Samuel Thomas

📰New @citizensadvice.bsky.social briefing ahead of the #Autumnbudget: The Government if failing private renters by freezing #LocalHousingAllowance #LHA.

New blog from me on the need to unfreeze LHA at the Budget

Govt has suggested in the past that DHP can mitigate impact of freezing LHA - but we find it's not remotely set up to do this

Great piece - so important to highlight, contra claims that being on UC-Health acts as a "trap" that stops young people working, that the financial incentives to work are actually *stronger* on UC-H than on basic UC

As the government gives an update on the Timms Review, read our new report setting out how to fix PIP

We find the broken model of an assessment as a 'check' is deeply counterproductive & needs overhauled

It's increasingly perplexing that DWP aren't prioritising improving their stats to better reflect the move from legacy benefits to UC.

Until then, we'll keep getting misleading headlines like 'Long-term sickness claims rising by 5,000 a day' - you can't blame journalists when the stats are so bad!

Universal Credit Act 2025 - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament Current version of Universal Credit Act 2025 with latest news, sponsors, and progress through Houses

The Universal Credit Bill (now Act) became law yesterday

Measures won't come into effect until Apr 26

bills.parliament.uk/bills/3988

New blog from me on the Timms Review

Two key issues to confront: how abolishing WCA will change PIP & how assessments & decision-making push people away from work

UK homelessness minister resigns after tenant eviction claims Rushanara Ali was accused of hypocrisy after claims she removed tenants before rent rise of almost £700 a month

This is a great example of why it's so important that the no re-let period should be 12 months and not 6

Landlords should not be able to upend a tenant's whole life if they're not even serious about selling

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

It’s important that MPs are clear what they’re voting on tomorrow. This bill does nothing to protect disabled people from unnecessary and intrusive reassessments – it just substantially cuts their support. (7/7)

Paras 170-173 of the Pathways to Work Green Paper are excerpted

The government is not proposing to change this either. The green paper made this explicit – it simply says that the government will ‘improve communication’ around ongoing awards. (6/7)

In my experience ‘ongoing awards’ are very under-used. I’ve repeatedly seen disabled people being given fixed-term awards even though it’s clear their needs won’t change. (5/7)

What about PIP? Again, there is already a process for people whose needs are not likely to change or with progressive conditions to be given ‘ongoing awards’, meaning they do not have to undergo regular assessments to continue receiving support. (4/7)

The government is not planning to make any changes to this – except to substantially cut the level of support given to all new UC Health claimants who don’t meet this narrowly defined ‘severe conditions’ criteria. (3/7)

The work capability assessment has had a process for exempting people with the most severe conditions from reassessments for a number of years. The available data suggests this is only applied to very small numbers of claimants. (2/7)

I’ve seen a few people suggesting that the government is ending reassessments for disabled people with the most severe conditions through the UC & PIP Bill. It’s not true. (1/7)

Section 2 of the Bill still halves the LCWRA (‘health’) element of universal credit

Think it's clearer than ever that the existence of the Timms review is a tacit admission that the proper policy thinking on PIP reform simply wasn't done when devising 4 point rule

Keir Starmer gives in to welfare rebels by offering to water down cuts More than 120 Labour MPs have backed an amendment that would effectively kill the bill, forcing the prime minister to look at ‘improvements’ to the legislation

Need to see detail - exempting existing claimants wld be welcome but don't think this solves fundamental problem that these are arbitrary & rushed cuts that were thrown together to meet a savings target

www.thetimes.com/article/fdc8...

PIP benefit cuts may be softened to quash dissent against Reeves While ministers are holding talks with concerned MPs, they remain minded to push ahead with the policy as it is currently planned

Be very wary of any claim that the govt introducing transitional protection for PIP claimants who lose out from cuts marks a concession. This was mentioned in the green paper and would doubtless have been introduced anyway

inews.co.uk/news/politic...?

"Pursuing policies that deepen poverty will only perpetuate the ‘managed decline’ that the government has railed against."

Read our Senior Policy Advisor's blog on how rushed disability benefit cuts will harm the government's efforts to achieve its missions👇

z2k.org/mission-crit...

The UK’s Chancellor is driving disabled people deeper into poverty: she must think again - Views & Voices Planned cuts to disability benefits will be devastating for people already struggling to pay their bills, with stroke survivors, amputees and people with serious mental health conditions among the gro...

The UK’s Chancellor is driving disabled people deeper into poverty: she must think again, says Samuel Thomas of anti-poverty charity @z2ktrust.bsky.social
views-voices.oxfam.org.uk/2025/04/uk-c...

Suggestion is it will apply to all claimants, not just new ones, but the work capability assessment won't be scrapped until 2028/29, and the green paper says the government is 'considering' ways to mitigate the impact on people who lose support. Expect we'll get more details closer to the time

My reading of the green paper is that nothing will change on PIP assessment frequency. Even the measure about giving ongoing awards to people whose condition will not change is already DWP's practice, all they are proposing to improve communication about it

A lower rate of support & some conditionality for people whose health makes it difficult for them to work, and higher support & no conditionality for those with the most severe conditions. Where have we heard that one before?

Especially when combined with significant tightening of eligibility for PIP daily living & big cut to level of LCWRA/health element

Looks like this govt's version of WCA abolition is significantly less generous than previous govt plan, which would have awarded health element to those getting any element of PIP

I spoke to LBC News earlier today about the huge cuts to vital support for disabled people that government is reportedly planning

chart showing Estimated number of adults receiving ESA or UC who will lose support due to proposed changes to the Work Capability Assessment, by income decile: UK, 2028-29 .

Governments tend to focus on reducing health-related benefit in-flows by tightening eligibility criteria.

But doing so concentrates large losses among a subset of claimants - hitting some low-income families hard.

Read more➡️ buff.ly/d1u2Tkn

Indication of an increase to SA is a welcome surprise, though not without trade-offs - cutting level of LCWRA will have a significant impact

Big Q is how the huge £5bn/year PIP cuts will be implemented. Very difficult to see how restricting eligibility or introducing onerous requirements at this scale could lead to anything other than severely disabled people being denied support & plunged into deep poverty

www.itv.com/news/2025-03...