Lee Anderson, the Reform MP, said on Wednesday that it was so easy to game the welfare system he could get “the fittest man” in his home town on benefits.
The MP for Ashfield told a press conference he was the “first point of contact” for disability claimants when he worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau before entering politics.
He made the admission as Reform announced proposals to restrict Personal Independence Payments (PIP), which are claimed by 3.8 million Britons, by abolishing the benefit for people with anxiety unless their case is severe.
The PIP system has largely replaced the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) scheme, which was the main such benefit in place when Mr Anderson worked for Citizens Advice.
The Reform chief whip told reporters: “I could take the fittest man in Ashfield and we could get him a 100 per cent claim on DLA. That’s how skilful the advisers were at filling these forms out. It has to stop.
“We were gaming the system. It was a competition between the adviser, the person who was filling the form out, and the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions].”
Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, said the party’s shake-up of PIP could save £9bn a year by 2029. Under the proposal, only those with serious anxiety could claim the benefit.
In July 2025, there were 487,621 people claiming PIP for mixed anxiety and depressive disorders, generalised anxiety disorder or other forms of anxiety – around one in eight of all those receiving the benefit.
This included 104,886 people receiving the enhanced payment for both mobility and daily living adjustments, equivalent to £9,794 a year. The combined bill would equate to almost £3.2bn a year.
