Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of proposed welfare reform on the projected number of people who are deemed unfit for work by 2030.

The recent Pathways to Work Green Paper announced our plans to abolish the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and instead use the Personal Independence Payment assessment as the single assessment for additional financial support, subject to parliamentary approval. Once the WCA has been abolished the Department for Work and Pensions will no longer classify people as fit or unfit for work.

The Department published “Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts” alongside the Spring Statement.

This report contains estimated caseloads for the Universal Credit health element from 2026/27 to 2029/30, categorised by whether claimants are receiving the higher rate or the frozen rate from 2025/26.

By 2029/30 an estimated 2.25 million people, the pre-April 2026 current claimants, will still be receiving the higher rate of the UC health element, frozen at its 2025/26 level. A further 730,000 are forecast to be receiving the new lower rate of the health element. All will receive a standard allowance that has been increased by more than CPI inflation.

Table A5: Benefit units affected by UC health element change

Note: Estimates are after behavioural effects and are rounded to the nearest ten thousand. A benefit unit is a single adult or a married or cohabiting couple and any dependent children.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.