Reform UK and Tories silent after research shows their own supporters oppose cuts to disability benefits

Political parties that have spent years calling for cuts to spending on disabled people’s benefits have stayed silent in response to new research which shows the public have ignored their rhetoric and strongly oppose any such reductions.

The research shows that support for spending on disability benefits “remains strong across the political spectrum”.

The findings come from a new chapter of the British Social Attitudes Survey*, published by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).

Only seven per cent of those questioned said there should be less spending on disability benefits, while 49 per cent said there should be more spending, even if it would probably lead to higher taxes.

Disabled people are also the highest priority group for extra “welfare” spending.

The research found that 40 per cent of right-leaning voters support more spending on benefits for disabled people who cannot work, and only 10 per cent support less spending.

Overall support for spending on disabled people who cannot work has fallen since 2021, but NatCen said the public remain “very strongly opposed” to cuts to spending on this group.

The authors warn that the absence of detailed data on what people mean by “disabled people who cannot work” means there is possibly support for cuts in benefits to particular groups, but overall there is “strong and continued support for spending on disability benefits”.

Only seven per cent of Conservative voters and 11 per cent of Reform UK voters support cutting disability benefits spending.

And the research found 57 per cent support among Labour voters for more spending on disability benefits, with only five per cent favouring a reduction.

Any attempted cuts to personal independence payment (PIP) would confront “widespread, cross-party support for extra-cost benefits for disabled people with impairments that affect their daily living”, the report concluded.

It added: “This is particularly notable given Reform’s recently announced plans to ‘modify or withdraw’ PIP payments from large numbers of claimants.”

Dr Robert de Vries**, senior lecturer in quantitative sociology at the University of Kent and co-author of the chapter, said: “Despite growing political divisions on welfare, support for disability benefits remains remarkably strong.

“Very few people favour cuts, disabled people are seen as among the most deserving recipients of support, and proposals to reduce disability benefits appear politically risky across the political spectrum.”

Both the Conservatives and Reform UK refused to comment on the report this week.

Both parties have based much of their campaigning in recent months – and their spending pledges if they win at the next general election – on sweeping cuts to disabled people’s support.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately kept her job in Kemi Badenoch’s recent reshuffle after months of misleading and aggressive attacks on recipients of disability benefits.

Whately has repeatedly launched misleading attacks on PIP spending, claiming that the state is funding “free cars for tennis elbow or acne”, while refusing to accept official statistics that show – as this week’s report demonstrates – that working-age social security spending is roughly stable as a proportion of GDP***.

Only last week, she claimed that “hardworking people are fed up with footing the bill for neighbours staying home on benefits”.

The new research suggests she has misread public opinion.

And last week’s Reform UK party conference saw repeated attacks on social security spending, with the party promising cuts of £50 billion a year (see separate story).

The party’s would-be chancellor, Robert Jenrick, said these cuts would “give us a fighting chance to cut taxes for working people and pensioners”.

He claimed his party was “not for people who are on Benefits Street”, while attacking “scroungers” and disabled people who have “got the Motability car on the drive and everybody knows they don’t really need to have those benefits”.

But this week neither Reform UK nor the Conservative party were willing to comment on the NatCen report and the findings that showed their calls for cuts to disability benefits to be significantly out-of-step with the public.

The Liberal Democrats also failed to respond to requests to comment on the report.

But Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the Green Party, said: “Right-wing politicians want people to believe there is a consensus for cutting support for disabled people.

“The truth is that most people believe disabled people should get the support they need, and nearly half want more spent on disability benefits, even if that means higher taxes.

“The Green Party is clear that cuts to support for disabled people are a political choice, not an economic necessity.

“Instead of taxing extreme wealth and excess profits, successive governments have made cruel and avoidable spending cuts.

“Greens will continue to oppose cuts to disability benefits, including PIP.

“Our policy is to restore the value of disability benefits with an immediate five per cent uplift and reform intrusive PIP assessments, working with disabled people to build a system that is fair, humane and accessible.”

DPO Forum England said this week (see separate story) that the results confirm previous research that concluded that hostility towards social security among a “vocal minority” had been created by politicians and mainstream media, who “incite negative views in the public and then point to this vocal minority… as proof government need to cut benefits”.

Disability News Service also asked the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for a response from Labour ministers to the research and whether they believed it would impact their position on possible cuts to disability benefits in the coming months.

DWP declined to answer those questions, but it said in a statement: “We inherited a system of rising costs and poor outcomes for too many people which we are rectifying by extending award review periods, increasing face-to-face assessments, and helping sick or disabled people into jobs backed by £3.5 billion by the end of the parliament.

“The final recommendations from the Timms and Milburn reviews due this autumn will lay the foundation for sustainable long-term reform.”

But DWP continues to defend last year’s cuts to out-of-work disability benefits, claiming that they tackled what ministers call “perverse disincentives”.

Last year’s Universal Credit Act cut the health element of universal credit for most new claimants from about £430 a month to just £217 from April 2026, a move described by disabled campaigners as “a recipe for greater hardship” that would put lives at risk.

*The British Social Attitudes Survey is the UK’s longest-running survey of social and political attitudes, conducted annually by NatCen since 1983

**The other co-author was Professor Ben Geiger, professor of social science and health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London

***Gross domestic product, the size of the country’s economy in a particular year

Picture: Robert Jenrick (left) and Helen Whately