Benefits bill on course to rise by £18billion a YEAR without reform - equivalent to more than the entire police budget
Spending on sickness benefits is on course to rise by £18 billion without reform – more than the entire police budget.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall is facing a furious backlash from Labour MPs and campaigners who warn that 'cruel' cuts to disability benefits will drive hundreds of thousands into poverty.
But official figures published alongside the Government's long-awaited welfare legislation yesterday reveal that spending on benefits will continue to soar even if the reforms survive a Commons rebellion, with many Labour MPs threatening the first big revolt of Keir Starmer 's premiership.
An impact assessment reveals that spending on sickness and disability benefits for working-age adults is set to jump by £18 billion a year to £70 billion by the next election, if nothing is done to trim the bill.
The report adds: 'The increase alone is more than the entire police budget.' The 2025-26 police budget is £17.4 billion.
A Whitehall source said the surge in spending underlined the need for reform, adding: 'These figures show that the current welfare system is unsustainable.'
Ms Kendall's reforms will trim £5 billion from the total unless they are blocked by mutinous Labour MPs.
But spending on personal independence payments (PIP), which is at the centre of Labour's civil war on welfare, will rise by £8 billion to £31 billion – an increase of more than a third.
Despite a tightening of eligibility criteria, the Department for Work and Pensions estimates another 750,000 will be claiming the benefit by the next election.
Ms Kendall said the welfare package 'marks the moment we take the road of compassion, opportunity and dignity'. The cuts were needed to put the welfare budget 'on a more sustainable path'.
'This is about ensuring fairness for people who need support and fairness for the taxpayer too,' she added.
But Labour critics warned there was 'no moral case' for taking benefits away from people currently classed as 'disabled'. Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said the scale of the cuts 'would have made George Osborne blush'.
She added: 'We cannot underestimate their human and political cost. The public will not forgive us if we remove support from those most in need of it.'
Fellow Left-winger Richard Burgon said: 'These cruel cuts will drive hundreds of thousands of people into poverty. These cuts should have been dropped – now they should be voted down.'
More than 100 Labour MPs have raised concerns about the proposals with party whips, but ministers are privately confident they can avoid a humiliating defeat in the Commons early next month.
The most controversial cut involves ending eligibility for PIP payments for 800,000 people, who will lose around £4,500 each.
The Government's own assessment suggests this will drive 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children.
The package also involves 'rebalancing' Universal Credit (UC) payments to end the 'perverse' incentive that makes it attractive for people to claim they are too sick to work.
The standard UC payment of just over £400 a month will be increased by more than inflation, while the 'health element', currently worth an extra £423, will be frozen. The changes will hit around three million people.
The Policy Exchange think-tank has warned that the sickness benefits bill will hit £100 billion by 2029/30 – meaning £1 in every £4 of income tax will be spent on it.
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