The government's minister in charge of reviewing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has promised MPs that disabled people will still get cash payments to help with living costs. The minister, Sir Stephen Timms, made this promise because the review he is leading is also looking at whether some people might be better helped by things like NHS treatment or equipment instead of cash.

The review, which is run by the Department for Work and Pensions, has already published some early findings. It said the current PIP process is "dehumanising" and the benefit itself doesn't work well. The government says the full findings will come in autumn 2025.

PIP is the main disability payment for working-age adults in England, Scotland and Wales. (Northern Ireland has its own separate system.) You get it if you have a long-term health condition or disability — whether you work or not. The money is meant to help cover the extra costs of living with your condition. Changing it to give people things instead of cash would be a big shift, which is why what the minister said has got attention from charities and experts.

The minister said some people with mental health conditions might do better with NHS therapy and treatment than with a cash payment. But he didn't say the whole system would change — just that this might happen for some people. The government's official report said something similar, though the details are still unclear.

The government is talking about reforming disability benefits as part of its wider plan. The Prime Minister calls this a "moral mission". The government has also published a green paper about "modernising support for independent living" that looks at other countries' approaches to disability support.

Why is this happening now? The numbers tell the story. One in ten people of working age in the UK is now receiving a sickness or disability benefit. The number of people claiming PIP has doubled since the pandemic. That means PIP is one of the fastest-growing costs in the welfare budget, and the Treasury keeps looking at it.

The minister's promise to keep cash payments reads less like stepping back from reform and more like drawing a line. The government seems willing to try giving some claimants treatment or equipment instead of money — especially people with mental health conditions — while saying it won't stop paying cash entirely. Whether that promise will stick depends on the spending decisions the Treasury makes and whether caseloads keep rising. The autumn findings will try to answer this question.

What claimants and their advisers actually care about is information the review hasn't yet released: who would get treatment or equipment instead of cash, whether it would be optional or automatic, and how the value would be decided. The review also said the current process for checking who qualifies for PIP is dehumanising and needs to change — and that change might matter just as much to people claiming the benefit as the debate over cash versus other support.

As autumn gets closer, more people will pay attention to what the review recommends. The government will come under pressure from both opposition MPs and from inside its own ranks, because it has promised both to control spending and to protect cash payments for disabled people. The final recommendations will need to settle which promise takes priority.