Disabled Brits pushed into poverty as they watch for help | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Disabled persons are being pushed into debt and poverty due to “unacceptable” delays on the Department for Work and Pensions, a cross-party group of MPs has warned. People who need assistance with on a regular basis life are ready over a 12 months or extra for his or her claims to be processed, in accordance with a hard-hitting report from the highly effective public accounts committee.

It claims the departments lacks a correct plan to get processing occasions down. The report warns the lengthy waits can “cause them to get into debt and push them into poverty”. A mere 51% of claims for Personal Independent Payments (PIP) had been processed inside 75 days in 2024-25.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who chairs the committee, warned that folks looking for assist with a incapacity “may now expect a reliably poor service from the department”.

He mentioned: “This is simply not good enough for our constituents, who we know risk being pushed into debt or poverty by a department unresponsive to their needs.”

The Government u-turned final 12 months within the face of a threatened Labour riot and stripped modifications to Pip eligibility out of its welfare laws. A assessment into the funds, led by social safety and incapacity minister Sir Stephen Timms, is because of report this autumn.

Sir Geoffrey mentioned: “The summer of last year was consumed by debate around proposed changes to the benefits system, with Government insisting changes to Pip would be mitigated by support for disabled people and people with long-term conditions to get back into work.

“Our report exposes the incoherence with which Government made these arguments, while cutting the all-important support provided by work coaches which could help those same people access the labour market.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions mentioned: “We’re fixing the broken welfare system we inherited by giving claimants the support they need to move into good, secure jobs and out of poverty. We’ve redeployed around 1,000 work coaches to help sick or disabled people who have been left behind, alongside the most ambitious employment reforms for a generation. “These reforms are being delivered as we replace outdated systems through our ambitious £647million modernisation programme. We always aim to make PIP award decisions as quickly as possible, and the Timms Review is looking at PIP as a whole to make sure it is fit and fair for the future.”