I tried to tell Liz Kendall that PIP keeps me in work - she wouldn’t even stop walking

27 May 2025, 17:20

By Hannah Hunt

Last week, I took the early train down to London from Brighton to confront Liz Kendall face-to-face ahead of yet another speech defending the sweeping cuts to disability benefits.

As someone who has received PIP since I was 17, I thought the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions would at least hear me out, as I tried to explain how damaging removing this support would be for so many disabled people like me. Instead, she walked past me without a word.

As I watched the livestream of her speech, it was my turn to be lost for words. She described a reality I did not recognise - one where Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are a barrier to people accessing work. Perhaps if Liz had taken even thirty seconds to listen to me, she would have learned that PIP is the sole reason many disabled people like me can work.

Let me explain. Contrary to much of what has been said, PIP is not an out-of-work benefit. Instead, it is an ‘independence payment’, a small amount of money that enables disabled people to access the basics they need to live. PIP is what allows me to lead an independent and fulfilling life. Using welfare cuts as an ‘incentive’ to get people into work is dangerous. It creates the idea that disabled people like me must earn our value in society through productivity. Disabled people's lives are valuable, regardless of whether or not we can work.

At the age of 16 I was sectioned due to a severe eating disorder. I spent many of my teenage years in psychiatric care. This experience left me with complex trauma, making me more unwell, meaning chunks of my twenties have also been spent as a psychiatric inpatient.

Since I was 18 I have had to work. Ten days after leaving psychiatric care at the age of 22, I was back at work again. Most of the jobs I've done have been precarious and low paid, often in the catering industry. They have not enabled me to cover the costs of my illness.

On average, disabled households need an additional £1,010 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households. PIP payments make a vital contribution towards these extra costs. According to the DWP’s own estimates these changes will push 300,000 people into poverty.

The majority of my PIP payments go on medication which costs £40 a week, the rest is a small contribution to therapy costs. These are the basics that give me the ability to get up every day and go to work, but more importantly they enable me to live a life where I am not paralysed by mental distress. If these lifelines were removed, I do not know how I would survive.

Since the cuts were announced I have been gripped with shame as the government scapegoats mentally ill and disabled people like me. While Health Secretary Wes Streeting claims there is an overdiagnosis of mental health problems, I am living proof that treatment and support are vital for stopping people from falling through the cracks. There are thousands of young people whose mental illness is only too real, and the reasons are clear.

Life expectancy in the UK is falling, poverty is rising and poorly paid jobs are the norm. Social media is driving a crisis of loneliness and anxiety amongst my generation - and fossil fuel companies are destroying the very planet we live on, as governments wring their hands and defend business-as-usual. These are terrifying and stressful times. We need measures to address the harmful corporations creating this scary world. Instead, Liz Kendall is trying to take away the life raft keeping us afloat.

Of course the government also claims that life-saving benefits are simply too expensive. But surely the moment has come to increase taxes on corporations and the super-wealthy, so they pay to clean up the mess they have created. It’s economic common sense that at a time of rapidly increasing wealth inequality, those who are doing phenomenally well pay a bit more to ensure the rest of us still have a decent standard of living. Even Angler Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, agrees.

If Liz Kendall chooses to cut these vital disability payments over taxing corporations and the super-rich, then she is treating people like me as disposable. The government has a clear choice; we need the government to withdraw the cuts and work with those of us living with a disability to create a system that supports, not punishes, disabled people.

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Hannah Hunt, 26, has lived with mental illness for most of her life, and uses her experience as a campaigner at Mad Youth Organise.

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