Need to know
New information has been issued by the Department for Work and Pensions
Need to know: PIP claimants in England and Wales update
- PIP claimants in England and Wales have topped four million for the first time as new government figures reveal the scale of Britain’s disability benefits landscape.
- The Department for Work and Pensions reported 4.01 million people were receiving Personal Independence Payment in April 2026, up 266,175 from the previous year. The number has roughly doubled since 2019 when just 2.05 million claimed the benefit designed to help with daily tasks and living costs for those with long-term health conditions.
- Younger people are increasingly making up a larger share of claimants, with 16.6% now aged 16-29 compared to 14.5% in 2019. Meanwhile, approval rates for new claims have fallen to just 36.6%, down from 46.2% two years ago.
- The Government has launched the Timms Review to overhaul the system and introduced the Right to Try scheme allowing claimants to work without losing benefits. A No 10 spokeswoman said: “The broken system we inherited wrote nearly three million people off as too sick to work, left them off benefits, and saw the welfare bill rise by £88 billion.”
- Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said the Conservatives would “review the entire PIP system, remove eligibility for low-level mental health PIP claims, rapidly assess hundreds of thousands of additional claims, and get Britain working again.”
- READ THE FULL STORY: DWP issues PIP update as key threshold passed for first time
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