At NSUN, our policy work in 2025 was dominated by the fight against cruel and dangerous proposals for welfare reform.
Understandably, many are eager to understand what actually happened and for updates on what the Government is doing next. For the most part, any additional reforms are on hold as a series of short-term, poorly conducted “reviews” take place (explained below).
A recap
2024: The Government begins laying the groundwork for specific disability “benefit” reforms, including a review into Personal Independence Payments (PIP). It concludes the year by publishing the Get Britain Working White Paper in which it says that unemployment is a key reason for poor economic growth and that so-called disability benefits are a big problem.
Spring 2025: The Government doubles down on blaming Disabled people for government spending and outlines its ideas for cuts. These include proposals to make PIP harder to get, freezing young people out of health-based benefits, and scrapping Work Capability Assessments. Disabled people, including people with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress or trauma, are subjected to months of inflammatory debate in the press about our experiences, lives, and needs.
Late spring 2025: To implement these reforms, the Government needs to pass legislation in Parliament, meaning it requires MPs to debate, amend, and vote on it. They attempt this by suggesting a new law called the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
Our work during this time focussed on trying to lobby MPs to oppose the cuts while also supporting grassworks opposition led byDisabled people. We turned up at consultations, created briefings to send to key decision makers, submitted written evidence in collaboration with our members, lobbied MPs, supported protests, and got organised with others across the disability and mental health sectors.
Summer 2025: After months of campaigning from Disabled people, the Government rushed the law to a final vote. Many of the cuts were defeated, but the Government still managed to cut/freeze the health element of Universal Credit payments. Many MPs stood with Disabled people, and many let us down. Read our reaction to the passing of the (newly titled) Universal Credit Bill 2025.
Now: The Government is busy conducting/publishing a series of short-term “reviews” into various issues surrounding Disabled people, employment, and the welfare system (including one on youth employment (or “inactivity”), and another into how employers can keep sick people at work.
Things we are keeping a close eye on
The Timms Review (February–Autumn 2026). This is a review into Personal Independence Payments, supposedly in consultation with Disabled people. We remain sceptical of the extent to which Disabled people are genuinely being given any power over how the review is conducted and how seriously their involvement is being taken. There is currently very little information being shared within the mental health sector about how the review is being conducted.
The Department for Work and Pensions’ new Independent Disability Advisory Panel: Set up to help the DWP consider Disabled people’s views on upcoming reforms. It consists of just 10 Disabled people, most of whom are securely employed within charities working around disability. The set up of this panel has been consistently critiqued as tokenistic and skewed towards perspectives from the south of the UK. At one point, participation even required panel members to sign a gagging order, although this requirement has since been scrapped.
The Independent Review into mental health conditions, ADHD, and autism (known as the Prevalence Review). This is a government-led research project exploring why there has been a rise in people being diagnosed with mental health problems, ADHD, and autism. It is due to last three to six months and it is unclear how people with lived experience of mental ill-health and neurodivergent people will be involved. We believe this review is motivated by concerns about “overdiagnosis”, laying the groundwork for a new political story about those with so-called “mental illness”.
Our position for 2026
NSUN is humbled by and hopeful about the connections built over what was a terrible year for Disabled people.
We have no reliable proof that this government is taking its supposed commitment to “consulting” with Disabled people seriously. We do not think the current situation is linked to a single political party. Instead, we feel it is linked to very old and worsening misunderstandings about our lives, our public services, and how decisions get made.
We will lobby for change within the political system where we can, and will refuse to engage when it is rigged against us. We will also continue to invest in, support, and build community-based care delivered by us, for us.
What we are doing
- Lobbying for change within “the system” where we can, and refusing engagement where it feels tokenistic.
- Commissioning new research into cross-movement solidarity among minoritised groups.
- Re-launching Mad Campaigns Lab, focussing on intersectional work and creating campaigns that win.
- Resourcing and investing in grassroots work which builds alternatives to the current mental health system.