Good news for pension age PIP, but questions still remain

Details: Published: 25 April 2025

The DWP have finally stated that people over state pension age “will not be affected by the proposed changes” to personal independence payment (PIP) set out in the Pathways To Work Green Paper. However, questions still remain.

Ever since the Green Paper was published there has been a lack of clarity about whether pension age PIP claimants would be caught by the PIP 4-point rule. Although the Green Paper made reference to the “working-age PIP caseload” there was no explicit statement that pension age claimants would be exempt.

It is the case that, once you reach state pension age, your award will usually become an ongoing award. Whilst this means your PIP award does not have an end date, it doesn’t mean it will never be checked.

Instead, you are likely to have an award review every 10 years, according to a statement made by Amber Rudd – the then secretary of state for work and pensions – in May 2019.

But this could lead to a situation where claimants could lose their award at the age of say 76.

In an attempt to settle the matter, Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan asked the secretary of state in a written question:

“. . . what assessment she has made on the potential impact of the measure set out in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025 on PIP claimants of retirement age.”

DWP disability minister Stephen Timms answered:

“Our intention is that the new eligibility requirement in Personal Independence Payment (PIP), in which people must score a minimum of four points in one daily living activity to be eligible for the daily living component, will apply to new claims and award reviews from November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval. In keeping with existing policy, people over State Pension Age are not routinely fully reviewed and will not be affected by the proposed changes.”

This does seem to suggest that claimants above state pension age are not being targeted by the DWP. But it does leave several unanswered questions.

The first is just why this was not made explicit in the Green Paper, when it was clearly going to be a matter of enormous concern.

The second is what does “not routinely fully reviewed” mean? In fact, thousands of claimants over pension age do have a planned award review after they reach pension age.

In the year to January 2025, 12,300 pension age PIP claimants had a planned award review. It is not clear why these happened or whether they will continue after November 2026.

In addition, 19,238 pension age PIP claimants had a change of circumstances review in the same period.

It is possible to move from the standard to the enhanced rate of PIP after state pension age by asking for a change of circumstances review, if your needs increase.

However, if a claimant does not have any 4-point descriptors then there is nothing in the minister’s answer to guarantee that they would not run the risk of losing their daily living award altogether if they asked for a review after November 2026.

As with so much about the Green Paper, there is an impression of ideas being cobbled together after publication. This impression was reinforced by a separate parliamentary answer, in which Timms wrote:

“Some information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper was published alongside the Spring Statement and can be found at this link: Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper - GOV.UK. More information on the impacts will be published in due course, a further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.”

Nonetheless, this news will come as a welcome relief for pension age PIP claimants.

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Pearse English. · 7 minutes ago
I think I recall Liz Kendall saying in the House that the most severely disabled will not be subject to review where there is no chance of health improvement. I might be wrong and guess we will just have to wait and see what will be in a Bill they intend to bring forward.
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CaroA · 15 minutes ago
https://sites.google.com/view/openletterdisabilitybenefits/home

This open letter has been signed by over 1250 initial signatories across the United Kingdom in its first few days, including healthcare professionals, disabled people, carers, academics, and grassroots organisers standing together:

