UK's biggest benefit hotspots mapped: Shock figures reveal up to a FIFTH of adults getting handout in parts of country don't need to look for a job
Daily Mail analysis today reveals some authorities – including Keir Starmer 's own – have seen rates climb 60% since Labour won power.
It comes after Government figures this week revealed that 3.7million Brits were now on universal credit with 'no work requirements'.
This marked a rise of one million since Sir Keir took office, sparking outrage among critics of the ballooning £140billion welfare bill.
Laying bare the crisis confronting the Prime Minister, our audit found everywhere in England and Wales saw the number of adults signed off work indefinitely rise since Labour's landslide election victory.
Sir Keir's Holborn and St Pancras constituency witnessed the biggest rise between July 2024-2025.
There, 8,029 constituents get universal credit without any requirement to work – up 61.3% in a year.
Our audit of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics uncovered similarly high increases in Hackney North and Stoke Newington (59.9%) and Leeds Central and Headingley (58.4%).
Croydon West saw the smallest jump, although it still leapt up 23.2%.
Blackpool South, meanwhile, can today be named as Britain's benefits capital. There, 19.3% of working-age adults, aged 16 to 64, get universal credit with no requirement to seek work.
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough (18.8%) and Liverpool Walton (18.2%) rounded out the top three.
The TaxPayers' Alliance today urged the PM to 'get a grip' of the welfare bill, branding it a 'national disgrace'.
Elliot Keck, head of campaigns of the thinktank, added: 'The catastrophic rise in the number of Brits on benefits with no requirement to ever work is a national disgrace.
'It's fitting that the biggest surge is in the Prime Minister's backyard, given it's his humiliating government's disastrous economic policies and humiliating failure to reform the welfare system that has played such a role in driving the increase.
'Starmer should try door knocking in his constituency over the coming months if he wants to get to grips with how serious the crisis is.'
The DWP claimed the rise in the number of people claiming universal credit with no requirements to work was 'to be expected' because of the push to move all 'legacy' benefits under one umbrella.
It means new claimants won't be solely responsible for the increase.
Instead, many are expected to have been migrated to universal credit, which makes up £52bn of the total welfare bill.
The DWP's definition of no work requirements covers illness or disability and caring responsibilities.
It can also include those in full-time education, over the state pension age, someone with a child aged under one, and those considered to have no prospect of work.
At its most basic level, universal credit amounts to £400 a month for adults over 25.
Claimants with limited capacity to work – either because of a disability or long-term illness – get twice the amount.
More than 8m Brits currently get the handout, up from 3m before Covid struck.
Currently, 46 per cent of all claimants are not expected to do anything to prepare or to look for work.
Sir Keir and Chancellor Rachel Reeves last month saw their attempt to cut Britain's ballooning benefits bill derailed by a major rebellion among Labour MPs.
The PM was forced to scrap most of the planned welfare changes in the face of a huge Labour revolt.
He ditched proposed restrictions to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the main disability payment in England, until after a review.
Labour's package of reforms, which ministers hoped would save £5bn by 2030, was aimed at encouraging more people off sickness benefits and into work.
It included tightening the eligibility criteria for UC 'top-ups' – given to claimants who have a limited capacity to work because of a disability or long-term condition.
A DWP spokesperson said: 'As the majority of vulnerable customers started moving from legacy benefits onto the modernised Universal Credit system from July 2024, it is to be expected that the number of people claiming the benefit with no requirement to work will increase.
