Removing disability support from people with ADHD, autism or anxiety would not simply remove an obstacle to work. It could remove something that makes work possible. Patrick Butler reports on a Resolution Foundation analysis arguing that excluding particular conditions from personal independence payments (Pip) would deliver limited savings while making employment and participation harder.
The problem with a diagnosis-based ban is not only its bluntness. Many claimants have several conditions, combining physical difficulties, mental ill health and neurodevelopmental differences. A list of eligible diagnoses cannot reliably describe the practical limitations or additional costs someone faces. The report argues for support that better reflects multiple and fluctuating conditions.
Pip is not just a payment to people outside employment. The foundation points to its role in enabling work, caring, training and volunteering. That changes the question: a saving on the benefits budget may also mean losing the support that lets someone take part in everyday life.
This is not an argument from the thinktank for leaving the system untouched. It calls spending growth unsustainable and estimates that better targeting could save £4.4bn annually, including by removing cash support from roughly 670,000 working-age claimants who report no additional disability-related costs. Those are the foundation’s estimates and proposals, not changes already enacted or proof that withdrawing support would be harmless.
The distinction matters. Rejecting exclusions based on ADHD or autism does not settle how needs should be assessed, or how people whose circumstances fluctuate would fare under a replacement system. Butler’s report makes the strongest case for treating participation as an outcome to preserve—not assuming that cutting a payment will produce it.