Green Paper Discussion - includes accessible formats and consultation event sign up links!
Comments
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I have been notified by Disabled People Against Cuts of a new petition to sign on UK Government and Parliament' website to Protect Disabled People Who Cannot Work from Planned Cuts to Benefits.
PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE!! 👍😊
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Ive just watched something on YouTube called the justice journal.... It's a women who worked for the DWP and sued them for discrimination and won ........ I don't know if anyone else has seen it , but she paints a very different picture to how I've understood all these changes , I'll go through how I understood it and then I'll go through what she said , I'd like to hear your thoughts on this as maybe I got it wrong 🤷
My thoughts are ....
March 2026 , new claims for LCWRA are cut and frozen , existing claims just frozen ....
Anyone who is in receipt of LCWRA before April 2026 and has a standard reassessment before or after said date and is still found to have LCWRA and is not moved to lcw or found fit to work remains in LCWRA and is under the standard reassessment until 2028 when the wca is abolished....
November 2026 , The new PIP criteria takes over from the old PIP criteria ( 4 points daily living plus 8 across the board to qualify ) , for new PIP claiments , existing PIP claiments that are due a reassessment and existing claiments that receive a mix of both PIP and LCWRA that are due a reassessment....
Then in 2028 wca gets abolished and pip takes over for everyone 🤷
Now this womens thoughts differ a bit in what she is saying
Now there's alot of people in my situation that are on a mix of CBESA) / NSESA + LCWRA but WITHOUT PIP .... She is claiming that everyone that has a reassessment after November 2026 will be assessed through the new criteria PIP assessment , and I'm not sure that's right 🤔
She also claims we will all be expected to look for work even if we somehow manage to pass the new pip assessment and get the health element....
She then states that even if we get the new health element we will be 200 pounds a month worse off than we are now on LCWRA....
I don't want to be unkind in anyway as ....
- Maybe I'm wrong and she's right
2. Or two she's only trying to help
But it did come across a little scaremongery ....
Could my scope mates give me there thoughts on this as it's thrown me a bit and like I say if I'm wrong and she's right I'd like to know , cheers 👍🏻
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Hi Sarah, if you can, try Benefits and Work. I believe they are one of the best out there for information, always up to date and very reliable.
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I really hope they’re found unlawful in the courts . I know people keep saying it’s going through parliament so courts can’t intervene on parliament law but we still have rights under the equality act and the ECHR should protect us . The government are not going to change their mind unless forced to either by being voted down or being found unlawful, imo .
They’re truly awful and incompetent.
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I agree, confusing. She seems ok as a person, I know some find her a little dominating. I was very muddled to be honest by her comments, I think she has maybe added to the confusion. Personally, I wont be watching again as she didn't answer in her video any of the questions folk were asking about the 4 point rule and PIP. She stated her video was meant to give clarity however, she didn't actually answer that question and instead she talked about the April 7th Spring statement - NEW PIP CRITERIA for Disability Reform paper.
Oh and you only need 4 points in any one descriptor in the daily living section of PIP then the rest can be made up of points from the other descriptors to get you the 8 points needed for a standard award. I cant see anywhere where you need 12 points so 4+8 to get an award for PIP unless anyone else knows different.
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You’re doing so well, Great efforts @Catherine21!
Don’t worry if we don’t get a reply. We will have evidence to show when the time comes how they’ve been blocking doors when we’ve tried to approach. We have the upper hand!
Pls Go take a look at the Scope’s MP thread – there are some empowering outcomes we’ve achieved by supporting each other and spreading the campaign to oppose the government’s discriminatory proposal. @jul1aorways has also shared a powerful MP template and a new petition on the official parliamentary petition page. It’s worth spending some time on that thread too, and there are a significant number of signatures in our Scope campaigns –heading towards 100,000 👏👏Stay motivated, and let’s continue supporting and empowering each other through this!✌️
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Great tips @mrsBB!
I agree…..We have to try anything and everything at our disposal to turn this around. The time between now and June is so crucial – as someone in our thread stated, we need to flood the consultation mailbox, the MP mailbox, and sign every campaign petition and open letter.
