Episode 25: Are government reforms to disability benefits and support going to work?

The government has set out new measures to cut benefits and boost employment for disabled people. But will its strategy work? Tom Pollard, Head of Social Policy at the New Economics Foundation and a seasoned commentator joins us to discuss what is proposed and gives his view on whether the measures will be effective.

The Trust has funded various reports on disability and low-to-middle incomes including:

Financial Wellbeing of Disabled People in the UK
Financial Fairness Tracker Disability
Social and economic impact of the pandemic on disabled parents

Transcript

Mubin Haq: Welcome again to the Financial Fairness Podcast, with me Mubin Haq.

Our focus today is the growing numbers who are disabled and in ill health, a group that has grown considerably since the pandemic. 
In particular, we've seen a big rise in people claiming incapacity and disability benefits, which have risen by 1.5 million since 2019 – and that trend is set to continue, which means a higher social security bill.
With the government facing significant fiscal constraints, it’s set out new measures to cut benefits but also to boost employment for disabled people. But will its strategy work?
Joining me today is Tom Pollard, who is Head of Social Policy at the New Economics Foundation and a seasoned commentator on these issues. Prior to this, Tom trained as a mental health social worker and continues to work shifts in NHS mental health services. Hi, Tom. Thanks for joining us. 

Tom Pollard: Hi, Mubin. 

Mubin: There have been the number of proposed changes to Social Security and employment support recently. Especially in relation to what's called health related benefits or disability benefits, ill health benefits. But before we get on to that, can you just give us a bit of background? Maybe if we start off with what's been happening to the employment rates for disabled people? 

Tom: Yeah, sure. The first thing to say is to define what we mean by disability in this context. So, under the Equality Act, if you've got a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long t erm negative effect on your ability to do day to day normal activities, that's defined in law as disability. We’ve seen around 2.5 million more disabled people in work over the last decade. But there's also been an increase of about 3.5 million people identifying as disabled over that same period. And policymakers talk about this thing called the disability employment gap, which is the difference between the employment rate of disabled and non-disabled people. And this has fluctuated a bit over the last decade, but generally it's been slowly closing. So it's gone from about a 34 percentage point gap in 2014 to 28 percentage points, now. 
And both those trends have probably been driven in quite large part by people who were already in work or have become, disabled or newly identified as disabled, rather than lots of people who are out of work with disabilities moving back into work, because we've also seen a big increase, particularly in the last six years, in the number of people who are out of work and not expecting to return to work because of illness and disability, and that gets called economic inactivity. That's gone from about 2 million people in 2019 to about 2.8 million people now. 

Mubin: But that disability employment gap is quite significant at something like 28 percentage points. Why haven't we made more progress on that? 

Tom: Particularly over the last sort of 10 to 15 years that I've been working on these issues, there has been a lot of focus on trying to move more people back from being long term unemployed due to disability and health, back into work, and often those schemes have struggled. I mean, I'd argue that's partly because there's also been a lot of focus on trying to contain costs in the disability benefits system. So a lot of people in that position have often ended up feeling like they have to protect what they have in terms of the support they receive. And there's been a lot of fear about, well, if I try to move back into work, will I risk losing my benefits? Will it be hard to get back on those benefits? So that there has been this real climate of fear and caution and anxiety. 
But also a lot of the things that we know make a big difference in terms of whether or not people can stay in work when they are unwell, and whether they feel able to, to return to work. A lot of that comes down to things like really good quality line management. And I if I'm frank, I just don't think that's something we've like sufficiently prioritised in this country. And certainly if you look at jobs at the lower end of the labour market, a lot of people there may not get anything that looks like real formal line management. They may have a shift manager, but the idea of having that pastoral support, someone you can go to, who you feel you can talk to when you're struggling, I think is lacking, particularly at the lower end of the labour market. 

Mubin: Yep. And, just on the disability employment programmes. How extensive are they and when does support actually kick in for people? Is it from day one or is it you've been on benefits for quite a long time and then you might get some support? 

