A London supplement to Personal Independence Payment looks unlikely to emerge from Sir Stephen Timms’s review, with the disability minister instead focusing on changing assessments that claimants have described as dehumanising.

The distinction matters for almost 500,000 Londoners receiving PIP: reforming how additional disability costs are assessed would not necessarily provide an allowance for the capital’s higher living costs.

Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, said London weighting had not been a major theme among the 38,000 responses to a call for evidence launched in March. The review group had scarcely discussed it.

London weighting is used by employers to reflect higher living costs. Trust for London calculates that a couple with children in inner London needs £370 more a week for rent than an equivalent family in other UK cities, or £260 more in parts of Greater London. Those figures illustrate housing pressures, rather than measuring additional disability costs.

PIP is a non-means-tested benefit worth up to £843 a month, claimed by more than four million people. Timms’s findings are due this month, following an interim report published in the summer which found disability benefits were “no longer fit for purpose”.

He said many respondents found assessments dehumanising because they required people to describe everything they could not do. His proposed alternative would seek to identify additional costs more effectively and determine how they should be supported.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to have such a horrible process in order to apply for disability benefits,” he said.

The review followed last year’s Labour rebellion, involving five London MPs, over government proposals to restrict PIP eligibility and cut the welfare bill by £5 billion. Some backbenchers fear further reforms could leave claimants worse off and trigger another confrontation. Those concerns are about possible outcomes, not announced changes.

Separately, Timms suggested devolving more powers to London’s mayor, Lord Sadiq Khan, to improve disabled people’s employment prospects. Department for Work and Pensions figures put employment among London’s 1.16 million disabled residents at around 650,000, or 55%, against 79% for non-disabled residents. The latter rate has risen by 1.1 percentage points since 2023/24.

Speaking during a visit to Auticon, which employs autistic adults as consultants, in London Bridge, Timms said closing that gap required a “devolved approach”. Discussions with mayors were continuing; he did not specify which additional powers London might receive.