Open Letter: Disability Benefits Cuts Are Creating a Public Health Emergency
18th April 2025
To: Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and Members of Parliament,
As frontline clinicians, we issue an urgent public warning: the Government’s proposed £4.5 billion in cuts to disability benefits, outlined in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, will not only plunge hundreds of thousands into poverty — they are already devastating lives in our clinics, emergency rooms, and communities. We urge immediate national attention to this crisis.
The figures are damning. Your own impact assessment shows that 3.2 million families will lose an average of £1,720 annually. PIP claimants face an average reduction of £4,500 per year, and 50,000 children are projected to be plunged into poverty. The most vulnerable households — those receiving combinations of PIP, Universal Credit health elements, and Carer’s Allowance — face staggering losses of over £12,000 each year.
These are not individuals with mild or moderate health conditions. PIP and UC assessments already require extensive documentation and rigorous medical scrutiny. Freedom of Information requests reveal that PIP cuts will not only strip benefits from 46% of current claimants (2,891,000 people), but also from 13% (1,608,000 people) of those assessed by health professionals as having the most severe disabilities.
Poverty is poisonous for health. Life already costs significantly more for disabled people - Scope estimates an extra £1,010 in monthly outgoings due to disability-related expenses. At the same time, 30% of disabled people are living in poverty, and 69% of those referred to food banks are disabled. These benefits are not luxuries — they prevent cold homes, missed meals, and untreated illness.
We are already witnessing the severe mental health consequences of these proposals. Since the Green Paper's announcement, patients with serious mental illness — including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and complex trauma — have presented with heightened anxiety, symptom escalation, and increases in both self-harm and suicidal ideation.
One claimant, who lives with unstable borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, told Benefits & Work: “I struggle understanding the world and understanding what people mean... I tried volunteering and it sent me off the deep end. After being unable to volunteer and hearing about the PIP changes, I tried to kill myself with tablets. Now I've got permanent stomach damage.”
Another, diagnosed with schizophrenia, said: “This will be catastrophic for me. I will lose all sense of independence. My mum is my only carer, and as she gets older, I’m aware that once she is gone I will be all alone... I feel suicidal at the prospect of these changes, and my symptoms are worsening.”
These are not isolated accounts, nor is the risk limited to those with mental health conditions. Stress is not a side effect — it is a known accelerator of physical and mental deterioration across nearly all disabilities. These testimonies are early warning signs of a broader humanitarian emergency.
Meanwhile, carers — the unsung backbone of our healthcare system — are being pushed to breaking point. Already disproportionately affected by mental health challenges, hundreds of thousands now face losing Carer’s Allowance if the person they support no longer qualifies for PIP. One woman told Benefits & Work: “If I lose my disability benefits, my mother loses her Carer’s Allowance. Then she’ll have to place me in a nursing home.”
We are hearing increasing reports of carers skipping meals, medications, and their own healthcare in order to provide essential support. Stripping support simultaneously from disabled people and their carers is not just morally indefensible — it is economically reckless. Carers save the UK taxpayer an estimated £162 billion annually by reducing the need for formal care. More generally, every £1 spent on disability benefits returns £1.48 in reduced hospital admissions, decreased social care needs, and other cost savings — none of which have been factored into the Office for Budget Responsibility’s models. These cuts are short-sighted, dangerous, and built on flawed economics.
We further reject the claim that these cuts will “incentivise work” or produce “behavioural change.” Some people are too disabled to work — either permanently or temporarily. Even the government's own figures show that 13% of those currently on enhanced PIP for severe disability would be left with no support at all. Decades of research tells us poverty does not motivate — it crushes hope and erodes both physical and mental health. And many of the 1 in 6 PIP claimants who are in work won’t be able to do so deprived of what is quite literally a personal independence payment, trapping people into impoverished lives.
Healthcare professionals, disabled people, and carers should have been consulted. Instead, sweeping reforms affecting some of the most vulnerable people in the UK were announced without transparency, safeguarding, or democratic accountability. The most dangerous elements of the Green Paper — including the proposed rule requiring claimants to score four or more points in a single PIP activity — have been excluded from the consultation and left to be decided behind closed doors.
We are deeply alarmed that safeguarding guidance will not be published until autumn — after the expected vote in Parliament. This makes meaningful scrutiny impossible. It is also entirely incompatible with basic safeguarding principles. Changes to LCWRA criteria and the absence of exemptions for severe and enduring conditions are ethically indefensible.
We are already seeing the consequences: clinicians are reporting increased safeguarding concerns, worsening health outcomes, and growing despair among claimants. This is not a theoretical risk — it is unfolding now.
We are therefore taking the unprecedented step of issuing this open letter. We warn you now: if enacted, these changes will trigger a wave of preventable health crises, family breakdowns, and avoidable deaths.
We all want a benefits system that is effective, transparent, and empowering. We share your goal of enabling disabled people to live full and meaningful lives, including through work where appropriate. But these proposals will achieve the opposite. They will deepen health inequalities, institutionalise despair, and leave a legacy that no government should want to bear.
This will be your legacy — or your turning point.
We urge you to withdraw disability benefits cuts immediately, and to ensure that any future reforms are co-designed with disabled people, carers, and clinicians — rooted not in austerity, but in dignity. The disabled community is already in the later stages of a 'Commission on Social Security'.
Fiscal gains must follow humanity — not drive it off a cliff. The wellbeing of millions depends on your response.