Tom: Yeah. So a lot of the level of access to support has been defined around what gets called conditionality. So the Department for Work and Pensions makes an assessment of basically the extent to which they feel it's appropriate to require you to move back towards work and, and so a lot of support has been structured in terms of does the Department feel it's okay to mandate you to attend that support.
And actually there's been there's been relatively little effort to offer voluntary support to people who are assessed as it not being appropriate to mandate those people. So we've seen a big growth in the group who are assessed as, what's called ‘limited capability for work related activity’ is a very it's a very technical term for it, but basically means the Department doesn't think it's appropriate to mandate you to seek work. So actually for people in that position there isn’t that much support. 
And the argument I would make is, well, you know, there's no reason why you can't offer most people support on a voluntary basis. And actually, for a lot of people, in this position, long term unemployment due to disability ill health, that there it doesn't tend to be a lot of support proactively made available to them. 

Mubin: Yeah, that paints quite a grim picture really, in terms of what's on offer. And we’re often given this impression that people aren't trying hard enough, but it sounds like as if the system isn't really geared up to providing the support that's needed either.

Tom: Yeah. And I think some of this has been recognised by the government. The way that they describe the challenge we're facing in a White Paper that was put out last year really recognised that the challenge is about how do you genuinely engage people, how do you overcome a culture where there's been a real focus on just trying to make peoplecomply with quite tick box processes?And how do you look beyond the benefits system to the wide range of factors that might be stopping someone moving towards work and also understand the dynamics of that relationship, right? So a lot of people haven't had a lot of trust in DWP. Their main experience of interacting with the Department has been sort of battling to get the support they feel they need.
And so inevitably, they're going to be wary about engaging in a process that they see as potentially something that might end with them having that support taken away. So there was this good analysis of the problem and how we might move forward and thinking about localised models of support that might better achieve that. But on the back of that, we then obviously had a lot of pressure to achieve a set of shorter term savings, which has led to announcements around around cuts to benefits. And my fear is that those two things pull in opposite directions. 

Mubin: Yeah. You talked earlier about there's been quite a big rise in the number of disabled people. And you handily gave a useful definition of what that is. What have been the big rises? So, you know, there's all sorts of conditions people can have and often they can have more than one condition.
And there's been a lot of talk about mental health. Could you just give a bit more detail as to actually what is happening with that group? 

Tom: Yeah. So we've definitely seen a large increase in people declaring mental health problems. Alongside that, there's been significant increases in things like autism and ADHD. So some of this will be conditions that were almost certainly there in the past but weren't being picked up or weren't being recognised, weren't being diagnosed. 
When you look at the number of conditions people declare, it's often two, three, four, you know, even more conditions concurrently. And that might be mental health. It might be some issues around physical mobility or physical pain. It might be issues around things like diabetes or high blood pressure. So often what you're looking at is a very complex picture when it comes to someone's health. And then if you if you spend time, you know, talking to or supporting people in that position, what you often find is there's an equally complex picture when it comes to their social and economic circumstances.
And, and often it is the interplay of those things that makes things so difficult for people. 
Mubin: So you were saying partly it’s that people recognising their conditions more and particularly in relation to mental health, we've seen the destigmatisation of that which has been really positive. What are the other factors which are… how important was the pandemic, for example, in relation to this growth?

