Sir Keir Starmer is trying to head off a Labour backbench rebellion over plans to restrict access to personal independence payments (PIP), worth up to £800 a month to disabled people.
But welfare experts and campaigners told The i Paper that Labour’s drive to squeeze PIP is “unfair and misdirected” since fraud for the disability benefit is so low.
The latest figures show overall benefit fraud fell to £6.5bn in 2024-25, down from a record high of £7.4bn the previous year.
Benefit fraud remains higher than before the Covid crisis, and DWP minister Andrew Western recently described the sums being lost each year as “staggering”.
Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick, a social security expert at Ulster University, criticised the rhetoric used by the Government to justify its PIP cuts.
Dr Fitzpatrick said the Government had “suggested some people are exaggerating conditions, particularly mental health conditions, and are claiming PIP when they don’t deserve it”.
Georgina Colman, a PIP claimant and founder of Purpl discount website for disabled people, said the push to restrict PIP was “so unfair”.
New, tougher qualifying criteria will see around 800,000 PIP claimants lose an average of £4,500 per year, according to government estimates.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has announced billions of pounds in benefit cuts (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing)The Government expects to save £4.8bn a year from the reforms by 2030. It also expects to save £1.5bn over the next five years by boosting its fraud-busting powers.
It means some people can lie about their savings – or about how much work they are doing – to meet the universal credit criteria.
Parts of the PIP assessment process – which relies on medical evidence to judge how much support someone needs with daily living and getting around – are “somewhat subjective or vague”, he said.
Waters said the current level of universal credit fraud “does strike me as high”. But the IFS expert said a major push to crack down on it was a “trade-off” for the DWP because it would take a lot of resources.
Some Labour MPs have vowed to vote against benefit cuts (Photo: David Mirzoeff/Disability Rights UK)
The DWP has plans to recruit another 3,000 staff in a bid to claw back more of the benefit money being lost to fraudsters.
It will grant the DWP the power to ask banks and building societies to verify a benefit claimant’s financial details to check up on their eligibility.
Erhardt also said it was “unfair to focus so heavily on PIP” in welfare cuts when “the level of fraud is next to nothing”.
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Reed is worried some older people who get pension credit will be “red flagged” by DWP staff “when there might be a simple mistake”.
There was £270m-worth of pension credit fraud last year, a small part of the overall £6.5bn loss. “I don’t think pension credit is a huge problem. It’s universal credit where most fraud occurs,” said Reed.
Baroness Altmann said some older people claiming the top-up benefit may have “misunderstood” complicated questions on the application form or “genuinely forgotten” about some of their savings.
MPs on the public accounts committee warned in 2021 that the Covid crisis had opened up weaknesses in the DWP’s systems, which both “organised criminals and dishonest opportunistic individuals have used to steal from the taxpayer”.
“The vast majority of people who are currently getting PIP will continue to receive it,” they added. “We’re creating a sustainable welfare system that genuinely supports sick or disabled people while always protecting those who need it most.”
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