The Conservative Party has pledged to slash £36 billion a year from the UK welfare budget, targeting disability benefits, sickness payments, and child allowances, according to The Independent.
Announcing the plans in central London, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch argued that the country’s benefits bill had become unsustainable. She stated that the £180 billion annual working-age bill amounted to more than the entire GDP of Ukraine.
LIVE: Britain needs Welfare That Works. Here’s our plan 👇 https://t.co/QQsyQQ3aba
— Post by @KemiBadenoch on X
The proposals include saving £2.8bn a year by ending Disability Living Allowance (DLA) payments to families of children with milder behavioural disorders, learning difficulties, or ADHD. Under the plan, cash payments would be restricted to the most severe 30 per cent of cases. The remaining 70 per cent would receive support through mental health services and family hubs instead, backed by a £1bn investment.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said the existing system risked pushing children onto a conveyor belt toward a lifetime on benefits
. Government statistics show that child DLA is the fastest growing benefit in the welfare system, with cases rising from 521,476 in 2020 to around 914,000.
I’d like to say ‘I don’t have words’ but I do . Debased , vile , cruel , inhuman , regressive and incalculably selfish . They will stop at nothing in a race to the bottom . https://t.co/QSptpXXLIJ
— Post by @ChrisGPackham on X
Depending on the level of support needed, families can receive between £30.30 and £194.60 a week. The Conservative plan would apply these changes to both new claims and reassessments, while exempting those with physical disabilities.
Ms Badenoch argued that providing disability benefits to young people with ADHD was likely to be more destructive to their future than the condition itself
.
Kemi Badenoch will cut £36 billion from the welfare bill and get Britain working again. pic.twitter.com/6EZy7pormd
— Post by @Conservatives on X
She added: The reality is that millions of people can work and do contribute – to our economy, to their families, to their communities – even when they face serious challenges. Double amputees run marathons.
She also noted that housebound individuals do creative work from home and people with autism run major technology companies.
The wider savings package relies on several previously announced measures aimed at curbing total welfare spending, which is projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility to reach £431 billion by the 2031-32 financial year, or £221.5 billion annually under specific forecasts. Reforming sickness and disability benefits to restrict payments for routine back or joint issues and mild mental health conditions would save £13.7 billion, according to the party’s plans.
A further £9.5 billion would be saved by withdrawing access to benefits for foreign nationals without EU settled status. Reintroducing the two-child benefit cap, which Labour dismantled following pressure from backbenchers, is projected to generate £3.1 billion, alongside £4.5 billion from local housing allowance reductions and £1 billion from tackling fraud and error.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, voiced support for tightening eligibility and restricting benefits for foreign nationals, arguing that the system currently sees 54 constituencies racking up benefits bills exceeding £1 million a day, though he suggested the party should go further by means-testing Personal Independence Payments (PIP).
£50,000. That's what the working-age welfare bill will cost every household over this Parliament. How is that fair? pic.twitter.com/niQBlAyS4t
— Post by @Conservatives on X
However, the Labour government and welfare campaigners sharply criticized the proposals. Labour noted that its own recent reversal of the two-child limit was estimated to lift 450,000 children out of poverty.
Child Poverty Action Group policy director Sara Ogilvie warned that the changes would take the UK back to the dark ages
and trigger the largest overnight increase in child poverty since records began.