Tom: Yeah. So we know that a lot of people have really struggled in the wake of the pandemic. Whether that's formal with a a Long Covid diagnosis, but also the psychological aftermath of, of the pandemic, I guess also, you know, disability, you know, if we think about disability, in the social model. So the social model of disability says, well, the extent to which you are disabled depends in large part on the level of like accommodation and inclusivity of the society you live in, right. 
So if you live in a society that is completely accommodating and set up to support people who are in a wheelchair, for example, then being in a wheelchair becomes much less disabling than living in a society where there are high curbs everywhere and lack of lifts and ramps and, and, you know, that's that's easy to conceptualize when it comes to something like a mobility issue.
But actually, we're only just becoming more accommodating and supportive of neurodevelopmental issues like ADHD and autism. And I think the other effect of the pandemic was that it maybe brought stuff to light that might not have gotten noticed otherwise. So, you know, people who already had tough lives but then found themselves stuck in a small flat with little outdoor space and spending long periods by themselves where otherwise they may have had a bit of incidental day to day social contact that would have really escalated the impact of underlying conditions around mental health and neurodiversity. 

Mubin: Yeah. So you've painted a picture in which we've not done really well in terms of helping disabled people into work. And we're probably not very good at helping people keep their jobs either. We've got a growing number of disabled people and a number of issues interacting with that. What has that meant in relation to people claiming benefits?

Tom: Yeah. So I mean, the two the two main types of benefits that relate to the situation get referred to as incapacity benefits and disability benefits. So, so what's traditionally been called incapacity benefitsare a particular categorisation within Universal Credit, which is basically there for people who need additional financial support because they are working age, but they are unable to work because of disability or poor health. And that also generally means they're not required under the threat of benefit sanctions to take steps towards work. And that's obviously a means tested benefit. So you're only able to get that if you are, you know, on a low income and have a low level of savings. 
But then you also have disability benefits - Personal Independence Payment or Pip. And those benefits are not means tested. They're not related to whether or not you're in work. It's essentially there to recognise that if you are living with a disability, you tend to face additional costs. And you know that that will vary depending on your circumstances. 
And then in terms of what's been happening, the numbers on incapacity benefits were slowly falling for a decade, until about 2019. And then we saw this quite dramatic rise. So it pre-dated the pandemic slightly, but it has particularly accelerated in the back of the pandemic. So we've gone from about 2.2 million people on those benefits in 2019 to 3.3 million in 2024.
And then similarly, the number of working age people on disability benefits was creeping up slowly prior to the pandemic. But then again, post-pandemic, it's been a steep climb, going from about 2.3 million in 2020 to almost 2.9 million in 2024. So both those benefits have reflected that, that wider rise in disability that we've seen.
But as you say, there are many more, you know, not everyone who is disabled or declares a disability or a health condition claims those benefits. So you're still looking at half the total population who declare themselves as disabled would get support from either one of these benefits. 

Mubin: And roughly, what's the sort of, financial help that people get?

Tom: Yeah. So it depends. So, if you get the higher rate of Universal Credit, as a result of being unable to work due to disability or poor health, you get about double the basic rate. So rather than getting somewhere around, you know, that's in broad terms, rather than getting somewhere around £100 a week you get £200 a week.
The Personal Independence Payment really varies because there there's a lower and upper rate, and there's two different components, one for daily living and one for mobility. So it can vary between people getting, you know, quite a small amount, £20, £30 a week up to, maybe an additional, a couple hundred pounds a week. But again, that's reflective of, the level of disability people experience. 

Mubin: And, you can get both of them, can't you. 

Tom: Yeah, yeah. So you can get Pip alongside incapacity benefits. And actually that's there's about a 70% overlap either way. So about 70% of people who get Personal Independence Payment also get the health related part of Universal Credit and vice versa. So there are some people who get one but not the other, but a lot of people get both. 

Mubin: So you've talked about the quite substantial rise which pre-dated a bit the pandemic but probably got a bit turbocharged over that period.
What's that looking going forwards? Because I think this is probably why we've seen the government changes. And we'll come on to what the government is changing. But what's the projections going forwards? 