Respectfully,
This open letter has been signed by over 1250 initial signatories across the United Kingdom in its first few days, including healthcare professionals, disabled people, carers, academics, and grassroots organisers standing together. These initial signatories represent the broad consensus that the proposed cuts represent a serious public health concern. Additional signatures continue to be collected - everyone counts. Please sign at the bottom of the form or here.
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Vicks · 1 hours ago
Sadly my next pip assessment is when I’m 65, I will still have 2 yrs left to retire
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  John · 50 minutes ago
  
  @Vicks do they tend to reassess the same year or does it get delayed a year or two?
  
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Txxd1 · 3 hours ago
More discrimination against younger/middle-aged claimants.
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Mel · 3 hours ago
Finally got my UC claim sorted. Just needed to take three forms of identity in to jobcentre plus. The guy said as I'm migrating from ESA support group I don't need to have anymore appointments. Just check my payments are correct each month.
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godgivemestrength · 3 hours ago
It's going to take a substantial chunk out of the already vanishingly small savings the government wants from the cuts if 700,000 pensioners are not subject to them, particularly if, as they grow older, they get an upgrade to higher rate, which seems only likely, unless the forked tongue of Timms has already seen a way round that.

Why pursue these ill conceived measures at all, when so little would be achieved?
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  Dave · 2 hours ago
  
  @godgivemestrength What a farce. First this government mugged the pensioners of their winter fuel allowance. Becouse we can't afford it.
  Then the same government then quickly without any thought decided to then mug the disabled of their PIP, with the pretence of trying we can't afford it. They then suddenly realised there are termialy I'll people on PIP.
  
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  Matt · 2 hours ago
  
  @godgivemestrength Someone did mention an article in the Times that the savings that Reeves envisage won't materialise so it is possible that this Govt will come back to claw even more money off us. Didn't read the Times article due to their blasted paywall (and if you do subscribe it is a nightmare to cancel, apparently)
  
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rookie · 3 hours ago
Oh, well that's all perfectly clear then. Hip hooray 🙄
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rtbcpart2 · 4 hours ago
It is something of a relief to see this taken up by B&W. Well spotted @Frances who posted the Daily Record article in the previous thread.

In terms of making it up as they go along, loving @tintack's comment:

'Or to put it another way, "we announced this cobblers without having the faintest idea how any of it will actually work"'

Still feeling nervous with regard to how they might try to phase out pension age pip.
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CaroA · 5 hours ago
Prince William Is a Voice for Mental Health—Could He Speak Up Now? And get through to the King to advocate for us with Kier Starmer.

A Suggested Letter You Can Send.... and please post this and perhaps the one suggested for the king on other forums.

As someone who has championed mental health and supported vulnerable communities, Prince William may be in a unique position to understand the distress and fear being caused by the proposed disability benefit reforms.

He also understands illness within a family and the quiet toll it takes. At this crucial moment—before irreversible changes are pushed through Parliament—he may be able to influence how these issues are understood at the very top. Perhaps even speaking to his father about this.

Below is a respectful one-page letter that you can send to him. I suggest adding a short handwritten message or note of your own. You can simply use this letter to express solidarity—or adapt it to share your personal story.

---

Address for posting:

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
Clarence House
London
SW1A 1BA

........

A Personal Request Regarding Disability Benefit Reform

Dear Prince William,

I am writing to you because of your deep commitment to mental health and your compassion for those navigating life through loss, illness, or hardship.

You’ve spoken openly about the impact of grief and the importance of listening to people whose pain often goes unseen. Right now, many of us living with long-term illness and disability—especially those with mental health conditions, trauma, or invisible struggles—are facing enormous fear due to the proposed changes to disability benefits.

