The UK’s most-claimed health and disability benefit faces “bold” and sweeping changes as it is “no longer fit for purpose”, Labour’s disability minister has indicated.
Sir Stephen Timms released his interim report into the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) on Thursday and criticised the method for applying for the benefit as “dehumanising” and “degrading”.
The veteran Labour MP said:“This interim report delivers a clear message: while PIP is widely valued as a benefit, it is not working as intended and needs fundamental change.
“Our work so far has been informed by a wide range of evidence, expertise, and insight to ensure we hear from as many disabled people as possible across the country, including through workshops, engagement and a call for evidence which attracted more than 38,000 responses.”
His review was announced last year after ministers backed down on proposals to tweak the Pip assessment criteria to make it effectively harder to claim – and slash £4.8bn from welfare spending the process.
Over 100 Labour MPs threatened to vote against the government on the measures, prompting by Sir Stephen Timms to announce his review.
The long-awaited interim report stops short of making explicit recommendations to the government, instead focusing on this stage on covering the key issues identified in the work to date. These give a strong indication of the direction that the review is heading in, and the final conclusions it could draw.
Here’s an overview of what’s in the review, and what it could mean for Pip claimants:
Pip ‘no longer fit for purpose’
Pip has ceased to deliver in modern Britain given increasing pressures ranging from health to cost of living, the report finds.
There as been a rapid increase in claims since 2019, it shows, rising from 2.05 million in January of that year to 4.01 million in April 2026.
The benefit is designed to help towards the extra costs that arise from having a disability or health condition. But it is now often being used for “survival”, the report warns. Rather than helping claimants participate in society, it has for many become essential in meeting basic needs.
The authors not that, of the UK’s four million Pip claimants, 1.56 million (39 per cent) have conditions relating to mental health, making it the largest cohort in receipt of the benefit.
The number of people reporting these conditions have increased “significantly”, the report adds. It shows that around 0.3 per cent of working-age adults on disability benefits reported having anxiety and depression as their primary condition in 2009, rising to 1.6 per cent in 2015.
While at least 50 per cent of those who provided evidence to the report said had a positive view of PIP, 90 per cent were negative about that the processes around it.
Health assessments overhauled
Under current rules, Pip is paid in two parts – daily living and mobility – at two possible rates each, meaning there are four potential levels of payment. Assessors will decide if the applicant needs help with everyday tasks for the first part, and if they need help with getting around for the second.
They will then ‘score’ them against twelve descriptors to determine, if they are eligible for the lower or high weekly rate of each part. The maximum a person can be paid a week is £184.30.
But the process of applying for Pip is too often described as “dehumanising”, “soul destroying”, and “degrading”, the report finds.
“Being required to describe intimate details to strangers is described by respondents as degrading especially when claimants feel those details are later misrepresented or dismissed.”
A strong emphasis is put on “fluctuating conditions”, which affect people differently day-to-day, and so are out of line with the aim of Pip to provide for long-term conditions.
This makes it unlikely that the final report will recommend restricting the descriptor criteria as ministers proposed last year.
‘Bold changes’ to come
Whatever the final recommendations, the team says they will be “bold in nature and bold in recognition of the wider environment in which disabled people in the UK are living”.
What is made clear is that the team is working with the government’s decision to end the work capability assessment – a separate health assessment used to establish eligibility for universal credit’s health element – and instead use the Pip assessment as a gateway to both benefits.
“This will mean that any extra financial support for health conditions in UC will be based on the impact of disability on daily living, rather than on capacity to work,” it adds.
There were 5.5 million disabled people in employment in the UK in 2025, an employment rate of 52.8 per cent compared to 82.5 per cent for non-disabled people. This gap appears to be widening, the report notes.
People in receipt of disability benefits generally want to work, the authors add, but are prevented by health and healthcare barriers such as being on a waiting list for treatment which they consider essential to work.
The authors add: “PIP cannot be everything to everybody so … the steering group will have some challenging discussions.”
Responding to the report, Louise Murphy, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “This report shows that Personal Independent Payment is failing on multiple fronts. It is not routinely providing the support that disabled people need, there is widespread distrust with the system, and with costs spiralling, it is not offering a fair deal to taxpayers either.
“The focus should be on reforming PIP so that it reflects how people actually experience disability, rather than on making short-term savings that have motivated the last two attempts at reform. This kind of approach is more likely to deliver sustainable savings in the long-term.”
