Labour’s claims to be tackling Britain’s soaring benefit bill lay in tatters today as new figures showed the number of people receiving Universal Credit has now risen by 1.5million since it won power.
The Department of Work and Pensions today revealed 8.40million people were receiving the welfare payment in March, up more than 63,000 in a month.
In July 2024, when Sir Keir Starmer won the election, the UC claimant count was 6,904,613. In provisional figures for March released today it stood at 8,405,138.
And despite Sir Keir Starmer’s vow to get a grip on people being paid to do nothing, more than a third of the total 63,197 increase, some 25,087 people, were placed on benefits with no work requirement.
This means that most have been deemed too unwell to even seek work, although it can also mean they are involved in childcare.
Helen Whately, the Conservative shadow work and pensions secretary, said it was ‘a full-blown crisis with a claim form attached’.
‘Higher taxes, more regulation, fewer jobs. Labour’s bad economic choices are driving people onto welfare and passing the bill onto taxpayers,’ she said.
‘Labour are killing jobs and piling taxes onto businesses and working people. Only the Conservatives have a plan to get Britain working again.’
The new figures relate to a period before the government removed the two-child benefit cap, meaning that the figures could increase yet further in coming months.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in November’s Budget that the cap, restricting child tax credit and UC to the first two children in most households, would be lifted this month after prolonged pressure from Labour backbenchers.
At the weekend the Mail on Sunday revealed taxpayers are shelling out £800 in disability benefits every minute to people claiming to suffer from anxiety.
The cost of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for the disorder has rocketed from under £100million in 2019 to nearly £427million last year – under rules that allow anyone, regardless of their income, to collect the payments without ever seeing a doctor.
Last week ministers laid new legislation that will allow disability claimants to work without the fear of losing their benefits.
The Department for Work and Pensions said it had introduced amendments to existing laws on Thursday for the changes that will come into effect at the end of April.
The so-called ‘Right to Try’ has been central to the Government’s welfare reforms, which it says will stop people being ‘trapped on benefits’.
The department says it will invest £3.5 billion in employment support by the end of the decade.
It means employment will not automatically trigger a benefits reassessment for claimants who are on employment and support allowance (ESA), personal independence payment (Pip) and the health element of universal credit in England, Wales and Scotland.
