ween living and merely surviving@Welcome to a new and developing – October 2025 onwards – page on those vital ‘disability benefits, that so many people describe as “making the difference between living and merely existing”
These are the benefits that add vitally needed extra income to help with the extra costs of day to day living and getting around that living with a long term illness or disability
These benefits include:
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP) that is still taking over from adult Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
- Adult Disability Payment (ADP) that has replaced PIP in Scotland
- Attendance Allowance (AA) for new claims if aged over 66 – that is becoming Pension Age Disability Payment in Scotland
- Child DLA for claims for people under 16 – known as Child Disability Payment in Scotland
Changes that are NOT now happening
You may have heard about plans by the current Government over the summer to bring in a new ‘4-point rule’ into PIP Daily Living from November 2026. This is NOT now happening
If the change had gone ahead the PIP test would have mostly been the same. New claims and re-asessments would have still needed the same 8 points or more for standard rate and 12 or more points for enhanced rate from the 10 Daily Living Activities. But the new rule would have required you to score at least 4 points in any one activity
At the moment 80% of people getting PIP Daily Living do NOt score 4 points in any one activityand nearly 20% of people getting Enhanced rate also do not score 4 points. The biggest number of the groups who could have been affected included a half of all PIP claims based on mental health
The Scottish Government had already said they would NOT apply that rule to ADP, but breathed a sigh of relief when the change was dropped from PIP as it would have left them with a big bill
So what changes ARE still on the cards?
Completing the switch from DLA to PIP
This was originally due to have been completed by October 2018, but this got delayed first by the DWP having to do a number of reviews of existing PIP awards after the Government had acted unlawfully and then by the pandemic. Some 375,000 people across the UK were still due to claim PIP to replace their Adult DLA at the time when further migrations came to a halt.
In Scotland, everyone still on Adult DLA is being automatically transferred over – from March to December 2025 – to a special Scottish DLA paid at the same rates based on the same criteria as their previous award of DLA. So, there is no need to make a new claim and go through a new and different assessment. However, it is worth getting advice, as some people will do better under a PIP/ADP points system. People are perfectly free to make a new claim for Adult Disability Payment (ADP) to replace their Scottish DLA if they so wish.
In the rest of the UK, the previous adult DLA to PIP compulsory migration rules will still apply once the process restarts during April 2028-29. This affects anyone who is still getting adult DLA and who had not yet reached the then pension age age of 65 by 8th April 2013, which was the date when PIP first began. The 1 million or so people who were getting DLA and who were over 65 at that date, continue to just carry on with their adult DLA award. But the over 300,000 people still on adult DLA who were under 65 in April 2013, will start to get that same Migration Letter that many people will have had between 2015 and 2019.
This letter will ‘invite’ you to start up a claim for PIP instead of your DLA within 4 weeks of the date of the letter. If you do not at least start up the process of claiming PIP – eg by doing a PIP1 claim form over the phone or ringing for a paper form – then your DLA will be suspended (ie payment will stop). You then get another 4 weeks to start that PIP claim, and if you do your DLA will be unsuspended and carry on in payment while DWP reach a decision about your PIP. If you miss that further 4 weeks, then your DLA claim is terminated (ie it stops altogether and you can’t get it back). You would still be able to start a PIP claim but you would be left without DLA and any knock on increases in other benefits – until a PIP decision was made.
If you do claim in time DLA carries on for the approximately 3 months that a new PIP claim takes to be decided by DWP. If your PIP award is the same or more than your old DLA award then it will replace DLA straight after the PIP decision; but if PIP is going to pay less than you had been getting under DLA then your DLA carries on for a further 4 weeks to give you time to adjust.
And that is it as far as any transitional protection goes in the move from DLA to PIP. The level of your previous DLA award has no bearing on the rate of the PIP award. Indeed, DWP will not look at your last DLA form or the evidence you sent in with it. As far as they are concerned PIP is all about a “new test for a new benefit”. There is nothing to stop you requesting copies of that earlier DLA information as much of what you put on that DLA form could be relevant to PIP though put in a different way aiming at different goalposts. And any accompanying evidence you sent in might still be very relevant.
As ever, with disability benefits – old and new – even the most careful decisions can be in a grey area. Putting points and numbers into PIP has not made the benefit any more scientific, objective or accurate. So do not take a “No” for an answer. Do get help making that PIP claim and advice about challenging any decision that you feel unhappy with. The success rate at PIP appeals is high at around 70%
The Timms Review of the PIP Assessment
This review will be chaired by Sir Stephen Timms MP, once known for championing claimants when he was in Opposition and was Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee. He is now Minister for the Disabled within the DWP.