'These figures are yet more evidence of the broken welfare system we inherited that is denying people the support they need to get into work and get on at work.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
11 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Reeves considers replacing stamp duty with new property tax
The Treasury is considering a new tax on the sale of homes worth more than £500,000 as a step towards a radical overhaul of stamp duty and council tax, the Guardian has been told. As Rachel Reeves prepares the ground for tax rises in this autumn's budget, senior ministers have tasked officials to study how a new 'proportional' property tax could be implemented and model its impact before reporting back to ministers, who have been briefed on the proposals. Officials are initially examining a potential national property tax, which would replace stamp duty on owner-occupied homes, sources said. They are also studying whether, after the national tax, a local property tax could then replace council tax in the medium term in an effort to repair battered local authority finances. No final decisions have been made. A national tax could be implemented during this parliament, while it is understood an overhaul of council tax would take longer, at least requiring Labour to win a second term in office. The policy options are being considered as part of a large tranche of work within the Treasury aimed at tapping into the vast cumulative rise in house prices in recent years which risks entrenching inequalities and making council tax – which is based on early 1990s property values – more unfair. If the plans came to fruition, they could provide valuable political cover for Reeves, both in terms of raising extra revenue without breaking Labour's pledge to not raise levies on working people, and as policies that would be likely to appeal to many of the party's MPs and members. There has been increasing pressure on the chancellor to consider more wealth-based taxes, notably from the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the additional tax on more expensive homes could be presented in this light. The national tax would be paid by owner-occupiers on houses worth more than £500,000 when they sell their home. The amount paid would be determined by the value of the property, with the rate set by central government, which would directly collect the proceeds via HMRC. It would not replace stamp duty on second homes. Current rates of stamp duty vary depending on whether someone is a first-time buyer and are banded in steps upward depending on the value of the property being bought and sold. It would take time to phase in a replacement to stamp duty, and a range of options are being considered for phasing in changes. The revenue raised by stamp duty on primary residences varies considerably from year to year, depending on housing market conditions. Last financial year it raised £11.6bn according to government figures. Over time, it is believed the new national property tax would be a more reliable, consistent source of revenue and ultimately raise the same amount as stamp duty. The levy would only impact about a fifth of property sales, compared with about 60% with current levels of stamp duty, which is paid by the buyer of a home. The average price of a home in the UK was £272,664 in July, according to Nationwide. Sources said that Treasury officials are, in part, drawing on the findings of a 48-page report from centre-right thinktank Onward, which was published in August last year. Onward's report proposes a dual approach of a national and local 'proportional property tax' on property, based on its value. It is written by Tim Leunig, who worked as a government adviser for more than a decade and was closely involved with devising the furlough scheme during the Covid-19 pandemic. Leunig wrote: 'These proposals would make it easier and cheaper to move house, for a better job, or to be near family, as well as being fairer. It should not be the case that a terrace house in Burnley pays more than a mansion in Kensington – and it wouldn't be under these proposals.' The government has already showed signals of adopting some of the steps towards council tax Leunig laid out in his report: 'The first step would be to end the overfunding of various councils in affluent areas of inner London, particularly Westminster, Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea councils.' This is similar to the approach laid out this summer in a consultation on how to redistribute from richer to poorer councils. The idea of a new local annual property levy to replace council tax was also proposed by Onward. That plan would see owners, rather than the residents, of a property worth up to £500,000 paying varying rates of tax dependent on the value of their home. They would pay a minimum of £800 a year and the funds this generates would go directly to local councils, whose finances have been severely stretched in recent years. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Rayner has already raised the prospect of ramping up redistributions of funds to address regional inequalities, which she has argued are exacerbated by the existing council tax system, which replaced the poll tax in 1993. A spokesperson for the Treasury said: 'As set out in the plan for change, the best way to strengthen public finances is by growing the economy – which is our focus. Changes to tax and spend policy are not the only ways of doing this, as seen with our planning reforms, which are expected to grow the economy by £6.8bn and cut borrowing by £3.4bn. 'We are committed to keeping taxes for working people as low as possible, which is why at last autumn's budget, we protected working people's payslips and kept our promise not to raise the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, employee national insurance or VAT.' Economists from the right and left of the political spectrum have heavily criticised stamp duty and council tax. In June, the government launched a consultation on how to reform the allocation of funds raised by council tax. Labour said the 'fair funding review' aims to fix the 'broken funding system we inherited' which has 'left local authorities across the country in crisis'. The strategy has already met a backlash after it emerged deprived inner-city London councils stand to lose millions of pounds. The IFS, an economic thinktank, has said that while reform was very much needed, the proposed changes in the government's funding review appeared to run counter to an 'expectation that deprived and urban areas would win at the expense of more affluent and rural areas, the government's baseline funding reform proposals are not particularly redistributive to poor, urban areas of England'. While any wealth-related tax could provoke strong criticism from rightwing opponents, ministers have shown willingness to ignore such criticism for policies which generally affect wealthier people, such as adding VAT on private school fees and changes to inheritance tax for some farms. If billed as a part of a longer-term replacement of stamp duty, this could also be helpful given the existing levy is unpopular and widely seen as a blunt tool and a block on the property market. Using property taxes as a replacement for council tax would be complex to implement and almost inevitably require a second term in office, but there is an increasing acceptance among all the main parties that the current system for local government funding is obsolete and unviable. Labour has already committed to the biggest shake-up of council structures in England for decades, but does not want to oversee the predicted series of local authorities declaring effective bankruptcy, especially as many will be run by the party. The Guardian last week revealed that the Treasury is also looking at ways to raise more money from inheritance tax in attempt to ease pressure on the country's finances, ahead of Reeves's autumn budget.
