Overview

• Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride set out about £23bn in welfare savings, including tighter Universal Credit rules, ending PIP payments for less severe mental health conditions and shifting support toward treatment.
• Welfare and future access to social housing would be restricted to British citizens, a change estimated to remove eligibility for roughly 470,000 current Universal Credit claimants, with EU settled-status holders exempt.
• Overseas aid would be cut to 0.1% of national income to save about £7bn, while civil service headcount would fall by around a quarter to roughly 384,000 for an estimated £8bn saving.
• Net-zero subsidies such as heat pump grants would be scrapped or scaled back to save about £1.6bn, and the Conservatives would keep the two‑child benefit cap in place.
• Stride also floated a £5,000 national insurance “first‑job bonus” for young homebuyers funded from the planned savings, as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and aid groups condemned the plans and independent analysts flagged unanswered questions on pensions and feasibility.