Reform UK has announced what it describes as the biggest overhaul of the British welfare system “in a generation,” with plans to cut £50bn annually from the welfare bill.
Robert Jenrick, the party’s treasury spokesman, outlined proposals that would see nearly 3 million people have their disability and sickness payments withdrawn or significantly modified.
Jenrick argued the UK’s existing welfare state is driven by “suicidal empathy” and fails to adequately support the very people it was designed to help.
Under the plans, Reform would abolish personal independence payments (Pip) and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age adults, according to The Telegraph.
Jenrick noted that nearly 7 million people were currently receiving disability benefits, with the share of working-age claimants citing mental health and behavioural conditions having tripled since 2022.
“This is not an epidemic of broken backs and lost limbs,” Jenrick said, signalling the party’s scepticism toward the rapid growth in such claims.
A new health security allowance, subject to regular review, would be introduced to provide targeted support for the “gravely ill and severely challenged,” replacing the current system of broad cash payments.
Cash payments for low-level conditions would be scrapped and replaced with disability support accounts, administered by local councils and mayors, covering costs including equipment, adaptations, transport and personal assistance.
Employers could also be required to pay a “return to work cover” insurance policy to fund the cost of the first two years after an employee is signed off sick, giving firms a “strong economic incentive” to return the employee to work, Jenrick said.
People who had not returned to work within two years would face a single, rigorous in-person assessment designed to “screen out vexatious and fraudulent claims.”
Writing in The Telegraph, Jenrick said: “We will not pretend this is painless.”
“Existing claimants will be reassessed over three to four years: we estimate that 2.16 million will keep their present cash entitlement in full, while 2.89 million will see theirs modified or withdrawn, concentrated where recent growth has been most explosive,” he wrote.
Jenrick also argued that “dumping our young people onto welfare isn’t compassion; it’s neglect,” and stated: “We are not lifting people out of misfortune. We are abandoning them to it, and calling it kindness.”
The Reform proposals would save “more than double” the £23 billion promised by the Conservatives, with £22 billion of those savings coming from changes to disability benefits alone, according to Jenrick.
The announcement has drawn swift criticism, with shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately accusing Jenrick of attempting to distract from the parliamentary standards investigation into a £5 million donation to Reform leader Nigel Farage.
Farage was recently returned as the MP for Clacton following a by-election he triggered by resigning from his seat in July, framing the contest as a “people versus the establishment” fight, though all major parties chose not to contest it.
His victory has caused the investigation into his links to crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne to be resumed, adding further pressure on the party’s leadership.
Whately said: “Reform have been nowhere on the debate on welfare reform. They have flip-flopped on restoring the two child benefit cap and claimed they’ll only take benefits away from foreigners, which won’t do enough to bring down the overall bill.”
A Labour spokeswoman dismissed the plans entirely, saying: “Reform’s £50 billion claim is fantasy economics, built on stripping support from disabled people and shifting costs onto employers.”