Reform UK plans £50bn welfare cuts, targets disability benefits and non-Britons

Reform UK has unveiled plans to cut £50 billion annually from the welfare budget, with a significant focus on reducing disability benefits and restricting access for foreign nationals. Robert Jenrick, the party's finance spokesperson, detailed proposals that would replace Personal Independence Payments (Pip) with a new allowance for those deemed 'gravely ill and severely challenged,' with lower-level conditions to be supported by local councils and mayors. The party also aims to save £21 billion a year by preventing foreign-born households, including those with EU settled status, from claiming most benefits such as universal credit and housing benefit. This move has drawn sharp criticism, with concerns that it would require renegotiating the UK's Brexit deal and could potentially spark retaliatory measures from the EU affecting British expatriates. Jenrick defended the proposals, calling payments to non-British people 'economically illiterate but plain immoral' and describing current disability benefit spending as 'suicidal empathy.'