Included in the Green Paper, are the suggested replacing PIP with a vouchers or one off grants rather than ongoing benefit payments. Disabled people are also asked to rank their spending priorities – for example choosing whether it is more important that they have money for food or money for medication. In addition, proposals include both changing PIP eligibility rules and PIP assessment criteria.
For further detailed information see: PIP Reform Green Paper’s Clear Agenda Is Reducing Financial Support To Disabled People Says DR UK.
Both prior to the General Election and since, the Labour Party has not said that it would withdraw the PIP consultation. We would hope and ask that it does so.
However, given that this is uncertain, DR UK believes Disability Peoples Organisations (DPOs), allies and Disabled people should take the opportunity to firmly respond and reject the Green Paper proposals. And make it abundantly clear to the new Government that any introduction of any of them would be unacceptable and would be vigorously opposed.
The Modernising support for independent living: the health and disability Green Paper is available from gov.uk.
A summary of the consultation questions is available here.
Information on how to respond to the consultation is available here.
At the bottom of this web page are two documents:
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DR UK’s Personal Independence Paper Green Paper Explainer
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DR UK’s Full response to the Green Paper.
We would welcome our submission being used as a template for DPOs, allies and Disabled people on which to base their own Green Paper responses while making amendments and additions relevant to them.
The deadline for sending responses to the Green Paper proposals is the 22 July 2024.