The welfare bill under pressure - Get Ready For Cuts

8th March 2025

Fraser of Allender looks at possible changes to the benefits system where the amount of pay outs has been growing fast since the pandemic.
We have heard this week that the UK Government Chancellor Rachel Reeves intends to make cuts to the welfare bill to bring UK Government borrowing down in line with her fiscal rules ahead of the next OBR forecasts due at the end of the month. Reports state that the axe is likely to fall on health and disability related benefits for working age people.

Here we produce a bit of an explainer to get people up to speed on the benefits in scope and what has been happening in recent years.

Which benefits could be in line for cuts?
There are two types of benefits in Great Britain (benefits in Northern Ireland are arranged differently) that working age people with disabilities and ill health can claim.

Incapacity Benefits
The first type is an income replacement benefit that tops up income for families where the disability or health condition limits their ability to work, commonly referred to as incapacity benefits. They are means tested so that the amount you receive depends on your household income and reduces as income (e.g. from a partner's earnings) rises.

Universal Credit (UC) has been slowly replacing Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) for this group of people since 2018 so the reduction in ESA over time reflects migration over to UC rather than a change in disability/health status.

Disability Benefits
The second type of support for those with disabilities and ill health comes from payments to cover additional costs, for example due to reduced mobility, and are commonly referred to as disability benefits. They are not means tested and people do work whilst they are on these benefits.

In Scotland this type of benefit is now devolved, with Adult Disability Payment (ADP) slowly replacing Personal Independent Payment (PIP). PIP itself was a replacement for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) which no longer takes new applications and has a caseload that is reducing over time.

Read the full article HERE