Benefits law change for miscarriage of justice victims comes into force
Until now, compensation for miscarriage of justice sometimes dragged people above the threshold for claiming certain welfare payments.
Under a legislative change taking effect from Tuesday, these payouts will now be exempted when assessing eligibility for: income-based jobseeker's allowance, income-related employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit, pension credit and universal credit.
Social security minister Sir Stephen Timms MP said the move was part of wider Government action aimed at 'rebuilding trust in our systems', which he said 'begins by restoring trust with those the system has failed'.
'We can't return the years lost by miscarriage of justice victims — but we can, and must, ensure they have every opportunity to restart their lives so they can make the most of the years ahead,' he said.
He encouraged anyone who has received miscarriage of justice compensation to 'come forward, so we can ensure they receive the help they are entitled to'.
The law change comes after campaigners including Andrew Malkinson, who was wrongly convicted of rape, called for greater access to support for those like him whose names have been cleared.
Andrew Malkinson has said he is 'intensely relieved' by the rule change but that further reform is needed (PA)
Mr Malkinson, who was the victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history, has said while the new rule 'ends a stark injustice', further reforms are needed.
Speaking earlier this month, he said he was 'intensely relieved' by the law change but would continue calling on the Government to lift the cap on legal compensation payments.
The Ministry of Justice is to raise the amount paid to people wrongly jailed for more than a decade to £1.3 million, but Mr Malkinson has described the proposed increase as 'insulting'.
He has also spoken out against rules under which payouts are only awarded to people who can prove innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
'I remain determined to challenge the completely unfair cap on compensation for the wrongfully convicted – and the ridiculous requirement that a person in my position be required to prove their innocence a second time to get compensated,' he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
North Wales Live
an hour ago
- North Wales Live
DWP issues PIP review update and explains how disabled people will be involved
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has issued an update over the continuing examination of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) system. PIP is intended to help people with long-term health conditions or disabilities by providing financial assistance to cover their extra costs. The benefit comprises two elements: daily living support and mobility assistance, each offering standard and enhanced payment levels. Government ministers are presently scrutinising the PIP structure, including exploring methods to enhance the assessment procedure that applicants typically undergo to determine their entitlement amount. Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Gibson submitted a parliamentary written question concerning disabled people's participation in the review process. DWP minister Sir Stephen Timms, who is overseeing the review, responded on the Government's behalf. He stated: "We published the terms of reference for the review (the Timms Review) on 30 June 2025, and will be updating them shortly. As set out in the terms of reference, we are committed to co-producing the review with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, experts, clinicians, MPs, and other stakeholders. "We will engage widely over the summer to design the process for the work of the review and consider how it can best be co-produced to ensure that expertise from a range of different perspectives is drawn upon.", reports the Liverpool Echo. The minister also said that the team conducting the review will focus on involving disabled individuals in helping lead the process, to ensure the review hears from "those with relevant lived and professional experience". Labour had previously proposed a policy change to tighten the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which would have introduced a new requirement for receiving the daily living component. Claimants would need to score a minimum of four points in one of the 10 activities to qualify for any payment. However, following significant pushback from MPs, including dissent within Labour ranks, the Government decided to apply this change solely to new claimants. Ministers have also said there will be no changes to the PIP eligibility rules until the review is finished. How much is PIP? These are the current weekly payment rates for PIP: Daily living element Lower - £73.90 Higher - £110.40. Mobility element Lower - £29.20 Higher - £77.05
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Malaysia PM announces new measures to address rising living costs
KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday announced new measures to address growing public disquiet about the rising cost of living, including a cash handout for all adult citizens and a promise to lower fuel prices. The announcement came ahead of a planned protest to be held in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, calling for Anwar to step down over escalating prices and a failure to deliver on promised reforms, among other concerns. Anwar's administration has carried out a number of measures to boost revenue and productivity this year, including a minimum wage hike, increased electricity tariffs on heavy power users, and new sales taxes on some imported fruits and luxury goods. Anwar has said the moves were mainly targeted at large businesses and the wealthy, but critics have voiced fears that higher costs would eventually be passed down to consumers, including lower and middle income earners. On Wednesday, Anwar said all adult Malaysians above 18 years old will receive a 100 ringgit ($23.67) one-off cash aid to be disbursed from August 31. The government will spend a total 15 billion ringgit ($3.55 billion) in cash aid in 2025, up from 13 billion ringgit originally allocated for the year, he said. Police have said they expect between 10,000 and 15,000 people to attend the Saturday protest, which has been organised by opposition parties. "I acknowledge the complaints and accept that the cost of living remains a challenge that must be addressed, even though we have announced various measures thus far," Anwar said. He added that further initiatives to aid those in poverty will be launched on Thursday. Anwar said the government will also announce details on a long-awaited plan to remove blanket subsidies on the widely used RON95 transport fuel before the end of September. Once the subsidy changes are implemented, Malaysians will see fuel prices at the pump drop to 1.99 ringgit per litre, compared to the current price of 2.50 ringgit, Anwar said. Foreign nationals however will have to pay unsubsidised market prices for the fuel, he added. Anwar also announced additional allocations for a government programme aimed at increasing access to affordable goods and necessities, and vowed to improve other existing aid measures. Malaysia has seen inflation fall this year, but worries persist over increasing prices of basic necessities like food. Data released this week showed consumer prices rising 1.1% from a year earlier last month, but the costs of food and beverages were up at a faster pace of 2.1%. ($1 = 4.2250 ringgit)
