Reform UK has announced plans to overhaul the welfare system, including forcing long-term benefits claimants who are fit to work to undertake community work or lose their benefits. The party claims the measures would cut £50 billion from the welfare bill.
Robert Jenrick, the party's Treasury spokesperson, said the policy would be part of a series of changes to welfare that would stop some claimants 'taking everyone else for mugs'. The proposals also include stripping foreigners, including EU nationals, from most forms of benefits, as well as withdrawing or changing disability and sickness payments.
Welfare to Work Scheme
Speaking at an event in central London, Mr Jenrick said Reform's 'welfare to work' policy would mean that people who are long-term claimants and fit to work would be forced to do 20 hours of work a week in the community. The scheme would be run by councils, and those who do not put work placements in will have their funding cut, he said.
“They’ll work to clean up high streets and parks, to beautify neglected places, to carry out minor repairs, to staff libraries and community centres, to perform many other tasks from the list that we’ve published today,” Mr Jenrick said. “We’ll also embrace local charities and community groups and ask them to help us and take part. If claimants refuse to participate or fail to show up, they’ll face penalties.”
“Let me speak very plainly. If people who are capable of work refuse, then they’ll get nothing. That’s fair.”
Criticism from Shadow Chancellor
However, shadow chancellor Mel Stride said Reform's 'fantasy numbers are simply not plausible'. He said: “I introduced reforms to cut the sprawling welfare budget after the pandemic by reducing the numbers on long-term benefits and radically overhauling Pip.”
“Labour called them ‘divisive’ and scrapped all of them, allowing the benefits bill to continue spiralling. Robert Jenrick hailed my reforms for making the system fairer and enabling us to cut taxes responsibly. Reform continue to flip flop like they did on the two-child benefit cap, and their fantasy numbers are simply not plausible.”
Mr Jenrick also said 'welfarism exploded in the final years' of the previous Conservative government under Sir Mel Stride – who was then the work and pensions secretary.
Other Measures and Reactions
The event heard that the average tax burden for each family to pay for the welfare state will reach £7,000 by 2031. Mr Jenrick said claimants who are taking benefits rather than working are 'taking advantage' of their neighbours. He said the welfare system was once a 'source of pride for British people, a marker that we all live in a civilised society' but has now 'become viewed by many people as a joke, and in the cold light of day has to be seen… as both a moral and an economic catastrophe'.
He added: “A broken contract which too often takes from those who choose to work, and hands to those who choose not to.” The changes, Mr Jenrick added, would put 241,000 British people back into work. The bans would also cover EU nationals with settled status in the UK, something that would require the party to renegotiate Britain’s EU withdrawal agreement and potentially mean British expatriates in the bloc losing equivalent rights. Under the exemption for foreign nationals from claiming benefits, Mr Jenrick said armed forces veterans would still be able to get them.
A Labour spokesperson said the proposals would strip support 'from potentially millions of people who have lawfully lived, worked and paid taxes in Britain for years, and in many cases decades'. Other measures from Reform include cuts to employers' national insurance rates to support people on long-term sick leave being brought back into work.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has previously signalled he could make it harder for some people to claim benefits, but not through 'crude cuts'. He said: “We have got to get serious as a country about getting the welfare bill down, but that doesn’t mean crude cuts that simply push people into crisis and create bigger costs elsewhere. There are many people who, with the right support, can move into work. But too often they haven’t had that support in the first place, particularly when it comes to mental health. And the way we tackle the structural drivers and change the nature of the support is to make it more conditional on the opportunity we provide.”
