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3.9 million entitled to Personal Independence Payments – 1% rise on previous Quarter

ended 17. March 2026

Latest Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics show that as at 31 January 2026 there were 3.9 million claimants entitled to PIP in England and Wales, a 1% increase on the number as at 31 October 2025. 

37% received the highest level of award, the same level as in October 2025.

In the quarter ending January 2026 there were: 190,000 registrations and 160,000 clearances for new claims, 31,000 changes of circumstance reported and 28,000 cleared.

  • What is your response to the figures?
  • Can the UK afford it?
  • Or can the UK not afford to give PIP to the most vulnerable?

Repsonses asap.

1 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
My response is that these figures show just how many people are relying on support to manage serious day-to-day challenges, and that should make this a conversation about reality, not rhetoric. PIP is not some luxury extra. For many people it is the difference between coping and not coping, between staying connected to daily life and being pushed further into hardship. So when people ask whether the UK can afford it, I think the harder question is whether the UK can afford not to support vulnerable people properly. If support is pulled too far, the cost does not disappear, it simply shows up somewhere else through worse health, more pressure on families, lower independence and greater strain on public services. Of course the system needs to be fair, robust and well managed, but I would be very wary of reducing this to a simple affordability argument. A civilised system is supposed to protect people when life becomes harder, not only when it is convenient to do so.