Starmer’s £143bn welfare nightmare exposed as Plymouth suburbs lead shocking league table
A jaw-dropping third of working-age adults are pocketing taxpayer-funded disability benefits in parts of England — with one Plymouth suburb crowned the shameful capital of Britain’s ballooning welfare state.
The explosive figures lay bare the true scale of Labour’s benefits crisis, as Keir Starmer faces a humiliating revolt over his desperate attempts to slash the eye-watering £143billion welfare bill.
Plymouth’s benefits bonanza
In neighbourhoods across Plymouth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Stockton-on-Tees, nearly one in three adults of working age are claiming Personal Independence Payments — the controversial benefit that’s supposed to help with the extra costs of disability.
The shocking statistics emerge as furious Labour MPs prepare to torpedo the Prime Minister’s flagship welfare reforms, which were meant to save £5billion by the end of Parliament.
But in a spectacular eleventh-hour climbdown, Starmer has already caved to pressure from more than 120 rebel MPs threatening to bring down his benefits bill.
The great PIP explosion
The numbers tell a story of a benefits system spiralling wildly out of control. A staggering 3.7million people across England, Wales and Northern Ireland now claim PIP — almost double the 2million before Covid struck.
Young people are flooding onto the benefit like never before. The number of 16 to 24-year-olds receiving PIP has skyrocketed from just 2,967 a month to an astonishing 7,857 — a mind-boggling increase that’s left taxpayers picking up the tab.
Since the pandemic, the number of working-age people starting PIP claims has more than doubled from 15,300 to 35,100 every single month. At this rate, experts warn the number claiming will balloon to 4.3million by 2029, costing an astronomical £34.1billion annually.
That’s more than a third of the entire NHS budget — and three times what we spend keeping our streets safe from criminals.
Starmer’s humiliating U-turn
The Prime Minister’s attempts to get a grip on the runaway welfare bill have descended into utter chaos. His original plan would have made it harder for people to qualify for PIP by requiring them to score at least four points from a single daily living activity.
But faced with a massive rebellion from his own backbenchers, Starmer has performed what the Tories are calling “the latest in a growing list of screeching U-turns.
The watered-down changes will now only apply to new claimants from November 2026. Around 370,000 existing PIP recipients will keep their payments — a climbdown that’s blown a £2billion hole in the promised savings.
Rachel Reeves’ tax time bomb
With the welfare reforms in tatters, all eyes are on Chancellor Rachel Reeves. The partial U-turn on PIP could wipe out up to £2billion of the planned £5billion savings, while changes to Universal Credit will cost another £1billion.
Experts say she’s now “odds-on” to hike taxes to plug the gaping hole in the public finances. After already imposing the biggest tax rises in three decades in her first Budget — taking the tax burden to a historic high of 38.2% of economic output — hard-pressed families face yet another raid on their wallets.
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride didn’t mince his words: “This is the latest in a growing list of screeching u-turns from this weak Labour Government. Under pressure from his own MPs, Starmer has made another completely unfunded spending commitment. Labour’s welfare chaos will cost hardworking taxpayers.”
The PIP gravy train
For those who know how to work the system, PIP has become a golden ticket. The benefit comes in two parts — daily living and mobility — with payments ranging from £29.20 to £110.40 a week tax-free.
Combined with other benefits, someone on the enhanced rates of both components can pocket up to £187.45 every week. That’s £749.80 every four weeks, or a whopping £9,747.40 a year — all without having to work a single day.
You don’t need to be out of work to claim. You don’t need to have paid National Insurance. Your income and savings are irrelevant. You can even be in full-time employment and still pocket the cash.
The mental health epidemic
Perhaps most controversially, claims for anxiety and depression have exploded. What was once a benefit designed for people with severe physical disabilities has morphed into something entirely different.
Critics say the system has become a lifestyle choice for those who’ve figured out how to game the assessments. All you need is to score enough points on tasks like “preparing food” or “engaging with other people” — conditions that campaigners say have become increasingly subjective.
The assessment system itself has been branded a farce. Claimants are scored on a scale of zero to 12 based on how difficult they find everyday tasks. But with the right sob story and a sympathetic assessor, critics claim almost anyone can qualify.
Labour’s benefits betrayal
For a party founded by the trade union movement to protect working people, Labour’s attack on the vulnerable has shocked even seasoned Westminster watchers.
Colum Eastwood, an MP from Labour’s sister party in Northern Ireland, laid bare the party’s identity crisis when he asked Parliament: “What is the point of Labour?
The government’s own impact assessment makes for grim reading. Their changes will push 250,000 more people into poverty, including 50,000 children. Some 800,000 disabled people stand to lose an average of £4,500 a year.
By 2029-30, a staggering 3.2million families will be £1,720 a year worse off on average. Yet still the benefits bill keeps rising — forecast to hit £70billion a year by the end of the decade, or more than £1billion every week.
The working age crisis
In Plymouth’s benefits blackspots, where nearly a third of working-age adults are on PIP, entire communities have effectively given up on work. The same pattern repeats in former industrial heartlands like Newcastle and Stockton-on-Tees.
These aren’t pensioners who’ve paid into the system all their lives. These are people who should be in the prime of their working years, contributing to the economy rather than draining it dry.
The explosion in young claimants is particularly alarming. When teenagers and twenty-somethings are being signed off as too disabled to work in record numbers, something has gone catastrophically wrong.
Scotland’s separate shambles
North of the border, the devolved Scottish government faces its own benefits nightmare. While new claimants there apply for Adult Disability Payment rather than PIP, the costs are spiralling just as fast.
If Westminster tightens the rules, Scotland will have to choose between following suit or finding the money from elsewhere. Either way, Scottish taxpayers will feel the pain.
The reform that wasn’t
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall promised the “biggest shake-up to welfare in a generation.” What we’ve got instead is a half-baked compromise that satisfies nobody.
The rebels have protected existing claimants but thrown future disabled people under the bus. The taxpayer still faces a massive bill. And the fundamental problems with the system remain unaddressed.
Even the much-vaunted promise to abolish the hated Work Capability Assessment has been kicked into the long grass until 2028. The “Right to Try Guarantee” — meant to encourage people back to work — won’t arrive until the end of 2025.
Tax rises inevitable
With the Spring Statement looming and the Office for Budget Responsibility already slashing growth forecasts, Reeves has nowhere left to hide. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned she faces a “good chance that economic and fiscal forecasts will deteriorate significantly.
Having already raided employer National Insurance, frozen tax thresholds and imposed a raft of stealth taxes, the Chancellor is running out of options. Income tax rises, which Labour promised not to impose on “working people,” now look inevitable.
The irony is bitter. A Labour government elected on promises to help struggling families is instead preparing to hammer them with tax rises to pay for a benefits system that rewards idleness.
Britain at breaking point
The revelation that parts of England have nearly a third of working-age adults on disability benefits should serve as a deafening wake-up call. We’ve created a system where not working pays better than grafting for a living.
In Plymouth’s PIP postcodes, in Newcastle’s benefits blackspots, in Stockton’s welfare ghettos, entire generations are being written off. The message is clear: why bother working when the government will pay you to stay at home?
Until politicians have the courage to face down the benefits lobby and reform this broken system, the rest of us will keep paying the price. Higher taxes, declining services, and a country slowly giving up on the basic principle that work should pay.
The benefits bombshell has exploded. The question now is whether anyone in Westminster has the guts to clear up the mess.
