This week is Talk Money week, and as the Chancellor’s 2024 budget was shared last week, we wanted to go through and look at the messages that affect disabled people the most. With thanks to Disability Rights UK, The Big Issue, York Disability Rights Forum and charities around the UK, we have pulled together the key areas that may affect you, whether that is benefits, Personal Independence Payments (PIP), Working as a disabled person, disabled facilities grants, pensions, Autism and ADHD, mental health and the government and more.

• Work Capability Assessment (WCA)
• Crackdown on Benefit Fraud
• ‘Get Britain Working’
• Carer’s Allowance
• Personal Independence Payments (PIP)
• Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
• Disabled Facilities Grant
• Fair Repayment Rate
• ESA
• Minimum wage
• Universal Credit
• Pension Credit
• State pensions
• Winter Fuel Payments
• Social Housing 
• Taxation 
• Autism and ADHD assessments
• Mental Health
• Responses

Work Capability Assessment (WCA)

The Budget Paper lists changes to the health and disability policy which will be set out in 2025. Both York Disability Rights Forum (YDRF) and Disability Rights UK believe that this will be similar to the Conservative proposals to reform the WCA and will “make fewer disabled people eligible for financial support. This will cause further harm to disabled people and their families.”

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) sent a letter highlighting significant issues with the WCA reform plans directly to Liz Kendall MP, Minister for Work and Pensions. The DWP figures show the numbers of people impacted by these reforms will be:

• 163,000 by tightening the criteria on work
• 260,000 by removing the mobility descriptor
• 33,000 by changing the points awarded for people’s ability to leave their homes

“Of these 456,000 people, the Office for Budget Responsibility predict that only 15,000 are likely to move into employment. That leaves 441,000 disabled people with no money and no job left to plummet into further poverty.” according to York Disability Rights Forum.

Deputy CEO of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute Conor D’Arcy said: “The WCA could and should be improved. It currently does a poor job of understanding how a mental health problem affects the sorts of tasks we can do. But the proposals the previous government brought forward would go further in the wrong direction and make it even harder for people with mental health problems to get the time, support and income they need.”

Crackdown on Benefit Fraud

Rachel Reeves refered to “a crackdown on fraud in our welfare system, often the work of criminal gangs” with the new Fraud, Error and Debt Bill which will introduce powers to check benefits are being paid ‘correctly’. It was claimed there will be 3,180 new fraud and error staff across DWP and HMRC, costing £110 million, with astated savings of £800 million, and Reeves added “new legal powers to crackdown on fraudsters, including direct access to bank accounts to recover debt” worryingly, this suggests that the DWP will have direct access to removing money from the bank accounts of anyone claiming benefits and concerns on the impact on disabled people’s rights and invasion of privacy

Though these plans are aimed to reduce benefit fraud, the government’s figures show that (PIP) fraud stood at 0% in the financial year ending 2024 and disability living allowance (DLA) fraud was just 0.1%, which was rounded to £0m.  

‘Get Britain Working’

The government will soon set out a ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper which aims to ‘test new approaches and collect robust evidence on how to tackle the root causes of ill-health related inactivity’. 

The budget provides £2.7 billion for DWP to deliver ‘individualised employment support programmes’ and reduce ‘health related inactivity’. This includes £240 million to tackle the ‘root causes of inactivity’ with eight “trailblazer” areas across England and Wales bringing together health, employment and skills services targeted at people out of work due to “ill health” and £115 million in 2025-26 on Connect to Work, a new employment support programme targeted at matching disabled people with vacancies and supporting them in their roles.

The fear is that measures like this “push disabled people into inappropriate and unsustainable employment for their survival than to combat the ableism people face in employment settings, properly fund and support reasonable adjustments, or encourage the government to accept the reality that some disabled people will never be able to work” according to York Disability Rights Forum.

Carer’s Allowance

The Carer’s Allowance (CA) earnings threshold has increased from £151 per week to £196 per week meaning carers can earn more before having their allowance completely removed. This aims “to support them into work or to work more hours if they choose.” Increase to the equivalent of 16 hours at National Living Wage, specifically points out that 70% of recipients are women and specifically looking at what more can be done to get carers into work. 

Personal Independence Payments (PIP)

Update! Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants will see their payments automatically increase next year confirmed Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Benefits including Child Benefits, Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments (PIP) will increase by 1.7 per cent next April, in line with inflation figures from September. The new rates:

Daily living component:

• Enhanced from £108.55  to £110.40
• Standard from £72.65 to £73.89

Mobility component

• Enhanced from 75.75 to 77.04
• Standard from 28.70 to 29.19

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

School funding has been increased by £2.3 billion (a 1.8% increase). with £1 billion of this funding specifically for SEND (6% growth in real terms) yet costs have risen by 58 per cent in a decade. The National Audit Office said the current SEND system is “financially unsustainable”. The current intervention programmes are inadequate to resolve the issues and urgent reform is required.

