The much-derided reforms to disability benefits at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which were floated by the previous Conservative government and would have seen cash payments turned into vouchers, appear to have been dumped in a Whitehall bin.
Announced amid cratering poll numbers for the Rishi Sunak government and Conservative party at large, the 'Modernising Support for Independent Living' green paper proposed a variety of changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to tackle the ballooning DWP disability bill, termed "sick note culture".
These included turning the roughly £434 disability benefit into an equipment voucher system and providing therapy instead of money.
In the years following the pandemic, the number of PIP claimants has jumped by a quarter to 3.5 million with a large increase in claims for mental health issues.