In 2022, 36-year-old Robert Lewis lost his Motability car after a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) reassessment.
The reassessment was “dreadful”, the father-of-four told The i Paper, and it left him “stranded”.
Robert was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2016, a lifelong autoimmune condition that affects the brain and spinal cord and causes extreme fatigue and mobility problems, alongside other issues.
“I was paralysed before I got the diagnosis,” Robert added. “I got weaker and slower. I was experiencing back pain, and then I lost control and function of my lower body.”
Robert managed to rehabilitate and learn to walk unaided, but his condition fluctuates so he needs support to get around.
He had been using the car, funded by his PIP via the Motability scheme, to travel to and from university at St Mary’s in west London where he was studying sports rehabilitation. Prior to being diagnosed with MS, Robert was a personal trainer and security guard.
“I was reassessed on the phone,” Robert said. “It was like I wasn’t even being listened to. I had to go to tribunal, and in the end I was told I could have a vehicle. I’d done everything I could to go to university, and then I was suddenly trying to win a court case.”
Robert told of his “awful” experience of being reassessed at a roundtable event in North London just as the interim report from the Timms Review of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) was released.
Sixty-three-year-old psychotherapist Indu Karana also has MS. She had a “traumatic” experience after being told by doctors her condition had worsened so much that she needed to reapply for PIP and request the enhanced payment.
After filling out an online reassessment form, Indu was not only denied the enhanced rate of PIP, she had her standard rate revoked. “I felt invisible,” she said. “It was shocking.”
A roundtable discussion, including Robert and Indu, about reform to PIP takes place in London with minister Sir Stephen TimmsLike Robert, Indu eventually managed to get her PIP reinstated but says she “hasn’t dared to ask for the higher rate again just in case”.
Speaking after the roundtable, which was hosted by the MS Society, Sir Stephen Timms, the Minister for Social Security and Disability, told The i Paper he had heard Robert and other people, speak of “degrading” and “dehumanising” encounters with the PIP assessment.
During his exclusive interview, Timms said he was concerned that horror stories of reassessments like Robert’s meant that PIP itself was now “a barrier” to disabled people’s “participation” in society.
As a result, pending the final report of the Timms Review’s committee, he said “it is entirely possible that we will come up with a completely different way of assessing eligibility for PIP” and that the current points-based system of assessment is likely going to be replaced.
Britain will spend £23bn on PIP this financial year, and the cost is forecast to rise to £41.5bn (without inflation factored in) by 2031.
“People don’t want to participate as fully as they could,” Timms said, in work or exercise, for example, “because they worry that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is going to come along and say, ‘Oh, you can do those things after all, therefore you don’t need your benefit’.”
This has caused Timms to conclude that Labour needs to come up with “a radically different” way of assessing who is eligible for disability benefits.
Timms’ contrasts from the PIP reforms announced by former Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall in 2025, which sparked not only a rebellion among Labour’s backbench MPs but panic and condemnation from disabled people and charities in the sector.
The interim report also reflects that people with disabilities have a wide range of conditions and needs which the current points-based assessment, as in Robert’s case, doesn’t always capture.
The interim report’s co-chairs, Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson CBE, also noted that the cost of out-of-work support varies from person to person. Clenton revealed he needs a specialist wheelchair which costs £17,000, which is currently saving up for himself because it is not available via the NHS.
Sir Stephen Timms speaks to The i Paper‘s Vicky SprattThe i Paper understands that the final report from the Timms Review will likely call for employers to play a more active role in supporting people with disabilities in the future.
PIP began to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in 2013. Unlike DLA, which often gave people lifetime benefits, PIP requires regular review, and if someone’s conditions worsen, they must apply for the enhanced rate of the benefit as opposed to the lesser standard rate.
More than 100,000 people with ADHD as their main condition now receive PIP, the latest government figures show, an increase of 40 per cent in these cases since Labour came to power two years ago.
There may be a change in the system so that people with anxiety, for instance, are offered services instead of cash. Waiting lists also vary around the country and may also be part of an overhaul.
The report also flags that people with disabilities at times seek advice from unqualified sources on social media.
Timms told The i Paper that this was “part of the challenging environment” that the DWP must now operate in.
A government source added: “It’s unacceptable for companies and individuals to exploit vulnerable claimants, charge them part of their award, or encourage incorrect claims – and we are looking at penalties for those who do this.”
Ceri Smith, head of policy and evidence at the MS Society, told The i Paper: “The Timms Review is right to conclude that PIP is not fit for purpose. People with MS consistently tell us that the process fails to capture the impact of fluctuating symptoms, and that the mobility assessment is too rigid and restrictive.”
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