REFORMS to Personal Independence Payments (Pip) will remain “fatally flawed” if they are constrained by strict spending limits, campaigners warned today.

A government review into the key disability benefit found it was rife with systematic and deep-rooted issues, concluding it was “no longer fit for purpose.”

Its failures leave vulnerable claimants dehumanised and degraded, undermining public trust in the benefits system, social security and Disability Minister Stephen Timms warned.

In the Timms review’s interim report, the minister committed to overhaul Pip’s structure.

While campaigners welcomed his conclusions, they warned fixing the system meant the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) must drop spending limits and listen to disabled people.

Speaking with the Morning Star, the Disabled People Against Cuts (Dpac) steering group said it is “concerned that if Pip remains within fixed financial limits.

“If the removal of the work capability assessment takes place, the burden will once again fall on disabled people.”

A Dpac spokesperson also said it was concerned about the language in the report regarding “people with mental health impairments, neurodivergent people and young people.

“Pip should be there for every disabled person who needs it,” saying: “There are still significant questions and concerns around the recommendations of the review, and our fear around cuts as a result remains.”

They also pointed to a failure to acknowledge previous work on the issue done by the Commission on Social Security, which they say have “already created a replacement for Pip.”

Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr Tony O’Sullivan told the Star that reforms “must be guided by evidence and disabled people’s lived experience, not by pressure to contain spending.

“A civilised society should be asking how we remove barriers to inclusion, not how we make it harder for disabled people to access the support they need.”

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak welcomed the review’s conclusions, saying that “reform is long overdue” and that “Pip must be properly funded to reflect the real costs disabled people face — including those in work.”

Green MP Sian Berry warned that if the “Timms review can only operate within a strict spending limit, the review remains fatally flawed and will never be able to deliver real help that enables sick and Disabled people to thrive, whether or not they are able to work.”