The DWP has launched an entirely bogus consultation on changes to personal independence payment (PIP) and universal credit (UC) by refusing to consult on almost everything that matters most to claimants.
The Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper sets out proposed changes to PIP, including preventing anyone who does not score at least one 4 point or more descriptor from being eligible for the daily living component.
It also proposes to freeze the LCWRA (health) element of UC and abolish the WCA.
Non-consultation
Yet the list of things that the DWP is refusing to consult on, meaning there are no questions about them in the online consultation, includes:
- Scrapping the WCA
- Creating a single assessment for PIP and the UC health element
- Freezing the health element of UC until 2029/30
- Only awarding PIP daily living if you get at least one descriptor scoring 4 or more points
- Restarting WCA reassessments until the WCA is scrapped
(You can find a full list of the issues the DWP will and won’t be consulting on at Annex A of the Green Paper).
Leading questions
Instead of asking for feedback on these vital issues, the consultation asks questions that make the assumption that participants accept that people should lose their PIP:
2. What support do you think we could provide for those who will lose their Personal Independence Payment entitlement as a result of a new additional requirement to score at least 4 points on one daily living activity?
3. How could we improve the experience of the health and care system for people who are claiming Personal Independence Payment who would lose entitlement?
Missing information
Vital information that would allow people to have an informed opinion even on questions like those above has been deliberately withheld from the Green Paper.
For example, the DWP knows precisely, or could make a very accurate estimate of, how many current claimants would lose their award on review if their condition remains unchanged and the new system is introduced.
It also knows what condition those claimants have: how many have physical conditions like arthritis, mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, neurodevelopmental issues like ASD or ADHD.
The DWP knows, but it’s not telling us.
Yet how can you properly answer questions like the ones above if you don’t know who is most likely to be affected?
Benefits and Work has made a Freedom of Information request for these figures, but we suspect they will not be forthcoming.
The information may be included in the impact assessment due to be published on 26th March.
Otherwise, perhaps readers could ask their MPs or a friendly member of the House of Lords to ask for them?
Judicial review
In January of this year, the High Court found that a Conservative consultation on changes to the work capability assessment (WCA) was unlawful, meaning that the changes could not go ahead.
The judge held that the DWP had: failed to adequately explain the proposals; had failed to explain that the main purpose was to save money rather than to get claimants into work; had failed to provide sufficient time for the consultation.
At the time, many of us thought that this meant that the DWP under Labour would have to carry out an honest consultation on changes to PIP and UC.
Instead, the lesson that the DWP has learnt is not that it should be honest, but instead that it should just not consult on anything meaningful at all.
According to the House of Commons Library:
“In some cases, public bodies have a legal duty to carry out a consultation. There will be legal duty to consult where:
- there is legislation which requires a consultation
- a government department or public body has promised to consult
- there is an established practice of consultation in similar cases
- not consulting would lead to obvious unfairness (in exceptional cases)”
We would argue that there is a very definite ”established practice of consultation” in relation to major changes to disability and incapacity benefits and that the current exercise is an attempt to pass off a fake consultation as the real thing.
It was the Public Law Project which won the case against the DWP over the WCA consultation. We very much hope that they will be able launch a similar judicial review over this Green Paper consultation.
Alternative consultation
In the meantime, we hope that a major charity or umbrella body with good standing amongst the public and MPs, such as the Disability Benefits Consortium, will launch an alternative consultation.
It doesn’t need to be long or complicated. It just needs to ask the questions that the DWP is scared to ask, such as:
Do you agree that only people who score at least 4 points on one daily living activity should get an award of the PIP daily living component?
Do you agree that the WCA should be abolished and replaced with a single assessment for both PIP and the UC health element?
Whatever the results, they could be circulated to MPs and members of the House of Lords who wish to be properly informed before they vote on these issues.
However, time is very short. The official consultation does not end until 30 June. But because the DWP have chosen not to consult on major changes, such as the new PIP scoring system, they can introduce new legislation as soon as they wish. They have stated that they intend to bring forward legislation in this session of parliament, which ends on 21 July, so it could be as early as May that we see the new provisions.
This means that, even though the change to PIP scoring will not be put into effect until November 2026, the law enabling it could be firmly in place very much sooner.
Silencing voices
The Green paper consultation is so dishonest that we feel unable to recommend that people take part in the way we normally would, though we also know that the DWP may argue that lack of response means that most people do not object to the changes.
In the Green paper, the DWP claim that “We are committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people and people with health conditions at the heart of everything we do.”
In fact, this bogus consultation is entirely about silencing the voices of disabled people and people with health conditions.
The reality is that the DWP under Labour is proving to be even more dishonest and devious than it was under the Tories.
The Green Paper consultation is online here or you can read all the questions in the consultation here.
