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Reform UK has set out plans for changes to personal independence payments (Pip) that the party says could save up to £9bn a year, with Lee Anderson, one of its MPs, saying he used to “game the system” to help people become eligible for the benefit.
In Reform’s third consecutive Westminster press conference of the week, Anderson and the head of policy, Zia Yusuf, said the party would bar people with less serious psychological conditions such as anxiety from claiming Pip and would ensure anyone getting the payments would first receive a face-to-face assessment.
“We are betraying our young people,” said Yusuf, who was formerly the party chair. “Reassessments are basically not happening any more. These young people are being labelled. They’re being basically tossed on to a scrap heap for the rest of their lives. There’s nothing about that that we are remotely willing to accept.”
Anderson said that the system for applying for Pip was often manipulated, citing what he said were online videos tutoring people on how to fill in eligibility questionnaires. He said this was a particular issue when people were assessed remotely.
“If you do this remotely, it’s kind of like doing a driving theory test and having the answers online for you,” he said. “This is not to say, of course, that everybody is gaming the system. That’s obviously not what’s happening.”
But Anderson, who worked at Citizens Advice for a period before entering politics, said that in this role he had tutored benefit claimants on how they could ensure they would be declared eligible for payments.
“We were the first point of contact for people who wanted to claim Pip at the time and we used to fill the forms out for clients before that application form went in. And I can tell you now, we were gaming the system,” the Ashfield MP said.
“I know people who work with the CAB [Citizens Advice Bureau], they’ve got a 100% hit rate on benefit forms. I can take the fittest man in Ashfield, and we can get 100% claim on DLA [disability living allowance] – that’s our skill.”
While Anderson and Yusuf repeatedly stressed that many people did genuinely need such benefits, Anderson also condemned what he called “a generation of young people that have forgotten about getting up in the morning and going to work”.
He also mocked some of the symptoms for anxiety and depression, such as persistent sadness, saying: “I’ve had persistent sadness since July last year, this awful Labour government.”
Asked whether the cited savings included the cost of reinstating full face-to-face appointments and of helping people back into work, Yusuf said this would be about £100m annually, saying that in the context of the possible savings, this was minimal.
The government and the Conservatives have promised to cut the total amount spent on Pip and other benefits. Government plans to do this have been held up by a major rebellion on initial plans to tighten up eligibility for Pip.
