Reform UK is preparing to launch one of the most sweeping welfare overhauls in modern British politics, with Robert Jenrick claiming the party could cut more than £50bn a year from the benefits bill by withdrawing or redesigning support for millions of working-age adults.
The Reform Treasury spokesman said a future government would deliver the “most comprehensive redesign” of the welfare system, abolishing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age claimants.
Mr Jenrick estimates that 2.89mn people would have their existing welfare claims substantially altered or withdrawn.
He described the current system as “suicidal empathy”, arguing that Britain had created incentives that increasingly pulled people away from employment rather than helping them back into work.
The proposed changes would replace PIP with a “Health Security Allowance”, restricted to people who are “gravely ill and severely challenged” and subject to regular reassessment.
Reform would also shift part of the financial risk of long-term sickness from the state to employers. Companies would be required to purchase a new form of insurance, called “Return to Work Cover”, which would meet the cost of sickness absence for the first two years after an employee is signed off.
The model is based on the Netherlands, where employers carry greater responsibility for supporting workers back into employment.
Mr Jenrick argues the proposals could deliver savings more than twice the £20.5bn welfare reductions achieved under the coalition government and substantially exceed the £23bn of cuts proposed by the Conservatives.
Disability spending would provide the largest single source of savings, accounting for about £22bn of the proposed reduction.
Instead of providing cash payments for what he described as lower-level disabilities, Reform would establish “Disability Support Accounts”, administered by local authorities and mayors to fund equipment, home adaptations, transport and personal assistance.
The system would be deliberately decentralised. “How services are provided in Herefordshire need not match Haringey,” Mr Jenrick said.
Reform is also examining changes to child-related benefits and disability payments associated with conditions including anxiety, depression and ADHD.
The full programme is due to be published in a 50-page document, Making Welfare Work, following six months of policy development involving former civil servants and figures who worked on the creation of Universal Credit.
The scale of the proposal reflects the rapidly rising cost of the welfare system, which the Centre for Social Justice expects to reach £333bn this year.
But Labour dismissed Reform’s £50bn figure as “fantasy economics”, accusing the party of cutting support for disabled people while transferring costs to employers.
The Conservatives also attacked the proposal, with shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately calling it a “half-baked attempt” to distract from Nigel Farage’s political difficulties.
The emerging battle points towards a potentially brutal political confrontation over welfare: whether Britain can reduce a rapidly expanding benefits bill without creating a new system of poverty, insecurity and hidden costs elsewhere in the economy.
Reform is betting that voters will accept the disruption.
Its opponents are betting that they will not.
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