Under-22s will not get incapacity benefits under welfare shake-up

Under-22s with long-term illnesses or disabilities will no longer be able to claim a health top-up on universal credit under government plans.

It was one of the measures announced by Work Secretary Liz Kendall in a shake-up of the benefits system she said would cut UK’s growing welfare bill.

Some 66,000 18 to 21-year-olds are currently claiming the benefit and the money saved by stopping it will be reinvested into training for young people, the government has said.

Kendall said the reforms will mean “fairness” for long-term sick and disabled people, but disability campaigners have called them “dangerous cuts”.

Under the current system, those over the age of 18 but under state pension age in England, Wales, and Scotland can get incapacity benefits on top of universal credit if the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) assesses them as too sick to work.

However, in a paper published by DWP on Tuesday, it proposed raising this age to 22.

The paper also proposed raising the age at which people can claim the adult disability benefit, known as the personal independence payment (Pip), up from 18.

The government is looking for feedback on the proposals alongside other suggested reforms in the white paper before the end of June.

None of the reforms would affect Northern Ireland, which has a different system where most benefits are paid out through Jobs and Benefits offices managed by the Department for Communities.

The reforms come as part of a wider push by Labour to cut spending by reducing the number of people on incapacity benefits, which is forecast to reach a record high by the end of the decade.

Experts say the increase is due to a combination of worse mental health since the pandemic and a higher retirement age meaning some are instead claiming incapacity benefits.

Starmer said he is “not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people – especially young people – who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system”.

However, Disability Rights UK said that barring under-22s from claiming the health element of universal credit alongside the proposal to increase assessments “mark dangerous cuts for all disabled people”.

The charity added that the package of reforms was “not about supporting disabled people into work, but making brutal and reckless cuts”.