United Kingdom residents could soon find it harder to access welfare money, after the nation's finance minister makes multi-billion-pound cuts to several government departments.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves signaled the impending cuts on Wednesday, when she sent her calculations to the government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, or OBR, ahead of her Spring Statement on March 26.

Her calculations, which the OBR assesses in line with UK law, indicate the government's so-called financial buffer has disappeared and that cuts to welfare payments and other government departments will be needed if she is to balance the books.

According to the OBR, the financial buffer stood at 9.9 billion pounds ($12.7 billion) in October, when Reeves delivered her most recent budget.

UK broadcaster the BBC said its sources at the OBR said the buffer had eroded since then, due to a range of factors that include high inflation and high borrowing costs in the UK and global influences such as trade tariff s.

Reeves' department, the Treasury, said in its statement to the OBR that the situation leaves the government with no choice other than to introduce "major measures", such as tax hikes and spending cuts, in the Spring Statement, which is a sort of mini-budget.

Reeves has ruled out borrowing more money to make up the shortfall because the government is committed to reducing the UK's national debt. She is also understood to be against announcing major tax hikes.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the BBC's Today program on Wednesday that welfare cuts seem to be the way forward, and that they are needed, not only to balance the books but because there has been a "huge rise in the welfare budget".

She said many young people now claim benefits instead of targeting either work, education, or training.

"There's a moral case here for making sure that people who can work are able to work and there's a practical point here as well, because our current situation is unsustainable," she said.

The UK's Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will outline the detail of the looming welfare cuts in the coming weeks.

The Evening Standard newspaper said Kendall told her colleagues in the Cabinet on Tuesday that the UK now has 2.8 million people who are not working and claiming benefits because of ill-health. And she said one young person in every eight has opted not to seek education, training, or employment.

The UK's generous welfare system means the nation has paid out an additional 20 billion pounds in sickness and disability benefits since the novel coronavirus pandemic began, she added.

The United Kingdom currently spends around 137 billion pounds a year on welfare payments and about 9 million working-age residents out of the population of 67 million are said to be economically inactive.