Politics · United Kingdom · 10 hrs ago
Badenoch proposes £36bn in cuts to UK welfare spending
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch plans £36bn in welfare savings in a policy proposal for the UK.
She is due to set out the proposals in a speech on Tuesday and publish a 52-page plan.
The proposals include removing sickness and disability benefits for some people with low-level mental health conditions or back pain, and barring people from outside the EU from claiming benefits.
Badenoch also proposes restoring the two-child benefit cap, which Labour scrapped.
The plan would cut housing benefit spending by linking payments to rents in the cheapest 10 per cent of the market rather than the cheapest 30 per cent.
It also proposes a programme to help people return to work, including lower employer National Insurance payments for workers under 25.
Badenoch argues that reform is needed because working-age welfare costs £180bn a year, while the plan acknowledges that the proposals are likely to face strong opposition.
Kemi Badenoch is set to propose £36 billion in cuts to UK welfare spending.
Her plan includes ending sickness and disability benefits for some people with low-level mental health conditions and back pain, and reinstating the two-child benefit cap.
The proposals are set out in a 52-page report called Welfare that Works.
The article says working-age welfare costs £180 billion a year, according to the latest official figures.
The plan also proposes changes to housing benefit and measures to help people return to work.
- Who
- Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is proposing the cuts.
- What
- A plan to reduce welfare spending by £36 billion, including changes to sickness, disability, housing and child benefits.
- When
- She is due to set out the plan in a speech on Tuesday; the article was published on 9 November 2026.
- Where
- The United Kingdom.
- Why
- Badenoch argues that the welfare bill is unsustainable and risks creating dependency. The article says she describes its cost as damaging to the economy.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
The Daily Mail published its report on Badenoch’s proposed welfare cuts.
Badenoch is due to give a speech setting out the plan.
- Proposed cuts
- £36 billion
- Working-age welfare spending
- £180 billion a year
- Report
- Welfare that Works; 52 pages
- Two-child benefit cap
- Reinstatement projected to save £3.1 billion a year
- Housing benefit
- Proposed £4.5 billion reduction; payments would be pegged to rents in the cheapest 10 per cent of the market
What people are saying
The weight of this welfare burden is crushing our economy and plunging us deeper and deeper into debt
There is no world in which the current system is sustainable and not just because of the cost.
It is too late to work out what you think once you're in government
Beveridge's welfare state was a noble ambition. To stand by those who could not stand on their own.