Western Telegraph
18 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Government working ‘at pace' to bring Gazan children to UK for medical care
Sir Keir Starmer's official spokesperson said a cross-government task force is 'up and running', but warned that it is a 'sensitive and complex process'. His comments come after the BBC reported that the first group of critically ill and injured Gazan children, said to be between 30 and 50 patients, will be arriving 'in the coming weeks'. It is understood that the children will come from hospital with family members via a third country, where biometric data will be collected, and that some may enter the asylum system after completing treatment. The Number 10 spokesperson said: 'We're not going to get into a running commentary on numbers or the exact process. 'Exact numbers are going to depend on clinical need and various factors.' He added: 'We continue to take all those plans to evacuate more children from Gaza, who require urgent medical care in the UK and specialist treatment. 'Obviously, it's sensitive and it's a complex process, and the wellbeing of patients and their families is our top priority. 'There's a cross-government task force working together to deliver this new scheme and we'll obviously provide an update as and when we've got them.' The spokesperson continued: 'There's a task force up and running to deliver this (as soon) as possible. 'Patients will obviously be assessed on a case-by-case basis, some will be brought to the UK if that's the best option for their care. 'We obviously continue to provide significant support in the region as well, for evacuations within the region, to support people desperately in need of care. 'And that is on top of the significant aid that we're providing to the region to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis.' He said the Government will give updates on the plans 'as and when we can', but said: 'We are working at pace to deliver it.' Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Jack Taylor/PA) More than 50,000 children are estimated to have been killed or injured in Gaza since October 2023, according to Unicef. A small number of children have so far been brought to the UK for specialist medical care via an initiative by Project Pure Hope, and they are being treated privately. The Government's plans, coordinated the Foreign Office, Home Office and Department of Health, is set to see children treated by the NHS. Last month, a cross-party group of 96 MPs wrote a letter to the government urging them to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK, warning that they are at risk of imminent death due to the 'decimation' of the healthcare system. Labour MP Rachael Maskell, who signed that letter, has insisted that there must be 'no delay'. She told the PA news agency: 'There should be no delay in getting children from Gaza the healthcare they need. 'I have met regularly with clinicians on their return from Gaza, who have shared the most distressing stories of the challenges of providing services to children without the equipment and medication that is needed, and in inadequate facilities where they are daily having to make life and death decisions, when in the UK, they know that they would be able to treat and save so many more lives. 'It is vital that we do everything to provide healthcare at scale and more so, do everything to stop the killing in Gaza.'
Glasgow Times
20 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Government working ‘at pace' to bring Gazan children to UK for medical care
Sir Keir Starmer's official spokesperson said a cross-government task force is 'up and running', but warned that it is a 'sensitive and complex process'. His comments come after the BBC reported that the first group of critically ill and injured Gazan children, said to be between 30 and 50 patients, will be arriving 'in the coming weeks'. It is understood that the children will come from hospital with family members via a third country, where biometric data will be collected, and that some may enter the asylum system after completing treatment. The Number 10 spokesperson said: 'We're not going to get into a running commentary on numbers or the exact process. 'Exact numbers are going to depend on clinical need and various factors.' He added: 'We continue to take all those plans to evacuate more children from Gaza, who require urgent medical care in the UK and specialist treatment. 'Obviously, it's sensitive and it's a complex process, and the wellbeing of patients and their families is our top priority. 'There's a cross-government task force working together to deliver this new scheme and we'll obviously provide an update as and when we've got them.' The spokesperson continued: 'There's a task force up and running to deliver this (as soon) as possible. 'Patients will obviously be assessed on a case-by-case basis, some will be brought to the UK if that's the best option for their care. 'We obviously continue to provide significant support in the region as well, for evacuations within the region, to support people desperately in need of care. 'And that is on top of the significant aid that we're providing to the region to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis.' He said the Government will give updates on the plans 'as and when we can', but said: 'We are working at pace to deliver it.' Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Jack Taylor/PA) More than 50,000 children are estimated to have been killed or injured in Gaza since October 2023, according to Unicef. A small number of children have so far been brought to the UK for specialist medical care via an initiative by Project Pure Hope, and they are being treated privately. The Government's plans, coordinated the Foreign Office, Home Office and Department of Health, is set to see children treated by the NHS. Last month, a cross-party group of 96 MPs wrote a letter to the government urging them to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK, warning that they are at risk of imminent death due to the 'decimation' of the healthcare system. Labour MP Rachael Maskell, who signed that letter, has insisted that there must be 'no delay'. She told the PA news agency: 'There should be no delay in getting children from Gaza the healthcare they need. 'I have met regularly with clinicians on their return from Gaza, who have shared the most distressing stories of the challenges of providing services to children without the equipment and medication that is needed, and in inadequate facilities where they are daily having to make life and death decisions, when in the UK, they know that they would be able to treat and save so many more lives. 'It is vital that we do everything to provide healthcare at scale and more so, do everything to stop the killing in Gaza.'
