Reform UK set to unveil £50bn welfare shake-up, targeting disability payments
Is preparing a sweeping overhaul of Britain’s welfare system that it says could cut more than £50bn from the bill, with disability payments
Reform UK is preparing a sweeping overhaul of Britain’s welfare system that it says could cut more than £50bn from the bill, with disability payments at the centre of the plan. The party is due to publish a 50-page blueprint on Monday, and treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick has described the current system as a “moral and economic catastrophe”.
The most dramatic change would hit personal independence payments, or PIP, and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age adults. Jenrick said the reforms could save £22bn from the disability programme alone, with nearly three million claimants seeing payments withdrawn or altered. That is a huge number. It would reshape the state’s safety net.
From cash payments to local accounts
Under the plan, low-level conditions would no longer qualify for cash support. Instead, disability support accounts run by local councils and mayors would pay for needs such as talking therapies, physiotherapy and employment support, according to Jenrick’s account of the proposal. Reform says it wants to move people away from long-term reliance on health-related benefits and toward services aimed at helping them back into work.
Jenrick said the party would replace the current system with a new, regularly reviewed “health security allowance” for only the “gravely ill and severely challenged”. He also argued that disability claims have expanded far beyond severe physical injuries, pointing to the rising share of working-age people claiming for mental health and behavioural conditions since 2002.
Political fight over the numbers
Labour dismissed the £50bn savings claim as “fantasy economics” and said cutting benefits would simply shift costs onto employers. The clash is likely to define the debate around Reform’s wider pitch on public spending, taxes and the role of the state.
The welfare plan is only part of a broader Reform push to redraw how government works. The party has already set out ambitions to shake up the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility if it wins power, and reporting has also pointed to plans for a major civil service overhaul. Reform’s own message is blunt: the machine, as it stands, is broken.
Farage’s growing spotlight
The announcement lands as Nigel Farage continues to dominate Reform’s political momentum after winning the Clacton by-election with 63% of the vote on a 44% turnout. That contest, contested by a record 34 candidates and boycotted by the main Westminster parties, also reopened a parliamentary standards investigation into a £5m gift received by the Reform leader.
Farage did not attend the count, saying police had warned of an attempt to disrupt the result. The party has not yet released the full welfare document, but Jenrick says Monday’s publication will amount to the “most comprehensive redesign of the welfare system’s machinery in a generation”.
