Recommendation 33

In the 2022 Autumn Statement, the Government announced that it would delay the move of claimants on income-related ESA to UC until 2028 to save £1 billion.66 The Department told us that the economic circumstances at the time had been such that there was a need to find fiscal savings and an interest in finding reductions in spending on benefits.67 The delay in moving ESA claimants is expected to generate savings in benefit payments because, taken as a whole, the people involved would have received more under UC than under ESA.68