Home News

Billions in rumoured welfare cuts are set to be announced by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall this week as ministers reportedly look to shave £6 billion from Britain’s benefits bill.Changes to health and disability benefits are understood to make the bulk of the reforms, with claimants and campaigners fearing that millions may soon find it harder to qualify for the welfare they are entitled to.The cost of health-related benefits for the Treasury has grown in recent years, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projecting the total state spend will increase from £48.5 billion in 2023/24 to £75.7 billion in 2029/30.Work and pensions secretary is expected to make a major announcement this week (Lucy North/PA) More

A coalition of leading charities has urged Labour to introduce new rental laws which will ensure poorer tenants are not “filtered out” of the housing market. Unfair guarantor rules are allowing landlords to discriminate against “undesirable” tenants, they say, and should be changed as part of Labour’s forthcoming renters bill.Research from Shelter has found that one in three renters who are asked for a guarantor struggles to provide one, meaning around 600,000 renters have struggled to secure a home in recent years.In an open letter to housing secretary Angela Rayner, 28 organisations including Shelter and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation say that this issue will only grow worse if not brought in alongside other anti-discrimination measures set to come into effect as part of the bill. This is because landlords, “will simply switch to further abusing their power to request a guarantor, even when there is very little danger that a tenant will not pay rent,” the letter said.Angela Rayner said the Government’s plans would unleash ‘the biggest building boom in a generation’ (Leon Neal/PA) More

UK food and drink exports are down by more than a third since Brexit, with claims bureaucracy is to blame. Although some products including whisky, chocolate and cheese remain popular with EU customers, overall, there has been a sharp decline in food and drink traded with the bloc, according to the Food and Drink Federation’s (FDF) latest report. It found export volumes of food fell 34.1 per cent in 2024 in comparison to 2019 figures, to 6.37bn kilograms.The FDF blamed post-Brexit trading arrangements for the slump, highlighting how bureaucratic barriers have changed the relationship between the UK and the EU. The UK’s global food export volumes are almost 20 per cent lower on average between 2020-2024 than they were between 2015-2019. Although some of the fall in exports since the UK left the EU five years ago can be attributed to the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, other countries including Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands all saw an increase in their average volumes. “This decline shows that the UK’s challenges aren’t part of a global trend but rather unique to the UK’s post-Brexit circumstances,” the report said. Food and drink imports entering the UK are subject to fewer checks than UK businesses exporting similar products (Liam McBurney/PA) More

The UK economy unexpectedly shrunk by 0.1 per cent in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in a massive blow to Labour’s growth agenda.The figure comes just weeks before Rachel Reeves’s spring statement on 26 March, when the chancellor will give her updated plans for the UK economy. Billions in welfare cuts and reduced spending for other departments are widely expected to form part of her announcement.Responding to the new GDP figures, Ms Reeves said Britain was “feeling the consequences” of global events, likely referencing the ongoing Ukraine peace negotiations and US president Donald Trump’s imposition of international trading tariffs.Rachel Reeves will deliver Labour’s spring statement on 26 March More

