Politics
Can Reform Overhaul Britain’s Welfare State?
— 3 mins read
Robert Jenrick's plan would put 330,000 long-term claimants to work, strip all foreign nationals of benefits, and scrap PIP as we know it
Long-term benefits claimants would have to do 20 hours of community work every week under a Reform UK government, or lose their benefits for good. Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick announced the plan at a Westminster press conference on 17 August 2026.
The 'Welfare to Work' scheme would apply to universal credit claimants judged fit for work who have claimed continuously for more than 12 months. Around 330,000 people currently fall into that group, according to Reform's policy document, Making Welfare Work.
Participants would clean high streets and parks, carry out minor repairs to libraries and town halls, and staff community centres, The Times reported. Councils or approved charities would run the scheme. Each would receive a £3,200 grant per participant every year, paid by central government. Claimants could get up to £30 a week extra for transport and food.
Anyone who refuses, skips sessions, or performs poorly would face immediate sanctions. The policy document says that includes 'the full non-time-limited revocation of benefits'. That is a permanent ban, and it goes further than any previous British scheme. Reform expects 50,000 referrals in the first year and 200,000 a year after that.
Jenrick told reporters: 'My message today to those taking everyone else for mugs: under a Reform government it's going to stop.'
Foreign nationals stripped of benefits
The work scheme sits within a wider package. Reform would remove access to universal credit, housing benefit, and pension credit from all foreign nationals, The Guardian reported. That includes EU citizens with settled status. Only British and Irish citizens, and those with right of abode, would keep access.
My message today to those taking everyone else for mugs: under a Reform government it's going to stop.
Around 1.3 million non-UK or Irish citizens currently claim universal credit, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Some 650,000 of them are not in work. Reform says the restriction would save £21 billion a year by its fifth year.
Around half of disability claimants could lose out
Reform would also scrap personal independence payment. A new 'health security allowance' would replace it, restricted to severe and enduring cases, BBC News reported. Reform's own figures show about 2.89 million working-age claimants would face reassessment, modification, or withdrawal of their payments. On the party's own framing, around half of current claimants could lose the benefit altogether. Pensioners, children's disability living allowance, and the most severely disabled would be protected.
House of Commons Library data shows roughly 10% to 12% of people in Clacton, Nigel Farage's constituency, claim PIP. Every Reform MP has a majority smaller than the number of PIP claimants in their seat.
The £50 billion question
Reform says the full package would cut £50 billion a year from a working-age benefits bill heading towards £200 billion by 2030.
The IFS called the £50 billion target ambitious, noting it amounts to a cut of roughly 25% to the projected working-age bill. Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: 'Reform continue to flip flop like they did on the two-child benefit cap, and their fantasy numbers are simply not plausible.'
What the Irish evidence shows
Reform modelled the work scheme on Ireland's Community Employment and Tús programmes. A 2024 evaluation published by the OECD found participants earned around €2,000 (c.£1,600) more a year and worked more weeks than non-participants. That evaluation was jointly produced with Ireland's Department of Social Protection, the body that runs the schemes being assessed. The Irish programmes also carry no permanent bans. Reform's sanctions are considerably tougher.
Reform is in opposition, so none of this takes effect unless the party wins the next general election. The full policy document, running to more than 50 pages, was published shortly after the press conference.