“Given that the current system costs over £10 billion a year, and that demand for SEN provision is forecast to continue increasing, the government needs to think urgently about how its current investment can be better spent” Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said.

Tim Nicholls, Assistant Director of Policy, Research & Strategy at the National Autistic Society said “The SEND system has been crying out for more funding, so this is very welcome. To really impact autistic children’s lives, we want to see it used to make sure no families wait longer than the statutory 20 weeks for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) for their child, that parents don’t have to resort to legal challenges to get the most basic support.”

Disabled Facilities Grant 

Budget proposes £86 million increase to Disabled Facilities Grant, states that this will support 7,800 more adaptations to homes. 

Fair Repayment Rate

Fair Repayment Rate will cap the amount that can be deducted from Universal Credit payments to repay loans and debts at 15% of standard allowance, before this budget it was 25%. ”The government is helping low-income households on UC by allowing them to pay off their debts over a longer time… This will benefit around 1.2 million households as they will keep more of their UC award each month” Those affected be better off by £420 a year. There will be no change to the sanction policies.

ESA

All Employment and Support Allowance ESA claimants will be moved over to Universal Credit starting in September 2024. (This is an acceleration, it was not meant to happen until 2028).  The government say “Around half of ESA claimants will receive more financial support on UC, while others will receive transitional protection to ensure nobody is worse off at the point at which they move over to UC.”

Minimum wage

National Living Wage to increase by 6.7% to £12.21 an hour for people aged 21+, changes to be in place from April 2025. The budget states Government intention to create a single adult wage rate but it does not state a date that this will be done by. 

Universal Credit

Universal Credit will increase by 1.7% (£6.69 a month for standard UC single payments).

Pension Credit

Pension Credit will increase by 4.1% (£27.80 a month for Basic State Pension).

State pensions

Maintaining triple-lock on pensions and state pensions uprated by 4.1%. Age Uk state “Next year’s increase in the State Pension, while vitally important for older people, will not make up for the loss of the Winter Fuel Payments experienced by so many this winter, especially as energy bills are rising by an average 10%.”

Winter Fuel Payments

This winter around 2.5 million pensioners living in poverty or just above the poverty line will not receive the Winter Fuel Payment. Age UK say “Nothing in the Budget changes the plight of the four-in-five pensioners on low and modest incomes set to lose their Winter Fuel Payment this year when they simply cannot afford to do so, and that’s a massive disappointment.”

Social Housing 

Social rent prices in England will continue to be allowed to increase at a rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation, plus 1% (CPI+1%), for a further year. 

Taxation 

The Government will not be increasing the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, National Insurance contributions or VAT. However, income tax thresholds will rise in 2028 in line with inflation. 

Autism and ADHD assessments

Despite Autism and ADHD assessments for both children and adults being a constant issue raised by Local Authorities and NHS authorities alike, they do not get mentioned at all in this budget. Tim Nicholls from the National Autistic Society, said: “We welcome the Government’s £22.6 billion increase in health spending and the commitment to reduce waiting lists. But let’s make sure that includes autistic people by setting out ringfenced funding to tackle waiting times for assessments and end the health inequality autistic people face.”

Mental Health

 The Autumn Budget 2024 allocated The NHS an extra £25.7 billion over this year and next, but only an additional £26 million to open new mental health crisis centres, which is 0.1% of the NHS budget. With this they aim to tackle “the root causes of mental health problems and supporting people to remain in, return to and find work.” Whilst demand has risen dramatically, with referrals to very urgent mental health crisis teams 43 per cent higher in June 2024 than in June 2023. 

Mental health charity MIND say “Sustained investment is required for the whole mental health system. Mental health accounts for 20% of all ill health but only gets 10% of NHS spend. It’s critical that an adequate portion of the NHS England funding announced is allocated to mental health services, so that people can access support before they reach crisis point.”

Responses

The  CEO of Sense, Richard Kramer shared:

“The government’s decision today is deeply disturbing for disabled people. They have chosen to continue the previous government’s harmful plans to reduce access to benefits. This risks undermining the wellbeing of disabled people, and the consequences could be devastating.

Disabled households are living in crisis, their current welfare benefits barely cover the essentials and spiraling food and energy costs have pushed many into debt and despair. But instead of choosing to give disabled people proper financial support and beginning to transform lives, the government has played into the dangerous narrative that disabled people should be forced to work.”

And Disability Rights UK statement:

“Today’s budget should have offered hope and a lifeline for the 16 million Disabled people across the UK. Over the past 15 years, we’ve time and again had governments espouse so-called tough choices when they have always just led to our lives getting worse.

From the devastating effects of austerity with massive cuts to social security levels, social care and education, the COVID pandemic, and now the seemingly never-ending cost-of-living crisis, which has resulted in spiralling bills for housing, food and energy.

Today’s budget is yet another failure. A failure to make real change. A failure to recognise that Disabled people and those with long-term health conditions should be treated as valued members of society whose lives are equal to all other citizens and who should not be viewed as burdens or cheats whose needs don’t deserve to be met.”