Please also keep an eye on Scope’s main official threads(MP), as there are several campaigns, petitions, and MP letter templates floating around. I mentioned this in my post to our member @catherine12 too.
Best wishes!✌️0 -
It truly feels like you’ve read my mind—I completely agree with everything you’ve said. These non-accessible public consultations are definitely just a tick-box exercise by the government, likely intended as a form of legal cover.
“Seems like winning the lottery might be easier.” -That really made me giggle!
I’ve already raised concerns regarding these public consultation events in an email to my MP. But as you said, many of the key issues I would’ve liked to discuss aren’t even included in these so-called consultations. So, I’m not holding out much hope for them. Instead, I’d rather now focus on directly opposing the proposals through the consultation itself, because the core issues we’re facing are very clear.There are also some really interesting discussions in the other official Scope threads around campaigns, petitions, and MP letter templates-it’s definitely worth checking those out too.
Best wishes, and have a great day!
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I’ve watched her too and commented on scope . I asked scope to clarify what she said as it’s completely different to what I’ve heard previously. No one from scope responded disappointingly . I found her totally confusing and she’s also put up posts about claimants having money stopped suddenly then said it must be a dwp TP mistake, so scare mongering imo. At first I thought it was just me who didn’t understand but they were ppl in the comments asking the same as me .
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I watched her live too and she claimed ppl are already having money stopped suddenly, then said it was probably due to TP not being applied . Then she said the 4 points were for lcwra/ health element and 4 points for pip . I thought you got health element automatically if you get pip . That’s the point of one assessment. Then she said she thinks we’ll all be assessed for lcwra before it’s scrapped which doesn’t make sense as they won’t have staff for us all , that’s why we have a pip backlog . She did mention joining her community for case help though so I wonder if she charges ?
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Thanks for sharing @YogiBear
Here’s my opinion on the interview between Stephen Timms (Minister of State for Social Security and Disability) and Emma, the host of the BBC’s weekly disability and mental health podcast.
Stephen Timms’ interview disappointingly echoes the same scripted rhetoric we’ve been hearing from Starmer, Reeves, and Kendall over recent months - a technocratic narrative dressed up as consultation, with no real intention of addressing the lived reality of disabled people.
His reassurance that the Pathways to Work green paper opens up “consultation” falls flat when key decisions -including the tightening of PIP eligibility, the halving of the Universal Credit health top-up, and age-based exclusions -were already heavily trailed in the press before any accessible consultation documents were even available. The truth is: the most impactful and controversial proposals were pre-determined, making the so-called “consultation” little more than political theatre , merely a tick box exercise . This raises a fundamental question: How can a consultation be genuine when the core outcomes appear locked in before disabled people could even meaningfully engage?
Nowhere in the interview was there a satisfactory answer to:• Why no full Equality Impact Assessment and Analysis (EIA) was conducted prior to proposing cuts that could **** benefits from hundreds of thousands of disabled people.
• Why the impact on carers, families, and children was ignored in both rhetoric and planning.
Timms tries to justify the cuts by saying they are necessary to make PIP “sustainable.” But this framing is misleading. The rise in PIP costs reflects rising need -more people are disabled or chronically ill, especially post-pandemic, amid collapsing NHS services, long waiting lists, and deepening health inequalities. You don’t “solve” the problem by cutting support to those who need it most - that’s not fiscal responsibility, it’s social abandonment.
-DWP’s own impact assessment predicted that 250,000 people could be pushed into poverty under these reforms. That figure was barely acknowledged, let alone defended with compassion or seriousness. In Timms answer,the claim that this will be offset by “employment support” is disingenuous at best. We’ve heard versions of this for 25 years - from New Deals to Work Programme to Access to Work -yet all consistently failed to bridge the structural barriers disabled people face in employment, especially in a labour market now even more precarious, inflexible, and hostile to those with fluctuating or hidden disabilities.
