Cliff notes
The UK Labour government is set to announce significant welfare reforms on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Key aspects of the proposed changes include:
- Jobcentre Overhaul: £55m to replace Jobcentres with a National Jobs and Careers Service, focusing on helping people find work rather than just monitoring claims.
- Youth Guarantee: Every 18–21-year-old in England to have access to apprenticeships, training, or education to cut youth unemployment (currently 15%).
- NHS Support in High Unemployment Areas: Extra NHS funding for 20 regions to expand mental health support and tackle obesity, helping more people back into work.
- Disability Benefits Reform: Stricter eligibility rules could see 600,000 lose up to £675 per month, contributing to £5bn in welfare cuts. Plans to freeze PIP have been scrapped.
- Employment Support Devolution: £15m for local mayors to create job schemes tailored to regional needs.
Labour’s welfare raid
‘Britain is overdiagnosing says Streeting Burnham warns changes will trap people in poverty,’ says The Times.
The Times leads on the health secretary’s comments that Britain is overdiagnosing mental health conditions, as too many in the country are being signed off on disability. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham writes in the paper that the cuts will mean people are being “trapped in poverty.”
‘PM to kick off a charm offensive to calm the backbenchers,’ the paper adds.
It adds that Downing Street will kick off a “charm offensive” – in a bid to quell a potential rebellion – by inviting backbenchers to meet with the prime minister to discuss the policy.
‘Cabinet ministers amongst those raising doubts over the government’s move,’ says The Guardian.
The Guardian picks up on the response from the left of the party, with reports that there is a growing fury over the planned changes to welfare and benefits. The paper reports that Cabinet ministers are among those who will raise doubts about the scale of cuts and their concerns over how poorly No 10 has handled the messaging so far.
‘Backbenchers preparing to rebel despite all the attempts to appease the rebels,’ says the i.
Labour backbenchers are speaking to the i newspaper, telling them they will soon make it known they are opposing the planned changes. The paper says that despite attempts to appease the Labour rebels, which include a right to try guarantee by which people can try out work without risking losing benefits, MPs have said that the anger from the rebels is much stronger than No 10 realises.
‘Stand firm against the naysayers,’ says the Mail as it praises the Labour government.
The Daily Mail welcomes the planned changes to the welfare system, calling on the prime minister and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, to “stand firm against the naysayers”. The paper, a traditional Conservative-supporting newspaper, says a “backlash” to the reforms was “inevitable.”
‘Essentially the same as the Tories’ and pretty daft,’ highlights The National Scot.
The National Scot leads with Stephen Flynn’s calls for the prime minister to ditch the cut to disability benefits as well as the party’s “broken Tory spending rules.” The SNP’s Westminster leader said Labour’s plans will make everyone poorer whilst the organisation’s director Paul Johnson also criticised them as “essentially the same” as the Tories’ and “pretty daft”.
Flynn calls on the prime minister to “admit he got it wrong” and scrap the welfare cuts and its spending rules to allow for more UK government borrowing.
Additional Sources
thetimes.co.uk
Labour’s benefits rift deepens as Wes Streeting blames ‘overdiagnosis’
Starmer to drive through welfare cuts that could affect UK’s most severely disabled
Cutting benefits is ‘not a Labour thing to do’, says Diane Abbott
