Reform UK would ban foreigners from claiming benefits, Robert Jenrick

More than one million foreigners living in Britain would be banned from claiming almost all benefits under a Reform UK government.

Robert Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesman, said the move would contribute to wider plans to save more than £50 billion in welfare spending to tackle an “immoral” situation.

The ban would cover European Union citizens with settled status, which would require a renegotiation of the Brexit deal with Brussels and trigger a reciprocal move being levied on British expatriates. It could save about £21 billion annually by the fifth year of the scheme, Reform claimed.

The party had previously pledged to ban foreigners from claiming universal credit, but the new proposal covers almost all welfare payments including housing, pension credit, jobseeker’s allowance, child benefit, free childcare and disability benefits. An estimated 1.3 million foreigners claim universal credit, along with several hundred thousand others who claim individual or multiple other benefits.Speaking before the announcement on Monday, Jenrick said: “Forcing British workers to pay for the benefits of foreigners is not just economically illiterate but plain immoral.

“People are more than happy to support their neighbours in hard times, but the British taxpayer cannot afford to subsidise everyone on the planet, especially those who have not paid in.

“The public have been crying out for this change for decades. Unlike the two old parties, Reform will deliver a system that’s fair for the British people.”

However, the plan to strip benefits from EU citizens with settled status would require difficult negotiations. Reform acknowledged that Britons living in the bloc could lose their rights to benefits. The party has estimated a cost of £500 million for expatriates returning to the UK and claiming welfare after losing their entitlement to support.

The plan is one of a series of proposals from Jenrick, who defected from the Conservative party in January.

The Newark MP has already set out plans to transform sickness and disability benefits to cut £22 billion from the welfare bill. These include scrapping personal independence payments (Pip) and health-related payments under universal credit. They would be replaced by a health security allowance only for severe cases and a single in-person assessment to screen out “vexatious and fraudulent claims”.

However, Labour said Jenrick’s pledge to bar foreigners from claiming benefits would be unfair on those who had built lives in Britain. A spokesman said: “These plans would mean ripping up the UK’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, plunging the UK back into years of Brexit renegotiations and stripping support from potentially millions of people who have lawfully lived, worked and paid taxes in Britain for years, and in many cases decades.

“That includes people with settled status who are part of our communities, raising families, working and contributing to our economy.”

The spokesman added the “vast majority” of migrants had no access to benefits and that ministers were already reforming the welfare system.

Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, claimed Jenrick’s plans were an attempt to distract attention from the investigation into an undeclared £5 million gift to Farage and the “pointless by-election” in Clacton, which he won on Friday.