Spring Statement 2025: Universal Credit and disability benefits shake-up confirmed

HillStreetBlues

born_again said:

To me the statement today was just a echo of the other day, with noting stated that had already not been.

So we are left with the same old question & no answers.🤷‍♀️

Time will tell, & pointless worrying.

There was extra to do with UC. The OBR didn't believe in the Chancellor's £5 billion of PIP savings, so to balance the books she needed to find other ways to make savings from disabled people.

Spoonie_Turtle

HillStreetBlues said:

born_again said:

To me the statement today was just a echo of the other day, with noting stated that had already not been.

So we are left with the same old question & no answers.🤷‍♀️

Time will tell, & pointless worrying.

There was extra to do with UC. The OBR didn't believe in the Chancellor's £5 billion of PIP savings, so to balance the books she needed to find other ways to make savings from disabled people.

What was extra regarding UC? 

Genuine question as from a superficial look I didn't notice anything that wasn't in the green paper, and I have other more urgent things requiring my limited brainpower right now.

Muttleythefrog

Spoonie_Turtle said:

HillStreetBlues said:

born_again said:

To me the statement today was just a echo of the other day, with noting stated that had already not been.

So we are left with the same old question & no answers.🤷‍♀️

Time will tell, & pointless worrying.

There was extra to do with UC. The OBR didn't believe in the Chancellor's £5 billion of PIP savings, so to balance the books she needed to find other ways to make savings from disabled people.

What was extra regarding UC? 

Genuine question as from a superficial look I didn't notice anything that wasn't in the green paper, and I have other more urgent things requiring my limited brainpower right now.

2 things added/changed today to deal with part of that miscalculation of savings by chancellor. The basic rate UC increase they described going to £107 per week (single over 25) will be £106 instead in 2029/30,
...but more notably the reduced rate of the health element for the new claims they specify which would be £50 a week will not increase annually (like the protected £97 amount for existing claimants won't increase) until 2029/30.

beanielou

I don’t think the post by MSE Molly G was intended to be political but informative. 

kaMelo

More of an observation than anything else which is that UC has always been a monthly benefit in terms of qualification, assessment periods, earnings and awards. This was deliberate so as to align the benefit with how the majority of people in the UK get paid, monthly. Why on earth are they now suddenly talking about weekly amounts in relation to UC? Cue the confusion because there are more than four weeks in a month.

Spoonie_Turtle

^ Although with the covid uplift they also referred to weekly amounts (£20/week). I suppose it is in line with how all the other current benefits are referred to and discussed.  Holdovers from when wages were paid weekly, presumably.

It will be interesting to see whether the JSA/ESA replacement benefit is weekly or monthly.  By then it'll presumably be that the only working age income-replacement (other than UC) is Carers Allowance, which is calculated weekly.  [PIP/DLA/AA, pension age HB and State Pension will still probably be weekly too.]

TimeLord1

Newcad said:

There is a lot of misleading wording in the government statement today.

You might think it was even intentional to try and confuse things. (and confuse people).

PS. I still believe there is a possible double standard going on here with 'political comment' but probably not worth making too much of a fuss about. (Being a forum moderator myself I know it will now be being discussed 'backstage').

Paid promotion most likely.

Newcad

Another example of misleading wording in the statement:

 

the OBR and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggest benefit changes over
the last decade have been a factor in driving higher incapacity benefit claims.

How did LCWRA suddenly become referred to as "incapacity benefit"?
Neither LCW or LCWRA is even used in the Spring Statement. however 'incapacity benefits' or 'incapacity and disability benefits' are used 10 times.

Incapacity Benefit was replaced by ESA in 2008, and those on IB started being migrated to ESA.
You can't make a new claim for Incapacity Benefit.
If using that wording isn't deliberately intended to confuse 'the average person', then probably it's just a telling sign of how out of touch with the benefits system most politicians are?

BTW, not strictly the Spring Statement, but has anyone else noticed that Work Capability is now talked about as being a binary system where you are either Fit-for-Work or LCWRA, they appear to have forgotten all about the many of us still found LCW, particular those of us still getting paid a UC-LCW element

PS. Just to give some historical context to these proposed changes.
I found this in a Wikipedia article about Incapacity Benefit and though it worth sharing (my bolding):

In 1995, the Conservative Secretary of State for Social Security, Peter Lilley, abolished Invalidity Benefit for fresh claims and replaced it with Incapacity Benefit after the Prime Minister of the day, John Major, had complained about the burgeoning caseload, saying: "Frankly, it beggars belief that so many more people have suddenly become invalids, especially at a time when the health of the population has improved".

30 years on and the rhetoric hasn't changed.

TimeLord1

Invalidity or invalid benefits was seen as discriminating against anyone claiming it also the pension books.  But one hundred percent agree on the wording in the statement even the media goes on about Incapacity benefit. Probably just laziness because I doubt anyone is going to write " claiming the benefit Limited Capability for Work Related Activity or putting LCWRA or LCW"  most people probably haven't heard of the terminology so pigeon hole everyone as Incapacity benefit regardless of condition or capabilities.

Newcad

Oh I agree with the fact that it's laziness.

But how often have you seen things get into a mess simply because someone used the incorrect name for a benefit - leading everyone to believe they meant a different benefit than they did?