Tom: Yeah. So I mean, incapacity benefit, the health part of Universal Credit was due to hit 4 million people in total, by the end of the Parliament in ‘29 / ‘30. So, you know, there was, there was an ongoing rise, but actually it looked like that rise was going to level out to some point after 2027. And the cost of that was around £21 billion in 2019, in today's prices, a year that reached about £27 billion last year and was, was forecast before the cuts that were announced to hit £32 billion by the end of the parliament. 
But I think the real concern was around the trajectory of Personal Independence Payment. So that was due to increase by another 1.5 million people by the end of the parliament and hit 4.3 million, and the cost was due to essentially double between 2019 and the end of the parliament. So going from about £15 billion a year to, to £31 billion a year

Mubin: And that is quite a significant rise, you know, sort of doubling from £15 billion to £30 billion. I'm trying to remember what winter fuel allowance was. That was about £5 billion or somewhere along that magnitude. 

Tom: Yeah. We're talking about significant, significant budgets here and significant increases. 

Mubin: So we talked a bit about, you know, the rise in disability. Is that really the main driver of what's driving the rise in people claiming as well? Or are there other factors? So we hear a lot in the media of ‘these benefits are just too easy to claim’ and we've got this portrayal of, you know, ‘sickfluencers’ on social media. How accurate is this? Are these benefits really easy to claim?

Tom: As I was saying before, less than half of people who declare a disability claim one of these benefits. What we've seen is there has been an increase in the rate of disability, but there's been a concurrent increase in the financial hardship among disabled people, which we think accounts for most of the rise we've seen.

And then in terms of whether it's, whether it's become easier to get those benefits, which is the other narrative that's floating around, as you say. You know, I, I think it's very easy for people to weave this narrative without really having to support it in robust terms. When you look at the reality of the assessment process, many people find it very stressful, sometimes quite demeaning. People have to provide medical evidence. It's not like you just say, I'm feeling stressed and this and that, and suddenly that's it you're getting all this money. And, and many people get turned down. So it's not some walk in the park that you just you just skip through and end up with a paycheck at the end.

And also when we look at something like Pip, specifically the success rate at the assessment hasn't really changed that much over the, over recent years. So a lot of the stories we're hearing about, oh, it's just getting easier to get these benefits isn't really borne out in the data.

And even DWP’s own research into the triggers that lead to people seeking support from, from Pip showed that basically it tends to be a combination of worsening health, worsening financial circumstances, and then usually prompt by some formal service, often Jobcentre Plus but it might be a Citizen's Advice or NHS or some other charity, will will suggest to someone that maybe they should seek the support.
And there was very little mention in that research of, of social media playing a role. 

So for the vast majority of people, my experience is people only seek the support at the point they feel they really don't have much other choice. 

Mubin: Why do you think that narrative is gaining so much traction? 

Tom: So some of it, I think, is just there are big numbers involved, and it just feels hard for people to believe that there could have been this level of increase in need.
But we've had that with every round of cuts and reform that I've witnessed in the last 10 to 15 years. 

We go through some long process where lots of people get reassessed and the system gets tightened up, and it tends to turn out that actually people's health conditions and their social and economic circumstances are much more complex than, than the thinking behind the reform envisaged. And those, those processes tend to not achieve the scale of cuts and savings that they set out to. 

I think some of it is, you know, frankly, is just a, you know, the story of someone not reciprocating, right? So the story of someone taking something from, from the group without putting back something in return. It's just a story that as humans, we are very primed to be receptive to. You know, I'm sure that that, that that level of incentive may play some role, but it's not like you can just choose to have that higher rate if you want it. You still have to demonstrate that you meet the eligibility requirements. And actually, when the Office for Budget Responsibility looked at this they, they suggested that it's, it's the kind of threat and pressure that exists in the mainstream part of the benefit system that pushes people to, to, to, to seek a higher level of support as much as it is the financial incentive of that.

So a lot of people just struggle with the demands of being on the regular unemployment benefits. And this category benefit, yes it offers higher financial support, but it also offers a degree of protection from very strict requirements to engage with the Jobcentre that the people struggle to live up to.