These changes are due to go to a parliamentary vote in June, yet the government’s own impact assessments on how they will affect people won’t be published until the autumn. Major changes are being pushed through before the evidence has even been seen—and many of the most harmful proposals were excluded from the public consultation altogether.

If passed, these changes could take away essential support from over a million disabled people. Those of us already living with anxiety, depression, complex PTSD, or long-term physical and neurological conditions are being retraumatised—facing the threat of being forced into work we cannot sustain, or left unable to survive at all.

We know that you speak with both compassion and clarity on issues that matter. We hope you might raise this situation with your father, His Majesty The King, who meets regularly with the Prime Minister. At the very least, we ask for the vote to be delayed until proper consultation and evidence is available.

There are so many of us: quiet carers, volunteers, and isolated ill and disabled people already doing our best in extremely difficult and devastating circumstances. Our voices are not being heard.

You have done so much to make mental health visible. Please, help make this visible too.

With respect and sincerity,
[Space for name or handwritten message]
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CaroA · 5 hours ago
Thank you B&W better news but for the majority that are still going to be badly affected a suggestion below:

King Charles Has an Audience Each Week with Keir Starmer.

King Charles meets with Prime Minister Keir Starmer every week. This gives him a unique opportunity to quietly raise urgent concerns at the highest level—particularly around the impact of the proposed disability benefit reforms.

Below is a suggested one-page document that you can print and send to Buckingham Palace. I suggest adding a short handwritten note or message of your own—your personal voice can make a real difference. T

Address for posting:

His Majesty The King
Buckingham Palace
London
SW1A 1AA
........

Please Can You Raise This With the Prime Minister As Soon As Possible
A Personal Appeal Regarding Disability Benefit Reforms

We are writing to ask that you urgently raise with the Prime Minister the serious concerns surrounding the proposed disability benefit reforms, due for a parliamentary vote in June 2025.

These are among the most significant changes to the UK’s welfare system in decades. Yet the impact assessments on how these reforms will affect disabled people won’t be available until autumn 2025—months after MPs are being asked to vote.

How these changes are being handled is devastating. The Green Paper consultation has excluded many of the most significant and damaging proposals. Major changes are being implemented without proper consultation or scrutiny, leaving those most affected without a voice in the process.

These changes must be stopped. Reform of the benefits system must not be rushed through with such brutality, bypassing scrutiny and silencing the voices of those most affected.

These reforms risk removing vital support from over a million disabled people—many with long-term, complex, and invisible conditions. They may be forced into unsustainable jobs or left without enough to survive.

Many of us are trapped in a rigid system that actively deters us from being able to get paid work, yet offers no alternative recognition of the ways we still contribute—through unpaid care, volunteering, and supporting our communities. If that minimal support is removed, much of that quiet contribution will disappear too.

The wider fallout will be severe. Informal care will collapse. GP surgeries, mental health services, food banks, and emergency care will be overwhelmed. Suicide and homelessness will increase. Hundreds, possibly thousands, may already have died by suicide under the current system.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that the UK’s treatment of disabled people is not only inadequate—it is harmful. Yet instead of launching a public inquiry into these deaths, the government is pressing forward with the same approach that has already caused irreparable harm.

You have spoken openly about illness and its toll. You are in a unique position to reflect the human cost of these decisions.

We ask you to use your influence to urge the Government to halt these reforms—or at the very least, delay the vote until the impact assessment is published and a proper, open consultation is held. The current approach has alienated thousands who already feel unheard and abandoned.

A moment of pause could restore some faith that our lives—and voices—still matter.
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pusscatsmum · 5 hours ago
thankyou
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Quietplease · 5 hours ago
"people over State Pension Age are not routinely fully reviewed and will not be affected by the proposed changes.” BECAUSE WHAT??

Also, if someone in this group gets a light touch review but has no 4 point descriptors, will they pass the review without being downgraded? I
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  James · 1 hours ago
  
  @sara They are winging it !
  
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  sara · 4 hours ago
  
  @Quietplease @Quitplease, exactly, no room for complacency. It seems as if they're trying to leave pensioners out of the cuts, but they haven't even properly sewn that up, as your observation shows. More questions to ask of the man Timms, I think.
  
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