DWP scrapping popular benefit with all claimants moved to something different

The Department for Work and Pensions has announced it will shut down Employment and Support Allowance by March 2026 - shifting all recipients onto a different benefit. The DWP delivered this bombshell update to Parliament ahead of the summer break. Managed migration is the term used when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) transfers people from old-style benefits, such as Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), over to Universal Credit (UC).

This shake-up forms part of the wider Universal Credit expansion, designed to merge several existing benefits into a single payment. So, what's going to happen now, and how is it going to affect people?

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Labour MP Amanda Martin, representing Portsmouth North, challenged ministers in the Commons "to ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether claimants with disabilities who are in receipt of the Personal Independence Payment and legacy work-related benefits will be treated as new claimants for the purposes of the proposed changes to the health element of Universal Credit when they are migrated onto Universal Credit through managed migration; and whether such claimants will see a reduction in their income as a result of these proposed changes."

Sir Stephen Timms responded: "The Department plans to complete migration of ESA claimants to UC by March 2026. As part of this ESA claimants will be migrated to the UC Health Element. To protect any claimants who have not migrated by April 2026 we intend to mirror as closely as possible the changes made in UC in the ESA rates.

"Changes to the "support component" and the two disability premia (severe and enhanced disability premium rates) will reflect changes to UC LCWRA rates for existing claimants." He continued: "Including these commensurate measures aims to give fair treatment for all customers moving onto UC from income related ESA, regardless of their point of migration."

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You'll be alerted when it's time to switch to Universal Credit through a postal letter known as a migration notice. The correspondence will be unmistakably identified as a migration notice with "Universal Credit Migration notice" displayed prominently within the document, reports Birmingham Live.

The letter will specify an exact deadline for your UC transition (typically mentioned on two occasions throughout the correspondence). At the document's base, a footnote will read: "This is a migration notice issued under Regulation 44 of the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014".

Without securing an extension to your deadline, you must submit your UC application by the date outlined in your migration notice. Failure to comply means your existing benefits will cease - the transition to UC doesn't happen automatically.