from April 2013. It is a cut to housing benefit or the Housing Costs Element in UC for working-age social housing tenants living in housing that is deemed to be too large for their needs.
Affected tenants face a reduction in their eligible rent for Housing Benefit
purposes of 14% for one ‘spare’ bedroom and 25% where there are two or more.
Early research by Habinteg Housing Association found that two thirds of its tenants affected by the bedroom tax were Disabled people. Shortage of adapted and accessible alternative accommodation being a major contributor to this.
This situation has continued, with the Government confirming in 2019 that more than two thirds of households subject to the bedroom tax were in receipt of DLA, PIP, ESA, Incapacity Benefit, or Severe Disablement Allowance.
The Bedroom Tax provides inadequate support for Disabled People’s rent cots and should be withdrawn.
Universal Credit
Within UC, there is a pattern of gainers and losers, but the losses for disabled people are considerably greater than the gains.
A principal cause of losses for disabled UC claimants is the reduction or removal of elements relating to disability that obtained within the legacy benefit system.
These are: the severe disability premium, the enhanced disability premium; the tax credit disabled child premium.
In January 2023, the High Court ruled that the DWP discriminated against the two disabled claimants when it didn’t compensate them the full £180 a month difference in the amount of money they received on legacy benefits and the amount they were paid in universal credit (UC) after they moved into an area where the new benefit had already been rolled out.
The Court also found that the failure to provide transitional protection against around £150 a month difference in the amount of money they received by a disabled mother and on legacy benefits and the amount they were paid in UC constituted unlawful discrimination.
While this judgment is very welcome, it will not result in awards to disabled people and parents of disabled children not moving from a legacy benefit to UC.
We recommend that the removed and reduced elements of legacy benefits be incorporated in to UC.
Health and Disability White Paper
The White Paper proposes scrapping the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), and introducing a Health Element of UC to receipt PIP.
Under this new system, in effect devolve assessments of someone’s ability to work will be devolved to non-medically trained work coaches with a real concern that sanctions of claimants will increase.
It would also mean that the deeply flawed PIP assessment process would determine eligibility for financial support if not well enough to work.
However, the PIP criteria do not properly reflect the impact of someone’s health conditions or disability on their daily life or ability to work, the assessments themselves are often demeaning and inappropriate,
The DWP’s own statistics show DWP loses or concedes 80% of PIP appeals lodged at the Tribunal, with just 2% of decisions overturned being based on new written evidence.
The rules around PIP eligibility also exclude people with shorter-term conditions, and can be very difficult for people with fluctuating conditions, including mental health conditions, to meet or evidence.
Inevitably many Disabled people will lose out. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that up to one million low-income disabled people could be worse off under the White Paper proposals.
A new work capability assessment is needed that is co-produced with disabled people.
Transformative change needed to the benefits system
DR UK supports The Plan for a Decent Social Security System, produced by the Commission on Social Security - led by experts by experience.
We would highlight the Commission’s proposed Guaranteed Decent Income (GDI) would:
The replacement for PIP would be:
Conclusion and recommendations
Since 2008, Government welfare benefit changes have resulted in vanished financial security for with many Disabled people left living in poverty as a result.
Tackling the extra costs of disability must be seen as a political priority, so that every disabled person can participate in society and reach their potential.
In summary, our recommendations are -
Radical reform of the benefits system is urgently needed not only to provide better and reliable financial support.
It also needs to provide tailored support to those disabled people who could work without compulsion and conditionality and treat of sanction.
And to provide a level of support to enable all Disabled people to live independent lives.
May 2023