This will include changes to Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payments (PIP).
In a post in X, he said: “The new ‘right to try’ a job is the long needed positive, to enable people to see if they can work, its good for people’s self-esteem and mental health.
“Yet the rest of the package is fraught with challenges.
“PIP is often an individual’s lifeline, the difference between an unsustainable life and a manageable one. The govt says those in ‘genuine need’ will be protected, yet that all boils down to matter of definition.
Having had only had time for cursory look so far at the govt’s 2026+ welfare proposals yesterday, a couple of provisional thoughts (for more analysis see the statement by my team @mmhpi)…
The new ‘right to try’ a job is the long needed positive, to enable people to see if they…
— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) March 19, 2025
“Many in need risk losing vital support. Plus those whose mental health isn’t good can struggle with administration, process and decision making and be panicked by assessment and review.
“While reducing assessments will help to that, how that new assessment is designed and structured is very important so it doesn’t tip people further into the abyss.”
Recommended reading:
Ms Kendall said the Government was taking “decisive action to fix the broken benefits system” in a bid to have a “more pro-active, pro-work system for those who can work”.
The £5 billion of savings will largely come from changes to eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip), but also from a reduction of the health element of universal credit, it is understood.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be affected by the changes to Pip eligibility.
Measures announced include:
- scrapping the work capability assessment for universal credit – the process currently used to determine eligibility for incapacity benefit payments based on someone’s fitness for work – in 2028, to be replaced by a single assessment considering the impact a person’s disability has on daily living, rather than their fitness to work.
- legislating to tighten the eligibility for Pip, with a higher threshold for someone to qualify. The Government said people who only score the lowest points on each of the assessed daily living activities “will lose their entitlement in future”.
- reviewing the Pip assessment with a view to longer-term reform to ensure the process is “fit for purpose now and into the future”. Confirmation the payment will not be frozen, as had been rumoured.
- an above-inflation rise in the standard allowance for universal credit by 2029/30 – adding £775 in cash terms annually. But new claims from April 2026 will see the rate of the health element almost cut in half, from £97 a week to £50 and those already claiming having their amount frozen at £97 per week until 2029/2030.
- consulting on delaying access to the health top-up in universal credit until someone is 22-years-old “so every young person is earning or learning, and on a pathway to success”, and on raising the age at which young people move from disability living allowance for children to adult disability benefit (Pip), from 16 to 18.
- legislating for a so-called “right to try”, which Ms Kendall said would ensure people are able to “take the plunge and try work – without the fear this will put their benefits at risk”.
As part of its reforms, the Government also said it will invest an additional £1 billion a year by 2029/2030 to help support people into work including through one-to-one help.
But the planned changes have been met with anger from Labour MPs, unions and charities.
