Overview

• Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride set out £47bn a year in savings, with about £23bn from welfare changes that would limit PIP for milder mental‑health conditions, require medical diagnoses, and replace some cash with treatment or equipment.
• Eligibility for welfare and social housing would be restricted to British citizens, with EU settled‑status holders exempt; the party says roughly 470,000 current universal credit claimants would lose entitlement under the change.
• The plan cuts overseas aid to 0.1% of GDP to save about £7bn, scraps green subsidies including heat‑pump grants, and reduces civil service headcount by around 130,000 to save about £8bn.
• Savings would fund incentives such as a £5,000 ‘first‑job’ national insurance rebate for young workers and a newly announced abolition of business rates for high‑street shops and pubs costing about £4bn annually.
• Labour, Liberal Democrats and development groups attacked the measures as regressive or short‑sighted, while the Institute of Economic Affairs welcomed the focus on cuts but warned long‑term pension pressures remain unaddressed.