Responding to today’s announcement by Reform UK on welfare reform, Joe Shalam, policy director at the Centre for Social Justice, said:
“Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in a welfare system that does not work for them nor for our flatlining economy.
“The CSJ has long called for reforms to mental health benefits, which are failing British young people, and these proposals are a step in the right direction. Some of the savings must be invested in a radical expansion of NHS Talking Therapies and back to work help.”
- The CSJ’s Wasted Youth report (August 2025) called for mental health benefits in Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment to be tightened to more severe cases, saving £7 billion by 2029, with £1 billion to be reinvested in NHS Talking Therapies and employment support.
- CSJ analysis revealed that by 2026 there will be more than a £2,500 gap between earnings and combined benefit income. A full time worker on the National Living Wage (NLW) is expected to earn £22,500 after paying income tax and national insurance. By comparison, an economically inactive claimant on Universal Credit (UC) for ill health with the average housing benefit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) would receive an income of around £25,000, rising to £27,500 for those awarded PIP’s highest rate.
- As of May 2025, there were an estimate one million people claiming a combination of UC health, housing and PIP, following a dramatic increase in awards for anxiety and depression since the pandemic.
- Disability and sickness benefits is set to hit £100 billion by 2030