Transitional Protection and diversion away from UC

Am I right in my understanding that if a claimant currently has an entitlement to SDP that he will be diverted away from claiming UC until provision is made for transitional protection?

My client currently has an ongoing ESA appeal for failure to attend a WCA and UC is due to be rolled out in his area in the next month. He is currently getting IR JSA and, ideally, he would prefer to wait until the outcome of his appeal rather than make a brand new claim for ESA at this stage.

My concern is that if he doesn’t win his appeal (and pass his subsequent WCA) then he will have to re-apply anyway and will be worse off under UC if he forced to claim that. If he’s going to be diverted away then it’s not an issue at present.

Thanks

From a DWP September 2018 update:

There has been some issues around claimants on ESA receiving the Severe
Disability Premium (SDP) being advised they don’t have to move to UC. The
Secretary of State announced in June that claimants on ESA receiving SDP
will not migrate to UC even when they have a relevant change of
circumstances. However, this cannot take place until UC regulations are
amended in Parliament. It is therefore business as usual at the moment.
Claimants who are in receipt of SDP will continue to naturally migrate to
Universal Credit (UC) if their circumstance changes.

The Written Statement also proposed that claimants who have already moved
to UC and who were getting SDP before they moved may qualify for additional
payments at a later date. This is subject to the same parliamentary approval
as above and cannot be implemented at this time.

The draft regulations for the managed migration of those on working-age
benefits moving to UC have been published and it appears that not everyone
will be automatically entitled to arrears of SDP if they have already moved to
UC or entitled to transitional protection (see paragraph 63). If you are
interested the proposed regulations can be found in the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/moving-claimants-to-universal-credit-from-other-working-age-benefits