Benefit cuts Disabled people fear domino effect from losing Pip

When ministers announced an overhaul to welfare payments last week that will result in an estimated 1.2 million disabled people losing eligibility for personal independence payments (Pip), they did not mention the sweeping knock-on effects.

- Frances Ryan

Because Pip is a "gateway", any disabled person who loses the benefit will not only lose that income but other entitlements too, such as free prescriptions and council tax deductions. Most starkly, removing someone's Pip will mean their unpaid carer losing carer's allowance - in effect pulling away two main strands of a family's income at once.

The Guardian spoke to three readers who could be affected.

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Before Will Evans fell ill with fibromyalgia and arthritis, he dreamed of using his film studies degree to launch a career as a filmmaker. Then disability hit and he had to move back to live with his father in Wallasey, Merseyside.

Now 29, Evans has his father as his carer. After his father's council job was cut during the Covid pandemic, the two of them rely on Pip, universal credit (UC) and carer's allowance to get by.

But he fears he will not qualify for Pip under its new, tightened criteria. "The system is already stacked against people with invisible or variable disabilities. I may have one 'good day' followed by three when I can barely get to the bathroom," he says.

If Evans stops being eligible for Pip, he will lose £593 a month. But, in a domino effect, his father would also lose his entitlement to carer's allowance and with it, £307 a month - money that goes on food, fuel and car costs. When the work capability assessment is scrapped by 2028 and the only way to get the health component of UC is through Pip, Will could lose another £400 a month.

The result would be devastating: the family's total income would drop by more than two-thirds.

"That's an amount which is absolutely not possible to sustain us," he says. "We already had to move in with my brother because we can't make rent on our benefits."