Britain's Labour government on Tuesday announced contested cuts to disability welfare payments, which will save the Treasury more than £5 billion by 2030 as the economy struggles with stagnant growth.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told parliament she was delivering a "significant reform package" to help disabled people into work.
Centre-left Labour, traditionally accused by the right of excess spending on benefits, insists the cutbacks are essential to help fill a black hole of £22 billion ($29 billion) it claims to have inherited from the Conservatives after last year's election win.
Kendall's announcement came ahead of finance minister Rachel Reeves's Spring Statement on March 26, when billions of pounds of spending cuts across various government departments are set to be detailed.
Kendall said Tuesday that UK spending on benefits "continues to inexorably rise" since the pandemic, while they are either stable or falling in comparable countries.
Before her announcement, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "the government could not put off difficult decisions" and that the current benefits system "was not defensible in moral or economic terms".
One in every 10 working-age people were claiming at least one type of health or disability benefit, he noted.
Starmer's spokesman said there had been "a surge... of people applying and reporting anxiety and depression as their main condition".
Kendall's welfare reform centres on narrowing eligibility for the Personal Independence Payment -- a benefit aimed at helping the disabled.
PIP, however, is not means-tested and is available to people already in work.
A total 3.66 million people were entitled to PIP in England and Wales at the end of January, official data showed Tuesday.
That was up 71 percent compared with on the eve of the pandemic.
"Every day, there are more than 1,000 new PIP awards," Kendall told MPs.
"That is not sustainable long term," she added.
Spending on health and disability benefits for working-age adults is forecast to soar to £75.7 billion in 2029/30 from £48.5 billion in 2023/24, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the country's spending watchdog.
The OBR said the UK spent £296.3 billion on welfare, including almost half on pensions, in 2023/24.
That was equivalent to almost 11 percent of UK gross domestic product (GDP).
- 'Deeply concerned' -
Labour MP Clive Lewis described the government's plans for disability benefit as "incompatible".
"On the one hand it's trying to fix our broken welfare system and at the same time, save money. This is not possible," he told AFP before Kendall's statement.
"And it is doubly impossible if we are to adhere to the Labour values people elected this government to pursue."
Tuesday's announcement comes after the government recently said it would hike spending on defence, heaping fresh pressure on government coffers.
Meanwhile, Britain's economy unexpectedly shrank in January, official data showed Friday, piling more pressure on the government ahead of its Spring Statement on the economy.
Uncertainty over the fallout from President Donald Trump's tariffs on imports into the United States have added to the economic headwinds.