Mubin: So just to unpack and just to confirm this is what you're saying, that partly what's happening is that what we'll call this sort of mainstream benefit system, the bit which doesn't give you enhancements, just isn't adequate enough. It's reduced in adequacy and also become much more tied to conditionality and sanctions. And so in the past, maybe if you had a disability, you would have not necessarily claimed, but those changes are really pushing people to make the claim. Is that right? 

Tom: Yeah, I think that's right. And the other thing that demonstrates that argument is that that there is a middle group, right? So the government's talked a lot about this being a very binary system, and you're either fit for work or you're not. But I mean, that's not true, there's a middle group that's existed since the previous Labour government brought in a benefit called Employment Support Allowance, which replaced older incapacity benefits, has now become absorbed into Universal Credit. And within that structure, there's a middle group that says we're not going to require you to actually apply for jobs because we recognise you face some barriers, but we are going to expect you to take steps towards work. And when that group was first introduced, it came with a middle rate of payment. And you saw a much, much less in terms of people appealing to get into the higher group when that middle group existed.
But the government felt that the higher rate of benefit people were receiving in that middle group was disincentivising them to get back to work. So they cut that payment down to the basic rate of Universal Credit. So you still got a degree of protection around conditionality, but you no longer got higher benefits. And the main effect of that seems to have been that you have then created a gulf between the basic rate of payment and this higher rate, which leaves people with little choice. If they think they're going to be out of work for a long time, the basic rate of Universal Credit is not designed to allow you to live long term on that income. It’s there as a short-term income replacement. And so people are forced to go into this higher group. But when that middle group existed and had a median payment attached to it, many people went into that group with that as an assessment outcome. 

Mubin: That’s incredibly interesting. So let's come on to what the government's announced. And they outlined a number of changes in relation to benefits and employment support. Can you just give us headlines in relation to that and what that will actually mean in terms of changes to people's finances?

Tom: The two big cuts they’ve announced were tightening the eligibility for the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment - a payment to recognise the challenges you face in performing day to day tasks. And so now you'd need to have a more severe impairment in at least one area of the assessment. So the assessment asks about a whole bunch of areas of your life. And, and they're upping the bar that you need to you need to pass to in order to be eligible for that. And that could mean people losing out on around £70 a week, if they miss out on that benefit.
And then they're also looking to freeze the higher rate of Universal Credit for people who are assessed as being too ill or disabled to work, it will no longer be uprated in line with inflation. But then for new claims, they're going to cut that payment by about £50 a week, so basically cut it in half. 
And they are slightly offsetting that by increasing the basic rate of Universal Credit. But basically for a lot of people, they will stand to lose a couple of hundred pounds a month if they claim Universal Credit as a new claimant once these changes have come in. 
They're talking about stopping anyone from under the age of 22 from claiming that additional payment potentially. Longer term, they're talking about scrapping the assessment that's currently used to decide whether you're unable to work because of health, disability, and rolling that into the assessment for Personal Independence Payment. And then on the employment support side of things, they're committing to spending £1 billion more a year on support for this group by the end of the parliament. But that'll get ramped up slowly over the course of the Parliament. And they talked about trying to make it easier for people to try work without jeopardising their benefits.
But then the final thing is that they're also planning to place the threat of benefit sanctions on most people currently assessed as not being able to work because of health and disability. The overall impact will be around 3.2 million people, it's projected by the end of the Parliament, will be receiving less financial support and there'll be many more people subject to benefits conditionality. Although there will be more employment support available for those people as well. 

Mubin: How much is the government proposing to save from all of this? 