The aim of this review is to work with a group of people from disability and advice organisations to explore ways of improving the PIP assessment process. This was planned before the 4-point rule was thought of and is not a “cuts led” exercise. But as all hell broke loose in the Government’s attempt to introduce that significant cut to PIP, the chances of getting any disability organisations on board had vanished.
So this exercise is very much a chance to rebuild trust and relations, to make PIP a better benefit rather than explore ways of cutting it. The Review will look at areas such as :
- ” 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.”
There are seven principles that will underpin how each of the above areas will be looked at. The Government says that these are:
- 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.
You can find out more about the official view of the review here. But you can also find out about some of the concerns and controversy about the review from Benefits and Work and Z2K
The timetable for progress is still to be set, but the aim is to report back by Autumn 2026. We will update on any news that comes in.
PIP to become the new “sickness benefit”
The last Conservative Government aimed – and the current Labour Government is aiming – to replace the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) for “sickness” benefits (such as ESA and Universal Credit). As the WCA goes (from April 2028), so will the current two “limited capability” groups and their respective ESA components and UC “limited capability elements”
Instead, UC will have a new “health element” based on your entitlement to PIP or equivalents (such as ADP, DLA etc). So that will mean getting PIP will become even more important for people who claim UC.
At the moment, PIP is ignored as income in UC sums, but it does not increase the amount of UC that you get (unlike the old legacy benefits). Nevertheless, getting PIP can still help your UC claim in other ways:
- it can prevent the benefits cap applying
- it may stop a deduction for Housing Costs Contribution being made from your UC Housing costs element
- it enables a carer to possibly get extra UC via a UC carer’s element
- it enables a disabled worker to keep getting a UC limited capability element even if they work over 16 hours a week
After the changes, having PIP will also mean that you will get extra money for health issues via the new UC health element. Details of how that will work are still to be confirmed. Will there be different rates of health element according to your rate of PIP? And/or as to whether your PIP award is long term?
You can see more about the impact of this change on the linked page Changes coming for Sickness Benefits.
From the point of view of disability benefits, introducing an extra amount in UC for for adults who get PIP or ADP is very welcome and plugs UC’s “disability gap”. So at last, people with disabilities who claim their UC as carers, workers, parents or jobseekers can now get a vital means tested top up to their PIP / ADP. However, the plans only do so at the expense of creating a new UC “sickness gap” for people who are too unwell to work, but who may not be so for long enough to claim PIP or may not be able to score the necessary PIP points.
The original plans for UC made much more sense:
- direct equivalents to ESA components (at the same rates) for those too unwell to work and
- a simplified UC adult disability element (similar to the UC child disability addition) for those entitled to PIP/ADP.
But then someone at DWP had the bright idea of merging any disability help into UC’s equivalent of ESA Support Component, before turning round a few years later to complain that the UC LCWRA element looks too generous…
There may still be PIP changes ahead
There are, then NO definite proposals for changes to PIP. at the moment. And those that were proposed were rejected for ADP. The Timms Review will be making suggestions in its report about the areas of PIP mentioned above.
However, no doubt, the Treasury, DWP and the Opposition will still carry on looking at options and hatching plans, though do not expect any major announcements until after next Autumn.
The last Conservative Government had not made specific proposals for change but it had flagged up a range of options for change with the aim of saving around £5 billion a year.
These re-emerged at their Autumn 2025 conference this time with a much wider ambition to save £23 billion a year. There was not much space on the back of a policy fag packet borrowed from Reform UK to sketch out detail, but a lot of confused and stigmatising speeches were made.
The same broad ideas for cutting back PIP were trotted out and remain swimming in the murky waters of policy think tanks:
- tightening descriptors and points systems
- requiring clearer diagnoses rather than the current focus on the disabling impacts of conditions
- a general attack on claims based on mental health – which seem all damned because of how long it can take to get a mental health diagnosis
- a wider range of bands for PIP eg new lower rates
- replacing lower awards of weekly benefit with one off grants and other support
All such ideas can be considered by all political parties but there was a very clear divide between Labour MPs who rebelled in large numbers against the 4- point rule and Conservative/ Reform criticism that the Labour Government wasn’t being hard enough. Other parties are not even going into PIP cuts
So there is NO immediate critical danger to current and future PIP awards. But PIP remains in the sights of welfare reform. The projected costs of PIP are going up though mostly as rates go up for inflation. There are though some real underlying reasons behind the increase in numbers claiming PIP and fixing those may pay off in less need for people to claim. But there needs to be a wider thinking than just lazy assumptions that PIP is too easy or claimants are being greedy…
Big Book of Benefits 