Chancellor John Healey has announced that the Government will publish its response to reviews into Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and other disability benefits before the end of this year, with the final reports due in November.
Speaking when delivering the Budget, Healey said the reviews led by Alan Milburn on young people not in education, employment, or training and by Sir Stephen Timms on disability benefits will be published in November. The Government will respond by the end of the year, with a White Paper to follow early in 2027 ahead of legislation later that year.
Treasury's 'not good enough' verdict
The Government-commissioned review into the costs and operation of PIP follows an interim report in July that branded the system "no longer fit for purpose". A total of 4.09 million people in England and Wales were entitled to claim PIP as of July 31 2026, up from 3.83 million a year earlier – a rise of 262,045, or 7%.
In the budget document released after the announcement, the Treasury said: "The government also takes seriously the conclusion of the interim report of the Timms Review, that Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is 'no longer fit for purpose' and has failed to keep pace with how disability, health and work have changed.
"This is not good enough when disability can affect anyone at any stage in their lives and almost one in four of the working-age population is classed as disabled. Following the final report of the Timms Review, the government will bring forward changes to how it supports people with disabilities and health conditions."
Young claimants for anxiety disorders
Teenagers and young adults make up nearly one in three people who have recently started claiming disability benefit for anxiety disorders, research has shown. There were 24,681 claimants of PIP in England and Wales at the end of July this year with a primary condition of anxiety disorder who had received the benefit for up to two years.
Some 7,403 of these people – 30% – were aged 16 to 24, according to analysis by the Press Association. A further 5,445, or 22%, were aged 25 to 34, suggesting more than half of recent PIP claimants for anxiety disorders have yet to reach their mid-30s.
Older age groups account for much smaller proportions of recent claimants for anxiety. While 3,391 (14%) of people who have been claiming for up to two years are aged 45 to 54, 2,649 (11%) are aged 55-64 and just 438 (2%) are 65 or over. Some 5,350 claimants (22%) are aged 35 to 44.
Statistics 'don't tell the whole story'
Consultant psychiatrist Dr Jed Boardman said the figures as they are officially recorded likely "don't tell the whole story", as many people will have "multiple disabling conditions", made up of mental and physical health symptoms, as well as other conditions such as autism.
Dr Boardman, the lead for social inclusion at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told the Press Association: "The diagnostic statistics that the Government has produced may help us understand the general picture, but they don't reveal the necessary level of detail. They can be misleading because they only tell a portion of the story about those people."
Dr Boardman said people who develop anxiety are likely to have had "adverse childhood experiences" such as physical and sexual abuse and neglect. "People who develop depression or anxiety are much more likely to have experienced those sort of experiences in childhood," he said.
A total of 72,195 claimants are listed as having anxiety disorder as their primary condition as of July 31 this year, including the 24,681 who have been receiving the benefit for up to two years. Within this total, 3,554 were listed with social phobia as their primary condition, of which 1,238 (35%) were aged 16 to 24. There were 3,851 claimants for panic disorder, of which 487 (13%) were 16 to 24-year-olds.
A Government spokesperson said: "The increase in the PIP caseload has slowed under this government, falling from 400,000 in the 12 months to July 2024, to 260,000 in the 12 months to July 2026. But as the Timms Review report made clear, PIP is no longer fit for purpose and the recommendations from its final report will lay the foundation for sustainable reform."
