PIP disability benefits and universal credit changes announced by DWP - live updates

Plans to get more people back to work and cut the cost of the rising benefits bill have been announced. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall addressed the House of Commons to outline Labour's plans.

She started by saying: "We believe that unleashing the talents of the British people is key to our future succcess. But the social security we inherited from the Conservatives is failing the very people it is supposed to help and holding our country back."

Liz Kendall said there are millions of people across the UK who have become “trapped on benefits” when they could be working. The Work and Pensions Secretary said the UK was an outlier when compared to other countries, with benefit spending still rising after the coronavirus pandemic rather than falling.

The Government will consult on merging jobseeker's allowance and employment support allowance, the Work and Pensions Secretary said, which will allow people who have paid into the system to get higher benefit payments for a period of time. Liz Kendall said it was a "major reform of contributory benefits". The proposal would merge the two benefits into a time-limited unemployment insurance which is paid at a higher rate.

Universal credit claimants with severe, lifelong disabilities will not usually face benefits reassessments, the Work and Pensions Secretary has pledged.

Ms Kendall went on: "We will bring in a permanent above inflation rise to the standard allowance in universal credit for the first time ever; a £775 annual increase in cash terms by 2029/30 and a decisive step to tackle the perverse incentives in the system."

Downing Street has said there is a "moral and an economic case" for an overhaul and that the changes would put the welfare system "back on a more