The Prime Minister doesn’t even want to stop the benefits bill soaring
Andy Burnham in Downing Street (Image: Getty)
It will become easier to claim disability benefits, under reforms proposed by Work and Pensions Minister Sir Stephen Timms. He says the forms should be easier to fill in. There should be fewer reviews, where people with long term conditions have to prove they still need support. And officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should “improve the tone and language” they use.
What’s missing from his recommendations is any clear plan to get the benefits bill down. And that’s surprising – because the Timms review into Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and similar benefits was originally part of a Labour plan to save billions of pounds. It’s become clear that Prime Minister Andy Burnham has no desire to cut the cost of welfare, despite warnings from a range of experts that the UK simply can’t afford the soaring benefits paid to working-age people.
One concern is that we urgently need extra cash to pump into defence. Even Keir Starmer. the former Labour Prime Minister, has warned that the UK could be at war with Russia within four years, while others say we are involved in a “hybrid” war with the Kremlin, involving sabotage and small provocations rather than full-blown fighting, already.
Conservatives argue that welfare could be cut to give our armed forces the resources they need. But Mr Burnham made it clear he disagrees, telling Parliament this week: “We do everything to support our national security, but it cannot come at the expense of social security”.
However, it’s not just about defence. The welfare system is simply out of control.
This was the point made by Liz Kendall last year, when she was Labour’s work and pensions secretary. The MP told Parliament in March 2025 about “the number of people claiming Personal Independence Payments set to double this decade, from 2 to 4.3 million, with the growth in claims rising faster among young people and mental health conditions.”
She highlighted “taxpayers paying millions more on the costs of failure, with spending on working age sickness and disability benefits up £20 billion since the pandemic, set to rise by a further £18 billion by the end of this Parliament to £70 billion a year.”
And she said: “Every day, there are more than 1,000 new PIP awards. That’s the equivalent of adding a population the size of Leicester every single year.
“That is not sustainable long-term.”
What happened next is that furious Labour MPs, who opposed cuts to Personal Independence Payments, threatened to defeat the Government in a House of Commons vote. Rather than suffering this humiliation, the Government delayed the scheme – and appointed Sir Stephen to launch a review.
He’s now published what he calls emerging recommendations. It’s not quite his final report, but it’s an early draft of it. And his recommendations are not about cutting benefits at all. If anything, he’s calling for the opposite.
Can the country afford this? No.
We all agree that people with disabilities should get the help they need but the growing benefits bill – as Liz Kendall explained – is largely driven by young people stuck in their bedrooms who feel unable to work because of anxiety or similar mental health conditions.
They are not skiving. Many younger people have genuine problems which they need help with. But throwing money at them so they can spend their lives on their phones isn’t the answer.
And the horrible truth is that the country cannot afford it. The UK government is in so much debt that the annual interest bill is higher than the total budgets for Defence, the Home Office (including police) and the criminal justice system, including courts, all added together.
That’s not the amount we’ve borrowed. That’s just the interest we pay on it.
We must cut spending, and getting the welfare bill down must be part of that. Otherwise we’ll reach a point where nobody is willing to lend us money any more.