THE experiences people shared at an online workshop I held with constituents navigating the personal independence payments system (PIP) made it clear that the system is not working. It is supposed to help people with the extra costs of living with a disability, from adaptive equipment to travel expenses, and to help them live independently and enable them to work. It is not meant to be their core income, but for too many that is what it has become.

I am very grateful to everyone who attended, and for the courage and articulacy they showed in recounting very difficult experiences. I was struck by how exhausted people were by a system that is broken, describing a process that felt degrading, stressful, impersonal and difficult to navigate. After the PIP element of the Welfare Bill was paused last year, Minister Stephen Timms has been conducting the first ever full review of personal independence payments (PIP). I hope that feeding those experiences in will mean others in the future don’t have to go through the same thing and the system can be changed to work properly.

This workshop came just after the publication of the Timms Interim Report. Drawing on nearly 40,000 responses and co-produced with disabled people, organisations that represent them, carers, clinicians and experts, this thorough report reveals that the system is letting people down.

In the review, the PIP assessment was described as dehumanising, and it found that many people feel they must fight the system to access support. The goal of the reforms is not to take support away from those who need it. If you have a lifelong or terminal degenerative disease you should not have to go through degrading and pointless reviews.

Where people want to work and are able to do so, they should be supported into employment rather than facing unnecessary barriers. Alongside this review, the government has launched the Pathways to Work Innovation Fund, allowing organisations to bid for a share of £60-million to develop new ways of helping disabled people move closer to, and into, work. This forms part of a wider £3.5-billion package of employment support. When both the Milburn Review into youth unemployment and Timms Reviews are complete, we will have a clearer picture of the reforms needed.

Whether through accident, illness or ageing, it is important to remember that disability or ill health can impact any of us at any point in our lives. Without support, many people would become housebound, dependent on family, or require residential care. That is why it is so important that help is there when it is needed.

PIP is not fit for purpose; people do not trust the system and changing it is necessary. The experiences shared at my workshop have been fed into the Timms Review, and I will continue to take the voices of people in Truro and Falmouth directly back to Parliament so we can get welfare right, based on those voices.