Reform UK unveils massive £50bn welfare overhaul to scrap PIP and force sick back to work

REFORM UK has unveiled a massive £50billion overhaul of the welfare system, scrapping PIP and forcing the sick back into work, should it get into power. The party’s treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick claimed it would introduce the biggest welfare shake-up “in a generation”. Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman claims the party’s welfare changes were the biggest ‘in a generation’ Credit: Shutterstock Editorial Reform leader Nigel Farage won the Claction by-election recently but still faces questions surrounding the £5m donation he received Credit: Alamy He said the current system was not helping those it was designed to help and it amounted to “suicidal empathy”. Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Jenrick said Reform would get rid of personal independence payments (PIP) as well as the health part of Universal Credit for working age adults. Sign up for the Politics newsletter Thank you! He said it would remove or cut benefits for 2.89million people. To replace PIP, a health security allowance for severe and enduring disability cases would be brought in. Only those with severe disabilities would get cash support, while other claimants would be given necessary services and support through council-run disability support accounts. Employers would also have to pay a new form of insurance, called Return to Work Cover, under the new system, which would cover the cost of the first two years after an employee signed off sick. The policy announcement comes after leader Nigel Farage won the Clacton by-election. Reform is set to publish a 50-page paper on Monday called Making Welfare Work. Most read in The Sun It’s believed that the team behind the paper include some who worked with Sir Iain Duncan Smith on developing Universal Credit, as well as whistleblowers in the Civil Service. In the article, Mr Jenrick claimed that the policies would “more than double” the £20.5billion in savings made by Sir Iain under the Coalition government, and recent Conservative proposals that they could make savings of £23billion. Mr Jenrick added that of the welfare reforms, £22billion would take the for of changes to the disability programme. He claimed the disability support accounts would be used to fund additional disability costs, such as home adjustments, equipment, transport and personal assistance which would be adapted to local needs. He also said there would be one assessment which would be conducted in person by clinicians instead of what he called a “web of failing tests”. Any firm with more than five employees would have to take out the new insurance to cover the costs if any of their workers were unwell for longer than statutory sick pay permitted. In return, companies would get a cut in National Insurance contributions by 0.2 percentage points initially, a move which he claimed would make the scheme “cost neutral”. Employers would also be encouraged to support employees to return to the workplace more proactively, as this would lead to lower insurance premiums for the company. Mr Jenrick said the policy was modelled on the Dutch system, where disability benefits applications dropped by 40 per cent. He also said Reform would also examine children’s benefits and would pledge to reform children’s disability allowance for anxiety, depression and ADHD to align it with the adults’ system. Those changes though would only apply for future claims and for a subset of mental health conditions. Mr Jenrick also took aim at the Tories’ proposed welfare reforms, calling them “paper thin” proposals which “could have been written on the back of a fag packet”. The welfare bill this year is forecast to hit £333billion, according to analysis by the Centre for Social Justice. Currently, more than four million people claim disability benefits. The shadow secretary of state for work and pensions Helen Whately called Reform’s criticisms of Conservative policy as a “half-baked attempt to distract from Farage’s fishy £5million” and “his embarrassing underperformance in his pointless by-election”. After his by-election victory, the parliamentary watchdog will soon reopen its investigation into Mr Farage over a £5m gift given to him by Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurreny billionaire Ms Whately added: “Reform have been nowhere on the debate on welfare reform. “They have flip-flopped on restoring the two child benefit cap and claimed they’ll only take benefits away from foreigners, which won’t do enough to bring down the overall bill. “The Conservatives are on the side of working people and we’re clear about our plans. “Restore the two-child benefit cap, end benefits for low level mental health conditions, remove benefits from foreign nationals and restore face-to-face assessments. “Only the Conservatives will get Britain working again.” A Labour spokesman said Reform’s claim it could save £50billion was “fantasy economics, built on stripping support from disabled people and shifting costs onto employers”. They added: “Labour is already reforming welfare: narrowing the gap between Universal Credit standard and health rates, restoring face-to-face assessments, and investing £3.5 billion in employment support to end the culture of people being signed off and written off. “We’re putting work and opportunity at the heart of the system, with further reform to follow the Milburn and Timms reports. “Our reforms deliver credible, independently costed savings, not arbitrary numbers with no credible plan behind them.” Comment now