Tom: So this is the tricky thing is that, you know, there’s the direct savings from the cuts, right. And but even those direct savings are hard to predict. So part of what we saw around the time of the Spring Statement was a bit of a back and forth between the Department for Work and Pensions and the OBR and Treasury, because the Department for Work and Pensions thought the savings they were putting forward were going to achieve a certain saving. And then actually the Office for Budget Responsibility came back and they said, we think it's gonna be much less than that. 
And what that comes down to really is what the Office for Budget Responsibility calls behavioural responses. So they say, well, fine, you can change the rules of the assessment. But people will probably, in response, make more of an effort to try to prove that they actually do hit this threshold. And that's partly because they've learned the lesson of previous reforms where really big savings were projected and then in reality they didn't play out that way. So there's a lot of uncertainty. But the headline figure that's been reported a lot is this idea of there being £4.8 billion of cuts. 

Mubin: Is it £4.8 billion a year? 

Tom: That's £4.8 billion a year by the end of the parliament. Yeah. Because these cuts, the savings ramp up over time as more and more people are affected by them. But analysis by both Joseph Rowntree Foundation and by NEF basically showed that figure’s partly being achieved by offsetting about £1.6 billion that would have been saved if the government had proceeded with some changes that the previous government had planned to make around the work capability assessment, tightening the criteria there. This government had loosely pencilled in those changes but never taken them forward. And on that level, our, our assessment was that you're looking at somewhere nearer kind of £6.7, £6.8 billion of cuts a year by the end of the parliament for this group. So it's a significant amount of money. And it's on a par, if not in excess of, quite big previous rounds of welfare reform that we've seen under previous governments. 
Mubin: How surprised were you by the changes? 

Tom: I mean, I think it was a combination of surprise and frustration and disappointment because, you know, as I mentioned before, there was this this government white paper last year that offered a much more what I thought was a much more compelling and positive vision for how you turn some of these issues around.
And so there was a sense of like a coherent narrative and analysis emerging about what the problem is, how you might overcome it. And this felt like a real step change. It was something very different. And if I'm frank, it felt like something that was being driven by a very different agenda. This felt like Treasury driven cuts to try to achieve short term savings that that wasn't in keeping with what the Department of Work and Pensions had been talking about and the way they'd been analysing this problem previously. So I was surprised by that. I was surprised by the severity of the cuts, I think particularly to Pip, and the fact that those cuts to Pip are just not consistent with the narrative the government's trying to put forward to justify these cuts. You know, Pip goes to people whether they're in or out of work. It's not related to employment support. And so really, it feels like the reason Pip has been targeted for the biggest cut is because it's a big cost and we're not really sure what to do about it.

Mubin: So what's been the sort of broader reaction from charities from other political parties? Have there been people coming out in support of what the government wants to do or is it being generally really negative? 

Tom: I mean, I'd say it's been fairly universally negative, if I'm honest. I think I think there was a degree of shock at first. And especially because it did feel like a real gear shift from the previous rhetoric and direction of travel on policy.
And I think you know, whilst lots of people would agree with the ambition of trying to support more ill and disabled people back towards work even very optimistic projections for the employment outcomes you may get on the back of this additional employment support - you're looking at the very most in the hundreds of thousands, but probably closer to, let's, let's say 100,000 additional people moving back into work - whilst 3.2 million people see their incomes cut.
So there's just this real disconnect that the narrative is all about. We have to do this in order to support people back into work. But my argument would be that actually making people's incomes more insecure will make it harder for many people to move back into work. And the other thing it will do is create a lot of stress and anxiety and distrust. And whilst the previous narrative was about trying to regain trust, rebuild trust with people, trying to make people feel comfortable engaging with employment support, I think it's naive to imagine that people who feel under threat of losing their benefit, that that will not have a knock on impact for the extent to which they can genuinely engage with the support.

Mubin: Yeah. I think that's quite hard sometimes for people to get their heads around. This kind of like stick approach, which, you know, that's what will force people to get into employment. But actually, that can make things worse. And if you’re the employer and you might find this person who's got huge amounts of anxiety, are stressed - are they the person that you want inside your workforce, particularly if you don't have much support systems for them?