As Labour’s crunch Spring Statement draws near, details of the rumoured cuts to welfare have grown rife. Estimates of what the government is hoping to save have continued to grow – now sitting at around £6 billion – with health and disability related benefits understood to be at the heart of the changes.Reforms to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) have now been widely reported, although Labour MPs are understood to be divided on the cost-cutting package. Claimed by 3.6 million people, the payment is designed to help people with extra costs incurred by their disability, whether they are working or not.The changes will include making it harder to qualify for PIP, likely by changing the descriptors assessors use to determine if an applicant is eligible for the benefit. Further savings are also to be made by freezing PIP payments next year, ITV reports, meaning they will not rise with inflation as in previous years.The plans come as spending on all health-related benefits rose to £65bn last year – up 25 per cent from the year before the Covid pandemic. They are forecast to rise to £70bn before the next election. The prime minister on Monday called the current system ‘unsustainable, indefensible and unfair’.“People feel that in their bones,” he said, “It runs contrary to those deep British values that if you can work, you should. And if you want to work, the government should support you, not stop you.”But welfare experts, alongside claimants with experience of PIP, say the benefit is already too hard to claim, and cutting it back further would be ‘catastrophic’. In an open letter, organisations including Disability Rights UK, Citizens Advice, and Sense urged Rachel Reeves to “safeguard” PIP and other health-related in her upcoming spring statement. Around 700,000 disabled people “could be pushed into poverty” without it, disability equality charity Scope adds.David Southgate, policy manager at Scope told The Independent: “Life costs a lot more when you’re disabled, and disability benefits are a lifeline.“The benefits system desperately needs improving, but cutting benefits will just push thousands more disabled people into poverty.”The PIP application process is “complex, stressful and degrading” he adds, something several claimants attest to. Generally, to apply for the benefit, applicants must call the DWP’s dedicated phone line, complete the 90-plus question paper form that is sent to them, and return it.In most cases, an application will then be followed by an assessment, which is carried out on the phone or in-person. It is this assessment where most claimants find they run into the greatest difficulty.Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has the current benefits system is ‘unsustainable, indefensible and unfair’. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreWatch live as Sir Keir Starmer sets out Labour’s plan to save taxpayers £45 billion during a major speech today (13 March).The prime minister has vowed to to fight the “overcautious and flabby” British state, promising root and branch reform of the civil service.Ahead of his speech today, Sir Keir made the stark admission that record tax and spending in recent years has not led to improvement in front-line services.Writing in The Telegraph, the prime minister described the civil service as “overstretched, unfocused and unable to deliver the security people need today.”Speaking on Thursday, the prime minister is expected to hail a “£45 billion jackpot” from digitalising government services, linked to announcements over the weekend about reforming Whitehall to cut costs.In a worrying sign for many civil servants, he will insist that jobs should not exist if artificial intelligence (AI) or computers can do them better.Sir Keir will hail a “new era” in government operations and while ministers have refused to set a target on how many jobs may be scrapped, his words suggest a potential major reduction. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreWatch live as Sir Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) today (12 March) after Donald Trump imposed global tariffs on steel and aluminium.While the European Union has already announced it will introduce counter-measures on American goods, Britain has resisted imposing immediate retaliatory action against the move.The tariffs, which came into effect overnight, raise a flat duty on steel and aluminium entering America to 25 per cent.Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has described the move as disappointing, but said the UK is focussed on a “pragmatic approach”.He said ministers are “rapidly negotiating a wider economic agreement with the US to eliminate additional tariffs” and “remain resolute in our support for UK industry.”“This government is working with affected companies today, and I back industry’s application to the Trade Remedies Authority to investigate what further steps might be necessary to protect UK producers”, Mr Reynolds said More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreLabour has shared its plans to give certain households up to £250 a year off their energy bills as the part of major changes to planning rules in the UK.The government has previously said it wants to boost the number of infrastructure projects by cutting red tape in the planning system. This includes homes, railways and power systems like pylons.The changes will means that local residents are less able to veto new projects in their areas if they disagree with them. Anticipating pushback on this, ministers have now begun promising incentives to those who will be affected.Households living within half a kilometre of new or upgraded power systems such as pylons could get access to a bill discount scheme equivalent to an annual payment of £250 over 10 years, with housing minister Alex Norris saying people who make the “sacrifice of having some of the infrastructure in your community” should get some of the money back.This would mean a £2,500 reduction over a decade, making for major savings at a time when energy bills remain stubbornly high.Mr Norris told Sky News: “As part of our plan for change, those are all our commitments around being a clean energy superpower.“We’re clear that communities need to share the benefits. And if you are making that sacrifice of having some of the infrastructure in your community, you should get some of the money back.“So we’re making that commitment, £250 a year if you are near those pylons. So we think that’s a fair balance between people who are making that commitment to the country themselves, well they should be rewarded for that.”The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has also confirmed that a legal requirement for communities affected by new infrastructure projects will be introduced through Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill next week.Deputy PM Angela Rayner said: “We owe it to the people of this country to get Britain building again” (Chris Radburn/PA) More