Reform UK is preparing to unveil the biggest shake-up of the welfare system “in a generation”, with plans to abolish personal independence payments (PIP) for working-age adults and save an estimated £50bn a year.
The party’s treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, set out the proposals in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, ahead of a full 50-page policy paper due on Monday.
Nearly three million people would see their disability or sickness payments withdrawn or changed under the plans.
Jenrick has acknowledged the human cost directly, writing: “We will not pretend this is painless.”
He argued the current system amounted to “suicidal empathy”, adding that “dumping our young people onto welfare isn’t compassion; it’s neglect.”
What is Reform proposing?
Reform would scrap PIP and the health element of universal credit for working-age adults. Both would be replaced with a new “health security allowance”, a single, regularly reviewed payment.
Only claimants with “severe, enduring and high-risk” conditions would qualify for that cash support.
Everyone else currently receiving disability-related payments would lose their cash entitlement altogether.
Instead, they would be supported through council-run disability support accounts, covering what Jenrick called “verifiable additional costs” linked to a person’s disability, such as equipment, home adaptations, transport and personal assistance.
Existing claimants would be reassessed over three to four years under the new system.
Reform estimates that 2.16 million would keep their present cash entitlement in full, while 2.89 million would see theirs modified or withdrawn.
The party plans to extend the same approach to children’s benefits, aligning the system for anxiety, depression and ADHD with the adult changes, though only for new claimants.
Jenrick said 6.9 million people currently receive disability benefits, 2.5 million more than 20 years ago.
On current trends, he said, health and disability benefits will cost £110bn a year by 2031, equivalent to £3,600 for every family in the country.
How would the employer insurance work?
Reform would also place a new obligation on employers.
Businesses with more than five staff would have to take out “return to work cover” insurance, which would pay for the cost of an employee’s first two years off sick, rather than the state covering that cost through benefits.
The scheme is modelled on the Dutch system, where Reform argues disability benefit applications fell by 40 per cent after similar reforms were introduced.
The insurance requirement is designed to give employers a direct financial stake in getting staff back to work, since lower sickness absence among their workforce would reduce their premiums over time.
Jenrick said this would leave firms with a “strong economic incentive” to support an employee’s return, rather than simply signing them off.
To offset the cost to business, Reform says it would cut employer national insurance contributions by 0.2 percentage points, which it argues would make the package “cost neutral” for companies overall.
Anyone still off sick after two years, and therefore no longer covered by the employer insurance, would undergo a single in-person assessment conducted by clinicians. This would replace what Jenrick called the current “web of failing tests”, and is intended to screen out fraudulent claims while directing support to the most severe cases.
How does this compare with the Conservatives and Labour?
Reform says its plan would deliver more than double the savings promised by the Conservatives, who have proposed £23bn of welfare cuts.
The Conservatives’ shadow work and pensions secretary, Helen Whately, has set out a separate package.
It would end eligibility for “low level mental health problems like anxiety”, reinstate face-to-face assessments, reassess all existing claimants within 12 months, and reintroduce the two-child benefit cap.
She said this made the Conservatives “the only party that can be trusted to get the welfare bill down”.
Labour has pursued a lighter reform programme by comparison, narrowing the gap between universal credit standard and health rates, restoring face-to-face assessments, and announcing £3.5bn in employment support.
The Government is also mulling how it will reform PIP with a report, led by minister Sir Stephen Timms, due out later this year.
A Labour spokesperson said this delivered “credible, independently costed savings”, in contrast to what they called Reform’s “fantasy economics”.
Previous attempts by the Government to tighten PIP eligibility, in March 2025, were dialled back after opposition from Labour backbenchers.
What happens next?
Reform is due to publish its complete Making Welfare Work paper on Monday, setting out the full detail of the reforms, which it says reflect six months of policy development involving former officials who worked on universal credit under Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
To deliver the changes, Reform would have to win the next general election, which is not due until 2029.
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