Conservatives pledge £36bn welfare cuts
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The gist
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch set out plans to cut £36bn a year from the UK welfare bill.
The savings are the party's own estimate within a wider £71bn plan.
Background
Kemi Badenoch is leader of the Conservatives, the UK's opposition party; Helen Whately is its shadow work and pensions secretary. The party published a 50-page document setting out how it would cut more than £36bn a year from the welfare bill, a figure revised up from a £23bn pledge made a year earlier. The savings sit within a wider Conservative plan to cut spending in order to fund defence at 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 and reduce the deficit. The government is separately grappling with a welfare bill the Office for Budget Responsibility (the UK's official fiscal forecaster) expects to rise to £431 billion by the 2031-32 financial year, largely driven by health-related and pensioner benefits.
How it unfolded
- Oct 2026Badenoch first announced the £36bn figure at the party's conference, revising it up from a £23bn pledge made a year earlier.
- Oct 7, 2026The Conservatives said they had identified £71bn in annual savings, including £36bn a year from welfare cuts.
- Oct 8, 2026Badenoch set out an eight-point plan to save £36 billion, including reversing Labour's scrapping of the two-child limit in Universal Credit, which the Tories say saves £3.1 billion per year.
- Nov 8, 2026The party announced plans to cut £36bn a year from the welfare bill, including an estimated £13.7bn from tighter rules for sickness and disability benefits.
- Nov 9, 2026The Conservatives published a 50-page document detailing the welfare savings; Badenoch accused Labour of writing off disabled Britons, saying the bill will cost every taxpayer £4,500 this year.
- Nov 10, 2026Badenoch was due to deliver a speech setting out the plans, calling the welfare bill "more than the entire GDP of Ukraine" and "crushing our economy".
Key terms
- shadow work and pensions secretary
- An opposition spokesperson who mirrors the work and pensions minister's portfolio without executive power.
- two-child limit
- A rule limiting government subsidies or benefits to a family's first two children.
- Universal Credit
- A UK means-tested social security payment combining six low-income working-age benefits into one.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Badenoch says the welfare bill is "crushing our economy" and that the system should look at people through "what they can do, not what they cannot".
- Official
- Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately says the benefits bill is "out of control" and accuses Labour of ducking hard choices.
- Party
- Labour says the Conservatives allowed welfare and debt to spiral over 14 years in government, summing up their message as "we broke it, now put us back in charge".
Still unverified
The £36bn figure is the Conservative Party's own estimate, not an independently verified saving; Badenoch's remarks were given as extracts released in advance of her speech.