Tom: Yeah. And there's been really interesting evidence from Katie Jones who’s an academic at Manchester Met University, that basically suggested that employers shied away from using Jobcentres as a source of recruitment because they felt that people were just being forced to apply for jobs rather than them genuinely wanting to be there. The thing that is going to help someone who faces quite complex multiple barriers to returning to work is a strong, trusting relationship one on one with someone providing that support.
The idea that you can shortcut that by saying, well, you have to come in for this appointment, cause otherwise you lose your benefits and that there'll be zero cost to that. I mean, that's, that's my frustration often with DWP, is that they underestimate the collateral damage of, of conducting things in this way. 
And I, I think instinctively when we're hearing lots of stories about people supposedly playing the system and it's easy to then generate support for the idea of, well, let's just crack down on people. But we've had 15 years of trying to do that. It doesn't really tend to make that much of an impact on employment outcomes, because the thing that makes the difference there is addressing the underlying reasons people are struggling in the first place. That might be access to healthcare, it might be issues with their housing, it might be needing access to mental health support. It could be it could be a whole range of things. 

 Mubin: And I'm guessing, from some of the polling I've seen that actually the public don't support this really either. That on balance, I mean, whilst in some ways it might be a bit split, actually they think the government's gone too far. Am I right in that assumption? 

Tom: Yeah. I think when we look in very headline terms it’s public attitudes around benefits, there's often a tendency to sort of say, yeah, we should be tougher and cracking down more.
But actually, when it comes to specific proposals, and when you're saying, ‘Well do you think this person, who struggles to, prepare meals for themselves without being prompted regularly, do you think that person should lose support?’ The public tend to be more sympathetic because they can translate that into a tangible person they can understand.
So, Joseph Rowntree Foundation commissioned some polling that suggests, actually there'll be a lot of concern about these changes among the public and across the political spectrum, people are concerned about disabled people losing out. And, I think, my guess would be you'll see a similar effect to what we've seen with the Winter Fuel payment argument that, there'll be some opposition initially, but that opposition will keep rolling on because people will see more and more people that they know or they know of who are affected by this. And once those changes translate from being something that's conceptual and theoretical to something that's very real in their communities, there will be growing discontent. 

Mubin: Lastly, do you have hope that there might be some rethinking by government in relation to this? Because we've seen them think about how they might mitigate some of the winter fuel allowance changes. Do you think we will see that here as well? 

Tom: I hope so. I mean, there is an ongoing consultation, but actually the consultation doesn't really include the major cuts that are being proposed. And so I don't think the formal process around it is likely to significantly shift the impact. But I do think the level of pressure and scrutiny from charities and think tanks, from disabled people and their organisations, some parts of the media, some MPs, I think it will make it difficult for it all to go through in its current form, without some kind of concession.
We've seen reports over the last few weeks of growing concern and discontent within the parliamentary Labour Party talks about upwards of 100 MPs considering rebelling. I don't know whether it will be a rebellion on that scale. But I do think that given the way that the discontent around the Winter Fuel Payment has rumbled on, I think there will be a fear now that just pushing ahead with this hunkering down and driving it through that may backfire. 
The other thing is, I think the even if aspects of this do get through in the current form that in some ways that's the start of the battle. Because once these changes start to roll out, one of the key roles the charities and research organisations play is documenting what that impact is and there's, there's so much uncertainty in, in the OBR projections about how many people will be impacted, to what extent, that I think there will be a growing pressure as we get more and more stories of individuals who clearly face quite significant barriers, have quite significant needs, and yet are having their support cut, that I could only see the discontent and concern growing. 

Mubin: Yeah. Well, thanks, Tom, for sharing your insights on what is a really complex area. We’ve definitely got a better overview of what the changes are and where we might see some movement from government and from others working in this field. So, thanks again. 

Tom: No, thank you.

Mubin: And thanks to all of you for listening to the Financial Fairness Podcast. If you liked this episode, please like and share and don’t forget, you can subscribe to the series through your platform of choice.Until next time, thanks for listening.