Chancellor’s cuts to social security pose a devolution dilemma

Cuts to disability payments by the UK government are all the more worrying for lack of information on devolution impacts in Scotland.

Last week Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered the UK Government’s Spring Statement. Compared to the budget last autumn, a weaker economic and financial position required further adjustments. The Chancellor chose to make a large part of these – approximately one-third – from changes to eligibility for the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) ultimately designed to “save” £5 billion.

From 2026-27, PIP claimants must score four points in at least one activity area to qualify for the daily living component. In the longer term, it is also proposed to scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Eligibility for the health element of Universal Credit (UC) will instead be determined via the PIP assessment, an unhelpful conflation of two very different things: support for the additional costs of disability (PIP) and out-of-work income replacement payments (UC health element).

This is despite the fact that just weeks ago the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights published their concluding remarks following a review of the UK’s progress on these rights. They called on the UK Government to “take all measures necessary to reverse the adverse impact of austerity measures”, including on social security. These proposals fly in the face of this recommendation.

The ALLIANCE have already raised our deep concern about these changes. The human impact of these cuts will be severe. Earlier this year I attended a joint meeting of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Groups on Disability and Poverty. These proposals hadn’t yet formally been made, but speculation in the media had made clear they were on the table. A speaker from the Black Triangle Campaign expressed his anger that disabled people, already exhausted, fearful and under-supported following previous cuts, were still having to fight further cuts to essential payments even with the change in UK Government.

Beyond the very real risk to the health and wellbeing of disabled people, there’s an enormous issue that it appears the UK Government simply have not considered at all: devolution. Social security is no longer the sole preserve of the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), but a shared competency with the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland. Payments devolved to Scotland specifically include disability and carers payments.

Here in Scotland, the process of replacing PIP with Adult Disability Payment (ADP) is at an advanced stage. Although retaining the same fundamental eligibility criteria, ADP takes a different approach to PIP, with a less intrusive application process, lighter-touch reviews, and an explicit commitment to maximise uptake. The ALLIANCE, amongst many other organisations, have welcomed these changes as an essential step towards a fully human rights based social security system. However, this raises some questions for what the Chancellor’s statement means in practice.

Firstly, given UC is reserved but PIP is devolved and is being replaced with ADP, how will the DWP determine eligibility for the UC health element in Scotland? PIP assessments are no longer carried out here, so those cannot be used. Will it simply accept entitlement to ADP instead? Or will it decide that process differs too much from PIP, and effectively re-institute PIP assessments in Scotland but for UC health element purposes only?

Secondly, how much resource will these changes take out of the Scottish Budget? When the UK Government reduces spending on something that is devolved, the funding available to the Scottish Government for that area also reduces. That does not inherently require the Scottish Government to replicate the exact same cuts – or increases – in spending, but it will require some form of budget response, as we saw last year with the cut to Winter Fuel Payment. Given the existing pressures in public finances in Scotland, this could deepen that crisis.

Thirdly, and this follows from the previous two points, what does this mean for passporting, the process by which receipt of a payment grants access to other support? Will the UK Government continue to recognise ADP as an equivalent payment for passporting purposes if the Scottish Government does not replicate the cuts to PIP? If passporting could be removed, that raises serious questions about how meaningful the devolution of social security powers truly is.

It is essential that the Chancellor and UK Government provide answers to these questions as soon as possible. Devolution is now over a quarter of a century old. It has been nearly a decade since the process devolving social security powers began. It shouldn’t be too much to expect that these kinds of issues are thought about beforehand rather than left to puzzle through after the fact.

Disabled people across Scotland will already be worried enough by these proposals. That nobody can explain exactly what the impact here will be, for lack of information from the UK Government, will simply add to those fears.

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