On 3 June 2025, Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, suggested that tightening the conditions for personal independence payments would function as a driver for ‘behavioural change’.
Proposed cuts to disability support
Although the proposed cuts to disability benefits have been temporarily placed on hold pending the outcome of the Timms Review in 2026, Timms’s use of this phrase has raised concern given the implicit suggestion that claimants may tailor the information that they provide to maximise their chances of receiving a benefits award.
The suggestion, in effect, is that claimants cannot be trusted to tell the truth simply because they are claimants. Critics argue this assumption is not only unfair but also further reinforces the idea that claims for disability benefits are driven by attempts to defraud rather than arising from genuine experiences of disability and ill-health.
In fact, rather than exaggerating their conditions for the maximum amount of pecuniary gain, claimants often struggle to communicate the severity and impact of their disability at all; especially when those conditions fluctuate, are related to mental health, and are not adequately covered by the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP’s) descriptors for assessment.
For example, whether a person can walk 200 metres or prepare a simple meal is important for assessing some physical disabilities. But it’s irrelevant to a broad range of neurological and mental health conditions, including PTSD and complex trauma as a result of childhood abuse, domestic violence and other experiences of violent crime. People in this group in particular struggle to communicate the full impact of their disability when just admitting it to themselves can take decades or longer to achieve.
A toxic and disablist narrative
This is where critics describe Timms’s suggestion as particularly uninformed and short-sighted. To be faced with a suggestion that claimants are inflating the impact of their disabilities for financial gain when they frequently struggle to communicate it at all owing to a lengthy and complex application process is a profound injustice, and campaigners argue that such remarks fail to acknowledge the realities many disabled people face.
This narrative can also be seen as hypocritical and driven by the idea that the goose is entitled to freshly made Cumberland sauce, while own brand tomato ketchup is more than enough for the lowly gander.
Parliament can legitimately change the rules to restrict access to benefits, but claimants’ efforts to navigate an increasingly complex, obscure, and labile application process just to cover the costs of food, fuel and the expenses generated by their particular disabilities are thus positioned as dishonest and not representative of genuine ill-health.
In reality, disabled people are far from living the high-life courtesy of the public purse. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 30% of disabled people were in poverty in 2022–23, which was 10% higher than the poverty rate for non-disabled people. Meanwhile a hostile and inflexible application process, coupled with the inadequate safeguarding of vulnerable claimants by the DWP, has contributed to – and arguably caused – a significant number of early deaths.
People do not choose dependency
Ella Smith, the welfare rights consultant for the ME Association, responded with a statement that: “People do not choose dependency – they are navigating illness within the confines of their health. The suggestion that individuals will adjust their behaviour to retain benefits is not only medically inaccurate but also deeply stigmatising.”
This idea is also profoundly misleading and disregards the extent to which the application process – with all of its complexity, intrusiveness and disturbing lack of respect for the privacy of claimants – is itself a cause of worsening ill health and stress-related behaviours.
In short, claimants do not magnify their disabilities for financial gain. It is the application process itself that makes their conditions worse, so placing the onus on claimants by suggesting that they do is transparent gaslighting and a profoundly dishonest attempt to divert attention away from the impact of a punitive and harmful system that disregards the human cost of such fundamental disrespect.
The impact of DWP actions
In many cases, it is not claimant behaviour but the conduct of the DWP itself that is the problem.
Just today, I met a gentleman with an immune deficiency who lost first his job and then his home during the Covid pandemic because his employer would not allow him to work from home. He told me that the benefits system was so difficult to access – and the DWP’s attitude so bad – that he had completely disengaged from them and intended to live on the streets until he was old enough to claim his workplace pension. He was so clearly not the stereotypical, ‘disability-faking scrounger’ that has become the politically convenient – and invented – target of government and the UK media.
Another example is the DWP’s treatment of me as a disabled claimant. I have received Employment Support Allowance and personal independence payment (PIP) for around 10 years due to Complex PTSD caused by prolonged childhood abuse. This condition makes me especially vulnerable to emotional and psychological harm, particularly from institutions like the DWP.
Recently, I was notified of both a PIP review and a forced migration to universal credit. I requested two reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010:
- that all communication take place via email and that I submit my PIP review as a PDF, to enable management of my complex trauma symptoms during completion of the form.
- that my ID be verified through documents (passport, utility bills, national insurance number) rather than a home visit, as my home is my essential safe space for the management of my condition.
My first request was ignored for weeks. A DWP staff member breached this by repeatedly calling me despite my written request. When I didn’t answer, she misled me into answering by claiming she just wanted to confirm my ID and then used the call to threaten me with loss of my benefits if I didn’t comply without asking for reasonable adjustments. The DWP only agreed to email communication after intervention from the Equality Advisory & Support Service, my MP, and my housing association.
The staff member later falsely claimed that I had refused reasonable adjustments and continued to pressure me, stating: “If inaction on your part continues you may find yourself without benefit…” – reversing the truth and blaming me (known in the profession as DARVO – deny, attack, reverse victim offender).
My second request was refused without reason. The same staff member insisted on a home visit and reiterated her threat that my income would cease if I didn’t comply, despite evidence from my housing association that a home visit isn’t required. She later suggested a doorstep ID check by “trauma-informed” staff – ignoring the fact that threatening someone’s safety and livelihood undermines any claim to trauma sensitivity.
This treatment violates the Equality Act and my basic human rights. Yet such abuses happen to disabled claimants daily, without consequence.
Adapting behaviour or faking to get a pay rise?
Advocates also question why politicians are entitled to adapt their behaviours to access higher salaries and advance their careers, while the survival strategies of disabled and low-income individuals are met with suspicion and injustice.
Is the message, in fact, that claimants do not deserve the basic essentials that allow them to live?
Ed: Yorkshire Bylines contacted the DWP and invited them to respond, but received no reply.
