Mass Lobby Against Disability Benefit Cuts – Overview
Who organised the Mass Lobby?
The Mass Lobby Against Disability Benefit Cuts took place on 21st May 2025. It was organised by Well Adapt, Coalition Against Benefit Cuts, Disabled People Against Cuts, Disability Rights UK, Inclusion London, SIC and our co-sponsors Richard Burgon MP and Neil Duncan Jordan MP.
What was the purpose of the Mass Lobby?
These organisations sought to halt the proposed cuts to benefits for disabled people, namely Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit (UC). The cuts would have pushed over 350,000 disabled people into poverty and prevented them from finding and maintaining work, the complete opposite effect to the government’s plan to get more disabled people into employment.
What is a Mass Lobby?
A mass lobby is where a group arranges a large number of meetings between constituents and MPs for the same time. This was an opportunity to push MPs to vote against these cuts, to show the strength of support and to take up visible space in Westminster.
What impact did the Mass Lobby have?
The Mass Lobby and continued efforts of disabled people and their allies successfully prevented the cuts to PIP from going through, though changes to Universal Credit still went ahead. However, this was still a huge victory for the disabled community as the campaigning convinced the government to listen to disabled voices and change their harmful plans.
The Universal Credit Act 2025 means that the health component of UC will be cut by almost 50% to £50 from April 2026, and frozen so it won’t increase with inflation.
What resources were provided for the Mass Lobby?
In the lead up to the Mass Lobby, Well Adapt spread the word on social media to encourage attendance and provided advice and resources for taking part. We also hosted an online briefing on Zoom the day before the lobby to help attendees prepare. An email was sent to attendees with a briefing pack and handouts were distributed on the day.
Travel and accommodation funding was available to ensure that anyone who wanted to attend was able to. The funding was provided by Disabled People Against Cuts and Inclusion London.
Information Archive
See the pages below for more information on what the lobby involved and why it was important. These posts were created by Well Adapt to inform people about the Mass Lobby, the government’s proposals and how to take part. They may help with collective organising for similar events in future.
Call to action explaining the Mass Lobby and how to join
Key Information about the Mass Lobby
Getting to Westminster – transport information
Briefing: Personal Independence Payments and Disabled People
Briefing: Disabled People, Employment and Poverty
Briefing: How to Respond to Hostile Questions from MPs and Media