nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

Young and disabled – how I'm writing to my MP about the under-22/25 UC health el

rossmark

Hi everyone,

I'm in my early twenties, autistic, with a stammer, anxiety, agoraphobia and PTSD. A tribunal found this year that I can't work, and I'm currently in temporary accommodation with no family to fall back on. Like a lot of you, I've been really worried since the reports that the government is considering removing the Universal Credit health element for young disabled people (the age has been reported as 22 or 25) and replacing PIP.

The government has said it will respond to the Timms and Milburn reviews by the end of December, with a White Paper early next year. Back in 2025, letters from constituents to their MPs helped push the government to back down on the PIP cuts, so I've decided to write to my MP, and I put together a short guide in case it helps anyone else do the same.

One tip I learned: WriteToThem.com blocks identical copied messages, and MPs pay far more attention to personal letters. So the guide is fill-in-the-blanks, not copy and paste.

HOW TO DO IT

Go to WriteToThem.com and enter your postcode. It finds your MP.
Write your letter using the guide below, in your own words.
Send it. A short honest letter is enough.

LETTER GUIDE

Opening: Say you're a constituent, your age, and that you're writing about the reported plans to cut disability support for young people.

Your situation: In 2-3 sentences, say what your condition is and how it affects your daily life, work or study.

What the support does: Say what PIP and/or the UC health element pay for in your life (medication, travel, support, food, rent), and what would happen without it.

Key points (pick one or two, in your own words):

Disability doesn't depend on age. Someone with autism, a learning disability or a serious mental illness isn't less disabled at 21 than at 26.
Many young disabled people have no family to fall back on, including care leavers, people estranged from family, and people who are homeless.
Cutting support early in adult life makes it harder to recover, study or work, and costs more later through the NHS, housing and lost working lives.

Your ask: Ask your MP to pass your concerns to the Work and Pensions Secretary, ask the government to publish an equality impact assessment for young disabled people, and tell you where they stand.

Sign off: Your full name and address, so your MP knows you're a constituent.

You don't have to be young yourself to write. Parents, carers and friends can write too.

Has anyone else written to their MP about this yet? I'd be really interested to hear what replies people get, and if anyone has other ideas for making our voices heard before December.

Find more posts tagged with

Family

More Replies Welcome

Housing

PIP

Benefits

Comments

WhatThe

Hello @rossmark and welcome to Scope 🙂 you've made a great case here for support 👏 I'm old and don't get PIP but these cruel and discriminatory proposals for young people must be scrapped!

(now extended to the under-25s)

worried33

I already did write to my MP, my MP is pretty right wing, perhaps the most to the right in the entire Labour party, and has played a big part in the drive for health cuts in DWP.

I made the point that if they are absolutely adamant they need to make real terms cuts, then simply reduce the amount PIP provides as support, that is far less devastating than cutting eligibility. Problem is many charities are currently lobbying for PIP rates to be increased (and an easier application process, both of which cost money), never mind go down, and its a much bigger political hit to reduce PIP rate than to cut eligibility, cutting eligibility, they just pretend everyone affected is a pretender. Of course I also made the point I dont think there is a need at all, as its already budgeted for, and they have recently raised child benefits, standard single person rate on UC and maintaining triple lock (which is far more expensive than PIP).

But its simple logic lets say e.g. if everyone has a 20% cut, then compare that to someone who loses PIP altogether (this will also in future lose them any LCWRA they might have), the latter is far more devastating as then UC single person rate is all they have.

That was the argument I made, as I felt there was no point lobbying for no cuts at all, the cuts are inevitable, its just how they happen. If they change their mind on one demographic, they just pick on another instead. The more people in the net, the less devastating per person affected,

Of course there was no reply.