Many commentors on the Benefits and Work website have expressed confusion about where a series of government concessions since Friday, culminating in yesterdays final hour climbdown, leave them. We’re not surprised. As one Labour MP said in the debate “I popped out for a banana earlier on and, when I came back in, things had changed again. “
We’ve done our best to explain how matters currently stand with Labour’s welfare reform shambles.
Pip 4-point rule
Last week the government announced that current claimants would be protected from the PIP 4-point rule in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. Instead, it would only affect new claimants from November 2026.
But in virtually the final hour of the debate last night, Timms told the Commons:
"I can announce that we are going to remove the clause five from the bill at committee, that we will move straight to the wider review, sometimes referred to as the Timms review, and only make changes to PIP eligibility, activities and descriptors following that review."
Clause 5 is the 4-point rule.
What this means is that the 4-point rule is being removed entirely from the bill. It will not apply to any claimants at all, at any time. There is no PIP 4-point rule for anyone.
Instead, any changes to PIP will be decided by the Timms review.
Universal credit
New universal credit (UC) health element claimants from April 2026 will still see their UC health element almost halved and frozen.
Existing UC LCWRA claimants were already protected in the bill from the cut to the UC health element and in a further concession they are to be protected from the freeze.
Severe conditions criteria
There have been no changes to the extremely hard to meet severe conditions criteria as a result of last night’s debate.
Everything else
The bill only covers those three issues. Every other proposal, such as the abolition of the WCA, the proposal to amalgamate contributory ESA and JSA into a single time limited contributory benefit and not paying 18-21 year old PIP recipients the health element of UC is not affected by last night’s vote. They will all require separate legislation of their own.
Timms review
The Timms review was not due to report until after the 4-point rule had already started. Now, any changes to PIP will have to wait until after the Timms review makes its recommendations.
In theory, the review could recommend bringing in the 4-point rule. In practice that would be extraordinarily politically damaging and also unnecessary. There are many more ways that Labour can cut eligibility to PIP without using that particular device, which was adopted mainly because it was quick and easy to implement.
The review is very wide ranging and is likely to make considerable changes to the PIP assessment, not least as the new single assessment is intended to be the gateway to the UC health element, if the WCA is scrapped. So the points system may look very different by the time Timms reports.
The review is supposed to be coproduced with disabled people. But what that means in practice we have yet to see. Green Paper consultations have been an insulting farce and we know the government is keen to halt the rising cost of PIP.
We also know that Timms is a zealot when it comes to the idea that cutting people’s benefits will make them more likely to find work.
Plus, the secretary of state, currently Liz Kendall, gets to make the final decision on what changes are brought before parliament after the review reports.
So there are still difficult times ahead.
Was there anything positive about last night’s result?
This depends on your point of view.
The government got their bill through its first vote and that is undoubtedly a bad thing.
New disabled claimants of UC from April 2026 will be hit very hard by the cut and freeze to the health element.
And the Timms review could still attempt to impose severe cuts on PIP.
But, disabled people and disability groups took on a government with a majority of 165 and an utter contempt for disabled claimants. They were forced to fight against a bill that was only published on 18 June and is being rushed through parliament at breakneck speed to try to prevent opposition.
And yet, with everything in their favour, the government have been forced into a series of humiliating concessions. The centrepiece of the bill, the PIP 4-point rule is gone and with it, almost all the £5 billion in savings that Labour planned to make on the backs of disabled claimants.
In fact, there have been so many changes to the bill that even the name is wrong now – it has nothing to do with personal independence payment anymore.
So yes, in our view there are some very positive things about last night. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the fight doesn’t go on and on . . . starting with the third reading of the bill on 9 July.
Correction: we referred to a government amendment in a previous update, this was in fact an amendment from Steve Darling, Liberal Democrat MP. Thanks to John for pointing this out.
