Focus on the Budget

Geoff Fimister, Head of Policy, looks at the detail of what the Budget will mean for Disabled people.

For families, including those with Disabled parents or children, the biggest positive of the Budget was the abolition, from April 2026, of the two-child restriction on Universal Credit (UC), which will lift about half a million children out of poverty (more, if you count all the children in the family).

There is one important limitation: as long as the overall benefit cap still exists, some families (especially where they pay high private sector rents) will not benefit from the change.

Also very welcome was no further cuts to disability benefits beyond those already announced.

There will also be less frequent reassessments for Personal Independent Payment (PIP) awards for people aged over 25 - usually three years for the first review, then every five years (and longer, as now, for people who are severely disabled).

This is welcome, but impairments and health conditions can change in the meantime, so reassessments must be prompt where the claimant requests them.

There will be more face-to-face assessments in PIP and in the Work Capability Assessment for UC. 

We say the method of assessment (face-to-face, telephone, video, paper-based) should normally be the claimant's choice, as different methods will be more or less of a barrier for different people with different impairments and health conditions. There must be flexibility in the system.

Although scaled back from initial leaks, there was bad news in the Budget for Motability, with the proposed withdrawal of tax exemptions from parts of this important vehicle leasing scheme. 

As restricting Disabled people's mobility works against the back-to-work agenda, there is a suspicion that Ministers were caving in to a hostile press campaign.

After the Budget came the announcement of the 2026-7 benefit rates, applying from next April. Pensions are to rise by 4.8% and working-age benefits by 3.8%, except for a modest above-inflation increase of the UC standard allowance and (for new claimants) a large cut in the UC limited capability for work-related activity element.

As usual, no evidence was presented as to whether any of these rates is enough to live on.

Unhappily, private sector rent levels eligible for Housing Benefit or UC will be frozen again, which will continue to push low-income tenants into poverty, as money for food, fuel and clothing has to be spent on rent.

Collectively, we will continue to push for a decent quality of life for Disabled people.