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Reclaiming everyday power matters more than starting a new party
We were talking, of course, about Labour, the deepening void in British politics, about a country where public services are crumbling, where opposition feels hollow, and where the political space once occupied by hope seems to have disappeared. It's not a cynical question. And it deserves more than a cynical answer. So I gave it some thought. And to be honest, I surprised myself. Because even though I agree with the premise – that Labour no longer offers a political home for many – I didn't feel excited. I didn't feel much at all. And that feeling stayed with me. Not because I'm disengaged from politics, but because I've been trying to make sense of what a new party could be for. What it could meaningfully offer in the current landscape, not ideologically, but structurally. READ MORE: 'Wake up, America!': Alan Cumming hits out at Donald Trump over trans attacks When the news broke of a new initiative involving Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, my reaction wasn't negative. But it wasn't hopeful either. Oh. There's a new party in town. That's it. There's a contradiction here. It's possible to agree that a political alternative is needed and still not feel particularly moved when one arrives. And the more I think about that contradiction, the more it seems revealing, not of the new party's flaws, but of a deeper problem in political life. Because the real question may no longer be: Do we need a new party? It might be: What can people do? And more crucially: What do people feel they can do? At this point, any honest reckoning has to contend with a widespread sense of powerlessness. Not apathy. Not disinterest. But the quiet despair that comes from not knowing where to begin, or what could possibly make a difference. That's why Hilary Wainwright's recent piece in Red Pepper magazine felt so relieving to read. She writes about the left's 'fatal attraction to shortcuts' – the belief that if the right party, with the right leader and the right policies, comes along, transformation will follow. But as she reminds readers, this logic has a long track record of disappointment. From Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party to Respect to Left Unity, new parties have emerged with high hopes, only to fade without leaving a lasting political infrastructure behind. Wainwright doesn't argue against new formations. But she insists that the work must begin elsewhere: in the slow, patient construction of popular democratic power. In local initiatives, people's assemblies, and independent councillors building relationships of accountability not with a party headquarters, but with their neighbours. That kind of politics isn't a shortcut. It's a long, sometimes frustrating path, but it might be the only one capable of lasting. That perspective helped clarify my own. A new party isn't irrelevant. But in a context where people no longer believe their actions matter, where politics has become something external, alien, remote … it can't be the first step. READ MORE: Here's why John Swinney should ask Keir Starmer for a Section 30 now I've started to realise there may be a thread running through much of what I've been writing in this newspaper over the past few years. Whether I've been looking at childcare, housing, or the slow degradation of the NHS, I keep circling the same question: How do people reclaim a sense of power over their lives – real, collective, material? What connects so many of these crises is the deep belief that nothing we do will change them. And that belief, I think, is one of neoliberalism's greatest successes. Neoliberalism has often been described as a decades-long experiment in outsourcing. Services, care, governance: all handed over to markets, contractors, consultants. But it also outsourced something deeper – the sense of shared political responsibility. The message was that someone else, an expert, an algorithm, a market force, would take care of it. And we citizens, would be seen, first and foremost, as consumers. And gradually, that logic seeped into our idea of politics itself. Politics, too, came to feel like something best left to professionals. Not a shared, daily practice of negotiation and solidarity, but a technical domain of experts and spokespeople. People didn't give up on politics. They were taught it wasn't theirs to do. And that teaching was reinforced everywhere; in the design of services, in political narratives, in the retreat of collective spaces. We learned to see politics as something external; something you observe or vote in (a choice to be made, a bit like a marketplace actually), not something you build or change. You can see this disempowerment very starkly in housing. Rents rise, quality falls, and entire developments go up that ordinary people will never live in. Homes become assets. What was once a public good becomes a private commodity. And the experience of trying to access housing, like trying to find childcare, or dental care, or mental health support, becomes a kind of battle: exhausting, bureaucratic, humiliating. That's disempowerment. Not as a vague feeling, but as a daily reality: paying more for worse, navigating systems that no longer serve, feeling that no matter how hard you try, it's always slipping further out of reach. And over time, that doesn't just impact housing or health, it shapes how people see the world. It hollows out belief. It makes politics feel like something that happens elsewhere, in a different language, for other people. READ MORE: Tall Ships celebration attracts more than 400,000 visitors as event comes to a close Some of the most meaningful political acts I've observed recently haven't taken place in formal spaces at all. They've unfolded in nurseries, where parents start questioning fee hikes and demand accountability. In blocks of flats, where neighbours create mutual aid systems. In conversations between mothers about birth trauma in overstretched NHS wards. These are not isolated complaints. This is the work of building collective understanding, and sometimes, action. This is where politics lives – not in manifestos, but in people's attempts to name what's happening to them, and to resist it, even in small, fragile ways. That's where power can start to grow again. And if a political party is to matter, it will have to come from that, not speak down to it, or try to replace it. Emancipation, autonomy, sovereignty; these are not abstract goals. They are needs, expressed through the daily grind of trying to live with dignity in a system that often treats people as expendable. A new political project must respond to that hunger, not with slogans or personalities, but with structures that allow people to act together and be heard. That is what Wainwright means, I think, when she says there are no shortcuts. And it's what I mean when I say: a party can't do it all. A political party can support. It can amplify. It can defend. But it cannot substitute for the deeper, harder, slower work of rebuilding the very idea that politics belongs to us. So when someone asks: 'Do we need a new party?' I no longer rush to answer. I want to ask: What's already happening? Who's organising? Where do people still feel they have a voice? Because maybe the real work is there – not in founding something new, but in noticing what already exists, and helping it grow.
