‘I’m an Oxford student claiming PIP

The Government is poised to cut Personal Independence Payments (PIP) payments, it has been reported, in an attempt to save up to £6bn from the benefits bill.

This week, Sir Keir Starmer warned MPs that the Government could not “shrug our shoulders and look away” from problems in the welfare system amid backbench concerns over expected reforms.

Welfare reforms first put forward by the Tories in 2024 were predicted to save £3.4bn by 2028-29. However, Labour’s plan is expected to go even further in an effort to make savings of up to £6bn by the end of the decade.

The package will lead to PIP payments being hit hardest, reports have said.

PIP is a non-means-tested benefit given to those with a long-term condition or disability to help them with the additional costs of being disabled.

Recipients receive either £72.65 or £108.55 per week for daily living and/or either £28.70 or £75.75 weekly for mobility.

Here, two PIP claimants tell The i Paper about their experiences.

‘I see people expressing strong opinions about PIP with absolutely no basis’

Sorrel Eyres, 24, is in their final year studying modern languages at the University of Oxford. They are autistic and have ADHD, dyspraxia, and OCD. They are a powerchair user and have hypermobility spectrum disorder, which causes chronic pain, and POTS and functional neurological disorder which together affect mobility.

My wheelchair is the first thing people see, but if I say I’m at Oxford, they’ll say “Wow, that’s amazing, you’re going to have an amazing career!” If I tell somebody I’m on PIP and I’m disabled, it’s like: “Well, that’s your life over.”

The undercurrent of feeling around PIP has become stronger. I see people expressing strong opinions with absolutely no basis. The general non-disabled public does not understand what PIP does, what it’s for and why we get it. It stands for Personal Independence Payment, and it’s not work-based.

On social media, I get comments calling me a benefits scrounger. The urge is to say, “Well, actually, I’ve nearly got an Oxford degree,” which is ridiculous because that’s not why it’s so important.

I am on benefits. I am on PIP. I have been on other benefits in the past because I have been off sick throughout my degree – those things can co-exist. What I’m seeing in the media now is a cognitive dissonance where they can’t conceive of somebody that they deem to be productive in society – getting a degree or working – also doing something they deem to be unproductive – requiring support and benefits.

I would never be able to work without some level of safety net for additional costs and it’s so taxing to have that uncertainty continually dangled over you.

I first applied for PIP in 2022. Every month there’s something that I have to buy or replace, as well as ongoing costs. I buy ready-prepared food because I’m unable to cook for myself, and I pay for laundry services and cleaning – PIP only assesses your ability to get dressed. Apparently, clean clothes are just going to magically appear.

My PIP also pays for medical supplies that are recommended by NHS medical professionals but are not available on the NHS, like joint supports, knee braces, and compression socks. I try to save as much of it as I can for security with my mobility.

Because NHS wheelchair services are so limited in scope, and I have seizures, I can’t have a powerchair through my local service. Maintaining my chair is something I do with PIP.

In February, it broke down and the resulting costs, not including any of my regular costs, was two months’ PIP in a week. I’m a finalist at Oxford: I need to be at my classes. I do hate that I justify that by saying I’m doing a degree because that makes it sound like my needs are more than somebody who isn’t able to work or study.

That’s how you frame it to get people to understand the value of the mobility aid and the money to maintain it. But my PIP is what enables me to go out and see my friends, to see the sunshine and leave the house. It shouldn’t be based on the value that my potential degree can return to society.

The Government are trying to associate PIP with the LCWRA component of UC, which is inaccurate as PIP is not related to work. They are relying on the general public to not know that and just lump it in together with the idea of general “work-shy disabled people,” which is gross, obviously.

As a disabled person, I have a massive privilege in that having a degree makes me more employable than somebody who’s disabled without one. But I’ve already experienced discrimination in the workplace.

I’m not so naïve to think that it’s going to be easy. Are there going to be employers willing to employ me? There’s already that uncertainty without that around PIP.

The mental effect of this drip, drip of the proposed changes has been going on for months now with this Government and the last government. The threat that somebody’s going to take away the money that contributes towards the extra costs of disability is really hard when it comes to planning for a future after my degree.

‘The disabled are the only minority group that anybody can become a part of at any time’

Paul Kavanagh, 62, is an author from South Ayrshire and a columnist for The National. He had a stroke at the height of the pandemic in October 2020 and has had Personal Independent Payments for three years.

PIP is supposed to help pay for the additional costs that come with being disabled. Those don’t go away just because Keir Starmer and some bean counters in Westminster decide that they’re going to cut benefits.

I can’t use public transport or go to the shops without assistance. Someone has to cut my food up for me because I can’t manage it myself. If it wasn’t for the fact that my long-suffering husband does all these things for me, I would have to pay for somebody to do it.

The disabled are the only minority group that anybody can become a part of at any time. Having a stroke wasn’t on my radar – I was perfectly fit and healthy. The ambulance was supposed to get to me within 18 minutes, but it took them nearly an hour because of staff shortages. I don’t blame them for that at all. People like me are unrecognised casualties of the pandemic.

I’ve been left with far greater disabilities than I otherwise would have because they arrived too late to inject me with clot-busting drugs, so the stroke took out a huge chunk of my right parietal lobe. Fortunately, it left my language centres untouched. I would have found that psychologically much harder to deal with because I’m a gobs***e.

I was paralysed completely down one side of my body for two months. I had to learn how to walk again. I can’t walk more than a few metres now and I need a stick. I’ve only got one functioning hand, and it’s the one that wasn’t dominant before the stroke.

It’s like managing with one hand tied behind your back. I have issues with balance and co-ordination, with visual agnosia, and with processing visual information on the left, which is why I can’t drive, even with an adapted car.

You don’t realise how many things you need two hands for until you’ve only got one. I need help to get pill bottles open because childproof things are also stroke-proof. I can’t even butter a sandwich, or use kitchen aids because I have a high risk of injuring myself. I also have psoriasis, and I can’t put on my cream.

Even so, I had a nightmare getting on PIP. I’d heard it would be, and I put it off for a year. In my assessment, they said that I didn’t have any mobility needs, that I could prepare a simple meal with the aid of disability aids and that I was able to manage my medication unassisted. They just made things up.

When you appeal for a mandatory reassessment, as I did, the very first thing they tell you is you could lose your benefit. It feels like you’re being threatened. I got letters from my occupational therapist and physiotherapist, both of whom discharged me because I was not going to improve. These letters said quite specifically that my disability needs would be lifelong: DWP gave me a three-year award.

With PIP, you feel like you’ve been treated as a criminal. You have to talk to an unsympathetic stranger about the help you need to do a s**t. It’s demeaning and degrading. I can’t even hold a pen, but you have to fill in PIP forms on paper. I had to get my husband to take me to a Disability Rights Centre so that they could fill it in.

But last month, I was transferred onto the Scottish adult disability payment. It’s the same money, but the assessment process is more medically based, and they don’t treat you as though you’re a liar. It also has online forms. I can’t type on a mobile, but I can manage a full keyboard.

I’m not out of the woods, however, because the money the Scottish government gets is determined by how much money is spent on the equivalent services in England and Wales.

And if the UK Government is cutting funding for disability benefits in England, then the amount that they give to the Scottish Government to administer disability benefits in Scotland will also be cut. It has a knock-on effect everywhere, even though the actual benefit itself is devolved.

Not all disabled people can articulate their experiences, and those of us who can articulate our experiences must speak up for those who can’t. There’s no point at all in dwelling on the things you can’t do. You have to focus on what you can. And if I can embarrass Keir Starmer, I’ll be very happy.