Panic as 800k Brits set to ‘lose £4,500 a year’ as Labour finally reveals PIP benefit cuts.uk
The government’s welfare cuts will hit more than 3m people in total, with hundreds of thousands set to lose nearly £5,000 a year on average.
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The government’s welfare cuts will hit more than 3m people, it has emerged following the Spring Statement from Rachel Reeves.
Awards under the PIP – Personal Independence Payments – will be reduced for some 800,000 claimants with the average loss put at an eye-watering £4,500.
Until now, the Government has refused to reveal how many people will lose Personal Independence Payments. Now we know the number is 800,000, including people who would have received the benefit in the future but now won’t.
The Department for Work and Pension’s impact assessment says: “Changes to PIP entitlement rules where we expect 370,000 current recipients to lose entitlement (when they have an award review) and 430,000 future PIP recipients who do not get the PIP they would otherwise have been entitled.The average loss is £4,500 per year.”
Claimants must now score at least four points on a single daily living activity to receive support. These activities include preparing food, managing a health condition, washing, dressing, communicating, and budgeting.
The average loss is £4,500 per year (Image: Getty)
Anyone scoring three points or fewer on each activity will lose their entitlement, a move expected to strip support from thousands. This new threshold comes on top of existing PIP eligibility criteria. However, the mobility element of PIP will not be affected.
And previous Conservative proposals to replace PIP with vouchers or means-testing have been scrapped.
Separately, Universal Credit payments are being reduced for 3 million claimants with the basic rate of universal credit being cut from a projected £107 per week in 2029-30 to £106 a week.
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At the same time, the Universal Credit incapacity benefit top-up will be halved from next year, will be frozen at £50 per week until the end of this parliament.
This package of cuts saves £4.8 billion overall. Once this is offset by spending around £1 billion on a new job support programme and £400 million for job coaches, net welfare savings will be £3.4 billion.
In her Spring statement Rachel Reeves said too many people are not working and “it is a waste of their potential”.
Ms Reeves told MPs: “Today, the OBR have said that they estimate the package will save £4.8bn in the welfare budget reflecting their judgements on behavioural effects and wider factors.
“This also reflects final adjustments to the overall package, consistent with the Secretary of State’s statement last week, and the Government’s Pathways to Work Green Paper.”
