Reform UK Wants to Cut £50 Billion from Benefits — Here's What That Means

Reform UK has put forward a plan to cut £50 billion a year from the UK's benefits system. Benefits are payments the government gives to people who need financial help, including those who are too ill to work, out of a job, or on low incomes. Campaigners warn this plan would push hundreds of thousands of children into poverty The Guardian.

The plan, called "Making Welfare Work," would drastically reduce payments for disabled people, stop non-UK citizens from claiming any benefits at all, and require thousands of people who have been unemployed long-term to do 20 hours of unpaid work per week The Guardian.

It would also change how sick pay works. Currently, when someone is too ill to work, the government helps cover their income. Under this plan, employers would have to pay that cost for the first two years of an employee's illness. The plan would also bring back the two-child benefit limit, which stops parents from claiming extra benefits for a third or later child. Labour had previously scrapped that limit The Guardian. BBC reporting from August 15 had already confirmed Reform UK's aim to cut roughly £50 billion from the benefits bill and replace the main disability payment, called Personal Independence Payment or PIP BBC.

Right now, PIP gives disabled people money to help cover the extra costs of living with a disability. The amount someone gets depends on how much support they need. Reform UK wants to replace PIP and part of universal credit — the UK's main benefit for working-age people — with a single payment of £429.80 a month for everyone, regardless of how severe their condition is The Guardian.

A leaked government analysis seen by the Guardian showed the cuts would be so steep that even people with terminal illness, blindness, or severe learning disabilities could lose up to £10,000 a year The Guardian. The internal analysis found that for people with the most serious needs, the new flat-rate payment would be at least £10,000 less per year than what they currently get The Guardian.

Overall, Reform UK's plan would leave an estimated 250,000 more people in poverty, including 50,000 children ITV News.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and the party's Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick wrote a foreword to the plan calling it built on "commonsense principles" and described the current system as "a way of life, including for foreigners who haven't paid a penny" The Guardian. Jenrick separately said the UK was guilty of "suicidal empathy" while taking aim at disabled people and foreign nationals The Guardian.

Campaigners called the proposals "cruel and dangerous," with a poverty charity official warning they would cause horrific levels of hardship The Guardian. About 1.3 million non-UK citizens currently claim universal credit. Under the Reform UK plan, they would be barred from benefits entirely The Guardian.

The political context helps explain why this is a big deal. Last year, Keir Starmer's government tried to cut £5 billion a year from disability benefits — ten times less than what Reform UK is now proposing. Starmer's government had to abandon that plan after its own MPs rebelled. Labour also abandoned plans to keep the two-child limit The Guardian.

House of Commons figures show one in six working-age adults in Farage's own constituency of Clacton claim PIP. That is almost twice the national average for England and Wales The Guardian.

There is a tension worth noting here. Reform UK's strongest support often comes from areas where lots of people claim disability benefits, yet the party is proposing some of the deepest disability cuts in memory. The gap between where the party gets its votes and who would be most affected by its policies is part of what makes this plan so politically charged.

The broader context is that cutting £50 billion a year would not be a small tweak — it would rebuild the UK's benefits system from the ground up. Replacing PIP, which currently gives more money to people with greater needs, with a flat payment for everyone means moving away from the idea that support should match how difficult someone's situation is. And shifting sick pay costs onto employers for up to two years raises questions the plan does not answer: would employers absorb that cost, cut wages, or simply stop hiring people with health conditions?

The fact that a government analysis of Reform UK's plan has leaked to the press tells us something important. It means the civil service — the government's permanent staff who carry on regardless of which party is in power — has already started studying what Reform UK's policies would actually do. That suggests officials are taking the party's polling position seriously enough to prepare. And because that analysis was leaked rather than released officially, it also suggests a political fight is already underway over how these proposals are understood by the public.