The Labour Party government and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have been caught lying about the effects of their cuts to chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people’s benefits. In short, the number of people the DWP has claimed will be plunged into poverty is around 150,000 less than is actually the case.
DWP cuts: the cruelest for decades
As the Canary previously reported, the DWP under Labour is changing the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It is also freezing chronically ill and disabled people’s Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) elements of Universal Credit, at £97 a week – and reduced them to £47 a week for new claimants – with only people with the most severe conditions able to apply for LCWRA. People under the age of 22 will no longer be able to claim these top-ups under Universal Credit at all.
Initially, the government had claimed that Reeves’ proposed cuts would save them £5 billion. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has had to clarify that the savings will actually be £3.4 billion – hence the freeze in LCWRA rates.
Chronically ill and disabled people don’t need to be told by the government how this will affect them. It is obvious that countless people will be throw into, or further into, poverty by the DWP cuts. However, the government has to do what’s called an Impact Assessment when it changes policies that affect a group/groups of people protected under the Equality Act 2010.
So, what does the DWP Impact Assessment say?
What does the Impact Assessment say?
The Canary has crunched the headline figures. The DWP Impact Assessment claims that, for PIP, around 370,000 people will lose their current entitlement to it. Then, 430,000 who do not get PIP but could have been entitled to will not get it. The average loss to these people stands at £4,500 a year. Overall, 800,000 people will not get the daily living component of PIP due to the four-point minimum requirement by 2029/30.
As a result, 150,000 will not receive Carer’s Allowance or the Universal Credit Carer’s Element as well.
For Universal Credit, around 2.25 million current claimants will lose an average of £500 a year for existing claimants and £3,000 for new claimants. Breaking the figures down, 1.4 million single women, many lone parents, will be losing out on average £1,610 a year. 1.1 million single male households losing out by £1,460 a year.
By comparison, for couples it’s 700,000 affected, losing £2,340.
In contrast, 2.2 million single women gain £380 a year (mostly due to the Universal Credit basic rate going up). 900,000 single men will be gaining £470 a year. Meanwhile, 700,000 couples households gain £500 a year on average.
Chronically ill and disabled people hit hardest
However, all of the above are mostly not chronically ill and disabled people – but non-working or low-earning people.
By 2029/30, 3.2 million families (some current, some future claimants) who will lose average of £1,720 per year from DWP benefits in real terms. Of these, a staggering 96% (3.1 million) have at least one family member who is disabled. This equates to 20% of all households with disabled family member.
Households with at least one disabled family member also lose £100 more on average per year than households without a disabled family member. But by comparison, just 1.8 million (48% of total affected) households with disabled family member purportedly gain from the changes, equating to just 12% of households with disabled family members.
So, it is clear that Labour and the DWP are disproportionately targeting chronically ill and disabled people. But just how many people will it be throwing into poverty?
Well, the Impact Assessment claims that figure to be 250,000 – including 50,000 children. However, it seems that the DWP is lying about this.
The DWP: lying – and then lying again
Iain Porter is a senior policy advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He posted on X that the actual number of people the DWP is throwing into poverty is nearer 400,000:
DWP is using a sleight of hand in its disability benefit cuts impact assessment: Actual increase in poverty is closer to 400,000, not the 250,000 in the impact assessment.
Quick thread explaining why. 🧵1/7
— Iain Porter (@IainKPorter) March 26, 2025
In short, Porter says it’s because the DWP is including the previous Tory government’s planned changes to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) in its poverty figures calculation. Yet, this policy never actually happened – but the DWP is using the figures anyway:
In summary: The 250k net poverty rise in impact assessment is extra to an assumed 150k rise that previous Conservative plans would have created – even they never happened. But DWP has assumed that increase was already on the books and added to it. Real poverty impact is 400k. 7/7
— Iain Porter (@IainKPorter) March 26, 2025
So, the Canary also dug further into these figures – because the DWP had also used the Tories’ planned WCA changes to make claims about its cuts elsewhere. It states that, because the WCA changes are not going ahead, 370,000 people “will now be eligible for the new UC health element at £50 per week and will gain £2,600 per year”.
However, this is again a manipulation of the figures – because these 370,000 people are actually losing because the DWP is cutting the LCWRA rate. In reality, the Canary found that these 370,000 people are actually £2,600 a year worse off than if Labour had not changed the LCWRA rate at all. It is unclear how this affects the DWP’s overall calculations.
Porter says the DWP is using “sleight of hand” with its figures. The Canary say the department, and the Labour government, are wilfully lying to parliament and the public over the impact of their callous DWP cuts – all because they know the outrage that is building.
Featured image via the Canary
Additional reporting via Hannah Sharland