-To offer “employment support” while withdrawing financial lifelines for people with long-term conditions and disabilities is not support - it’s pure coercion. It is moralising poverty, punishing those of us whose disabilities aren’t easily boxed into what this government deems “workable.”
-Timms failure to answer Emma’s question about young people under 22 being denied the health top-up of Universal Credit was particularly revealing. His response was slippery: citing “scarring effects” of worklessness while ignoring the obvious truth — disabled people don’t choose to be disabled, and cutting support will not miraculously cure them. It will, however, push young disabled people into deeper poverty, social isolation, and mental health crises.
And to top it all off, he falls back on the Treasury line - that the cost of PIP has “doubled” in five years. But this ignores:• The explosion of unmet health needs due to NHS underfunding;
• The growing burden of long-term conditions like Long COVId and the closure of Long COVID NHS services
• And the widening disability employment gap, which makes economic independence structurally impossible for many.
There’s a glaring absence of nuance in how “inactivity” is being weaponised here -as if being out of work is purely a choice or the result of a broken benefit system, rather than the cumulative outcome of societal failure, austerity-driven public health collapse, and ableist workplace practices.
To claim this is a Labour government “putting disabled people’s voices at the heart” is, frankly, insulting. Real inclusion would have meant co-designing policy, not inviting us to comment after the fact. It would have meant conducting independent evaluations, not pushing ideology under the banner of reform with the sole intent of cutting costs from the welfare budget.
Ultimately, this interview confirmed what many of us feared: this is not a plan to empower disabled people it’s a cost-saving exercise wrapped in a progressive disguise. It is austerity with better PR. And the consequences, unless challenged, will be devastating for hundreds of thousands of lives.
Let’s continue building on the excellent progress we’ve made-supporting and empowering each other within SCOPE and in our wider lives to stand firm against these devastating cuts. Our collective voice matters. By actively responding to the consultation,backing likeminded petitions, campaigns, and open letters, we can shape the narrative and demand the dignity and justice every disabled person deserves. Let’s not be disheartened;
solidarity is our strength.5 -
Thank you I have been looking on there I'll keep looking .
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I was disgusted with the interview to be honest. Felt so disheartened by it. Timms, Reeves, Starmer, Kendall are sticking to their script and it seems they're not backing down.
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unless Liebour change course quickly regarding the disability benefits cut, they are gonna lose any power they currently hold all over the UK. Starting with Wales:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/10/reform-uk-could-overtake-welsh-labour-2026-senedd-vote
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MP's ask Keir Starmer about disability benefit cuts.
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Nothing on the work and benefits site unless i pay and i don't have spare cash right now its all going on bills .
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I took a screenshot of Jeremy Corbin letter to Rachel reeves , it came on my Facebook feed
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Government figures put the cost of pensions and benefits to pensioners in 2024-25 as £165.9bn.
This is for people considered OAP's. You know unless something major happens there is no way they wont argue this figure is not sustainable. As for Timms another one who deserves an Oscar, for years he went on and on about the Tories treating disabled people like dirt.
yet here we are. I notice a lot of groups are thinking about withdrawing from the talks
owing to the fact not much looks like they want to change.
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Wow, @MW123-you’re absolutely ahead of the curve. Emailing Liz Kendall directly was a bold and strategic move.
Even if a reply does come through, I doubt that it will be anything more than the same recycled lines we’ve heard time and again when challenged (or) perhaps just a referral to the generic public consultation email address listed on their website: events.pathwaystowork@DWP.GOV.UK.
I agree with you -we absolutely ought to challenge the DWP’s handling of this consultation process. Please do share if you receive any response that’s more meaningful than what we’ve come to expect.
Although I’ve now lost interest in pursuing it, I’m keen to know the outcome.
Best Wishes0 -
I agree, @YogiBear. What I truly cannot understand is how a government can ignore the cries and concerns of its own citizens-and I mean all citizens, not just vulnerable and disabled communities, as the majority of the nation is against these proposals. If I were the leader of a nation and had proposed a green paper, seeing all these concerns and the potential impacts, I would have immediately withdrawn it and made an announcement to offer reassurance.
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