The scale of the country’s benefits explosion has been laid bare – with vast sums going on handouts for people with anxiety and back pain.
The grim picture emerged in a breakdown of how much Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is being paid out for specific conditions.
The figures come amid growing alarm at Labour’s failure to bring forward any significant reforms to the welfare system.
Keir Starmer has ruled out any legislation in the King’s Speech amid fears of another revolt by MPs – after the last bid to trim £5billion from costs was humiliatingly killed off.
Official projections have revealed that the annual bill for PIP is set jump from £25.9billion when Labour came to office to a staggering £44.9billion by the end of the decade.
In 2019-20 the cost of the benefit was £13.7billion, with warnings that too many individuals with ‘low-level’ issues are being supported by the taxpayer.
The government stressed PIP had been rising in real terms for years, insisting it is taking action such as more face-to-face assessments to curb costs.
Keir Starmer has ruled out any legislation to curb benefits in the King’s Speech amid fears of another revolt by MPs
PIP is meant to help people aged over 16 in England and Wales suffering ‘long-term physical or mental health conditions’. It is not means tested or linked to whether they are working.
Claimants can get up to £110 a week towards ‘daily living’, and a maximum of £77 a week more if they have mobility problems.
It was introduced in 2013 as Disability Living Allowance was phased out. But spending on DLA has only fallen by £6billion since then to £7.7billion in 2024-25.
Labour veteran Stephen Timms has been tasked with a review of PIP, but he will not report until the Autumn and the government has been clear it is not geared towards saving money.
The Office for Budget Responsibility warned at the Budget in November that the overall bill for sickness benefits is now set to reach £109billion by the end of the decade.
At the same time Rachel Reeves scrapped the two-child cap on benefits and announced another huge wave of tax hikes, despite warnings that the burden is crushing hopes of growth.
The Department for Work and Pensions, headed by Pat McFadden, slipped out a breakdown of PIP spending by condition for 2024-25 yesterday – the first time the details have been released.
It showed that £4.3billion was handed out to people with anxiety and depression during the year, up from under £1.6billion in 2019-20.
PIP for ADHD and ADD has risen from just £137million before Covid to £560million. At the same time spending on autism conditions has surged from £565million to £1.72billion. The increase could reflect a sharp increase in diagnosis.
The cost of the more specific classification of ‘stress reactions’ was up from £146million to £401million, and ‘mood disorders’ accounted for £939million – from £438million four years earlier.
In 2019-20 payments for back pain were £869million, but by 2024-25 that had hit £1.63billion.
Payments to people with asthma have gone from £80.2million to nearly £167million over the same period.
In contrast, cancer sufferers received £942million in 2024-25, against £463million four years previously.
Arthritis has continued to be one of the biggest conditions claimed for, rising from £1.68billion in 2019-20 to just over £3billion in the most recent year available.
The figures do not account for inflation.
New claims for anxiety and depression are currently running at around 250 per day. The total number of new claims for PIP now stands at more than 1,000 a day.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said: ‘This exposes a welfare system that has completely lost its bearings. Claims for low-level conditions that barely featured a decade ago now dominate the PIP caseload, and spending has spiralled as a result.
‘A system that was meant to support the most severely disabled has been stretched far beyond its original purpose, with no serious scrutiny and no grip from government. Labour refuse to confront this issue and so the benefits bill keeps ballooning, and more people will be written off to long-term dependency. That helps nobody.
‘The Conservatives are the only party willing to act. We will restore face-to-face assessments, fix the broken sick note system, tighten eligibility for low-level mental health claims, and clamp down on abuse. Welfare must be there for those who truly need it and stop the drift into an open-ended entitlement system.’
The Department for Work and Pensions, headed by Pat McFadden (pictured), slipped out the breakdown of PIP spending by condition for 2024-25 yesterday
A Government spokeswoman insisted changes were already being made.
‘The rate of spending on PIP has slowed this year, and we are reforming the broken system we inherited,’ she said.
‘Our reforms will save the taxpayer around £2billion by the end of the decade, narrowing the gap between what people receive for being sick compared to looking for work, and supporting 300,000 sick or disabled people into jobs through Connect to Work.
‘We are particularly concerned about young people, which is why we’ve asked Alan Milburn to look into this. We’ve also launched The Timms Review – co-produced with disabled people and their representative organisations – to make sure PIP is fit for the future.’