A minister has responded to a question around whether there could be a London weighting in Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as the Government considers changes to the benefits system.
In an exclusive interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), the minister seemed to rule out recommending any sort of extra payment for Londoners despite the higher costs of living they face, suggesting the assessments themselves would be the focus of changes.
Sir Stephen Timms, the Minister for Disability, told the LDRS: “We issued a call for evidence in March and had 38,000 responses – actually, London weighting hasn’t been a big theme of the evidence that we’ve gathered, and it’s not something we’ve really talked much about in the group,” he noted.
“The concerns in the group are about accessibility of the benefit. A huge number of people said that the assessment for PIP is dehumanising, because it requires you to run through lots of things you cannot do, and it’s a pretty horrible experience.
“What I think we’re going to be setting out in my report is ideas for a different kind of assessment which is not dehumanising. I don’t think it’s necessary to have such a horrible process in order to apply for disability benefits. We’ve got to come up with an assessment that does a better job of assessing what the additional costs are that people have, and how those should be supported.”
Sir Stephen was speaking on a visit to Auticon, a firm which hires autistic adults to work as consultants, in London Bridge. His upcoming review, due to be released later this month, will assess whether the current PIP system – which helps disabled adults with extra living costs – is fit for purpose.
Around 4.1 million people currently claim the benefit, which is worth up to £843 a month. This includes almost 500,000 Londoners.
Accessible homes crucial to supporting disabled Londoners
Building more accessible homes for disabled Londoners will be a crucial part of the Government’s drive to get people back into work, Sir Stephen said.
Meeting ambitious housebuilding targets in London and nationally must be paired with adapting to accessibility requirements, he said. Last year, a report from the London Assembly Housing Committee found a “chronic” shortage of housing suitable for disabled Londoners.
The new London Plan mandates that 90 per cent of all new homes must meet “accessible and adaptable standards”, meaning they can be adapted easily for future disabled residents – but just 23 per cent of properties completed in 2024 were compliant with this.
However, the Mayor of London has said that the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme, which will run until 2036, will boost the number of social and affordable accessible homes due to the requirement for 10 per cent of new dwellings to be wheelchair friendly.
Asked if City Hall needs to invest more in ensuring London’s new builds are up to scratch, Sir Stephen said: “That is an important part of what we need to achieve over the next years. As you know, the Government’s set aside £40 billion to invest in social and affordable housing, the biggest programme in living memory.
“We do need to make sure that the needs of people who’ve got particular requirements around accessibility of their housing are properly met in the course of that programme.”
The Mayor’s critics in City Hall have taken aim at him for failing both to effectively monitor and build accessible homes in London in the last decade.
The 2025 report from the Housing Committee, chaired by then-Green Party Assembly Member Zoe Garbett, suggested that the “obvious solution” was building more accessible homes and retrofitting existing housing, but a lack of data, stemming from a failure to effectively monitor developer standards, meant taking effective action was “almost impossible”.
Hina Bokhari, who leads the Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly, told the LDRS: “An inaccessible home is more than an inconvenience. It can mean pain and isolation, and it affects everything from health to work to family life.
“Yet whether it’s the Mayor or the Government, when they talk about building homes, they’re never talking about building accessible ones.
“One of the biggest issues is that neither City Hall nor the Government has a clue how many accessible homes London already has, how many it needs or how many it will need in the future. They have no plan to get that data, let alone to use it to build the homes disabled Londoners need. That failure to act is, in my book, unforgivable.”
In July, the Mayor of London defended his plans, telling Assembly Members: “The London Plan requires 10 per cent of new residential dwellings to meet the M4(3) “wheelchair user” standard and for the remaining 90 per cent of dwellings to meet the M4(2) “accessible and adaptable” standard.
“This requirement in London goes beyond the national planning requirements for accessible housing. The Social and Affordable Homes Programme will require mandatory reporting from investment partners on the number of accessible homes within proposed schemes.
“The programme will also make capital funding available to support partners to deliver specialist and supported housing. It will therefore increase the supply of housing for people with care, support and supervision needs, potentially including Disabled Londoners.”
