Mandatory 20-hour community work plan for benefits claimants unveiled by Reform UK

Benefits claimants will be made to clean up their local communities and do charity work or face being stripped of their benefits under Reform UK plans.

Robert Jenrick , the party’s Treasury spokesperson, said the long-term unemployed would have to work 20 hours a week scrubbing high streets, carrying out minor repairs and “beautifying neglected places”.

The scheme would be run by local councils and those who do not accept work placements will have their funding cut.

The policy forms part of Reform’s “welfare to work” scheme, which also includes stopping foreign nationals claiming almost any benefits in a bid to cut £50 billion from Britain’s welfare bill.

Personal independence payments (Pip), paid to some disabled people, and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age adults would be abolished.

Mr Jenrick told an event in central London on Monday “those taking everyone else for mugs, under a Reform government, it’s going to stop”.

Reform UK Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick (left) and deputy leader Richard Tice PA He said: “They’ll work to clean up high streets and parks, to beautify neglected places, to carry out minor repairs, to staff libraries and community centres to perform many other tasks from the list that we’ve published today.

“We’ll also embrace local charities and community groups and ask them to help us and take part. If claimants refuse to participate or fail to show up, they’ll face penalties.

“Let me speak very plainly. If people who are capable of work refuse, then they’ll get nothing. That’s fair.”

Since the pandemic there has been a significant rise in the number of people claiming benefits in the capital.

There are some 201,000 more working-age Londoners relying on unemployment benefits than in 2019, bringing the total to 349,500 people across the city, according to research by Trust for London.

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