Reform would get rid of the Pip disability welfare system if it wins power, as part of a plan to cut £50 billion from the UK’s benefits bill.
Nigel Farage’s party will set out a full package of enormous savings, which would affect nearly three million people, at a press conference tomorrow morning.
The party’s Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick said £22bn of the reforms would target the disability programme on its own.
In an article for the Sunday Telegraph, he described the current situation as ‘suicidal empathy’ and said the country is facing a ‘moral and economic catastrophe’.
The £50bn target identified in the plans would be the equivalent of cutting more than a third of the total amount spent on the state pension every year.
According to BBC News, it would come from abolishing Personal Independence Payments (Pip) for working age people – meaning 2.89 million people would have their payments removed or modified.
Only the most ‘severe, enduring and high-risk cases’ would continue to get cash support under a proposed new system called Health Security Allowance, the outlet reported.
Those with what Jenrick describes as ‘lower-level conditions’ would no longer get money. Instead, their local authority would be told to provide any necessary equipment, transport or personal assistance.
The health element of Universal Credit would also be scrapped along with Pip.
Jenrick said: ‘Let me be very clear, we will never let down those who need it. In fact, these changes secure the system for those who deserve it for decades to come.’
Companies would also be made to pay for any employees for the first two years they spend off sick, with those employing more than five people told to take out insurance to cover the cost.
Reform says this would encourage employers to adapt workplaces and get their employees back into their job. This change would be cost neutral for businesses, it says, as a cut in employers’ National Insurance contributions would offset it.
Labour described the proposals as ‘fantasy economics’ which would involve ‘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 £3.5bn in employment support to end the culture of people being signed off and written off.’
An interim report from the Timms Review, which is looking into the long-term future of Pip, found that the benefit is no longer fit for purpose.
The full review, including a series of recommendations, is due to be published in the autumn.
A series of workshops are due to take place in September and October, with disabled people and those with long-term health conditions invited along to help shape the recommendations before publication.
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