Welfare spending to rise by £73.2bn to £406.2bn

[topicalaffair]

Over the next five years, the OBR is forecasting that UK welfare spending will rise by £73.2bn to £406.2bn.

How does everyone feel about this? I’m livid because I pay lots of tax. I don’t mind paying tax to maintain a civilised society - but this? This is surely taking the piss and will result in weaker and weaker services as the amount of £ available reduces day by day.

YANBU - it’s totally deranged. The every growing uk population can’t function effectively on such a benefits for all basis.

YABU - this welfare spending bill is truly representative of need.

Perhaps they are just aware of their relative’s or neighbour’s situation .Yes it is their business, as they’re paying taxes towards their benefits!

Do you click your fingers at nurses too because you are paying their wages?

Because PIP makes up the accessibility cost. Eg it might be used to pay for specialist equipment allowing them to work, it might be used to pay for transport to work. It might be used for physio or occupational health. It is not based income but on need.

It’s designed so they every person with a disability - whatever their financial situation - has equal ability to access the wider economy.

Or do you think that the ability to flourish with a disability should be simply for those with family wealth or a who happened to make a lot of personal savings before they became disabled?

The reality is that if you market access to be fair and equal, you have to give PIP or equivalent to everyone so it’s a level playing field. One of the reason the £100k people (HENRYs) are so angry right now is that they SHOULD be getting subsidised childcare and child benefit. By rights. But we have had a series of govs that refuse to see access and ability to work as an asset of which the costs should be shared, and have removed what should be universal benefits to well off people.

If anti benefits threads like this keep popping off the state pension will be means tested next. And you won’t like those onions!

Answer my question; What's the answer? How can we advocate for cutting benefits and at the same time say "there there, nice business owner, you don't have to hire the disabled, there's no way of telling if it's a good hard working cripple or a nasty fake one"?

Very tiny chunk of the population. Most have to constantly get reassessed. What do you think all the scandals of the last 20 years (DWP fuck ups, people dying because they got a reassessment wrong) have been all about?

Who do you think is paying the welfare bill?

If I were working my guts out and I knew my neighbour was swinging the lead - would I resent it? Too true I would!

How ridiculously discriminatory and ignorant.

I wasn’t born here. But I have worked 30 years so far (all of my working life) and I contribute the highest amount of tax possible in this country. I have never claimed a benefit. Not once, not even a little bit. I don’t use any social services (save the very very occasional doctors visit).

I have done more and paid for more toward the benefits bill than many people who were born in the UK. I have citizenship. My husband is British. When I retire I deserve the share of pension allowed that I overpaid into.

Your blanket reform views are just pathetic.

What's up with all the anti-disabled, anti-welfare, inability to research facts rhetoric lately? It can't just be Reform, surely?

Also, has anyone found an answer to where all the jobs are coming from? I keep asking, and no one ever replies.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/jobsandvacanciesintheuk/december2025

I can confirm, on my own behalf, that I'm not renovating anything. I buy in help.

Well, I'm not quite sure why, if someone on disability benefits, for mental health stuff, shouldn't be able to do physical things. 🤷‍♀️

They are different disabilities.

Can I just point out that PIP is NOT an out of work benefit. 🤷‍♀️

You can work, and (gawd help us) be part of the Paralympic Olympic team - it's JUST about the EXTRA costs of disability. 🙄

I do think that people can bleat all they like about it not being fair if benefits are cut, but most people can see benefits HAVE to be cut because there are a range of other things taxes need to pay for too. We cannot keep letting the welfare bill consume all money. Those who are net contributors are sick of having to pay more and more and more tax. 65% of the electorate were against removing the 2 child benefit cap. Governments that shy away will not be reelected.

No one listens. They never do. They just come back with "oh, but most people on PIP don't work", like that magically changes the purpose of it.

So what happens to the people who cannot work, or who won't be hired by companies, when their benefits are cut?

Countingcro Well, the two child cap might be a case in point, but disability won't improve on the altar of what's fair. 🤷‍♀️

It’s the fraudulent claimers that make it look bad for genuine ones. It's not easy to disprove someone who says they can’t do this or that due to mental problems .

UK benefits and state pension are already some of the lowest in Europe.

Suggesting that they are over generous and need to be cut is just propaganda by right wing media and politicians.

It is not easy to claim they can't do those things too, and the only people they have to prove anything to is the people assessing them. Not family, not neighbours, not anyone else.

When you see a disabled person out doing things, you are seeing them on a better day. You don't see them in pain for days afterwards, struggling to do the basics for themselves at home.

Ah, the dorms again I guess.

Well, my disabilities are all physical, and easily proved with scans, diagnostics etc.

I don’t know enough about these various mental health disabilities to comment, but I assume they have been medically backed up by qualified people. 🤷‍♀️

But, I don’t know. The government say they will be looking at mental health claims in adults, and other things with children, but I don’t know whether that will achieve anything.

They don’t need to means test the state pension, but they do need to simplify and revamp the benefits system, which is a huge and daunting task. Whichever party is in charge they have no idea how to do it, so they’ll muddle along, chopping and changing here and there.

It’s so depressing to have to explain these things over and over. I’m not disabled but I realise that I could easily be by this time next year - any of us could. Whenever I see someone being ignorant at best and spiteful at worst I wonder whether their time is coming. Of course, when it’s them it’s different - because they will be “genuinely disabled”, unlike all those people they bitched about back when they weren’t.

In some cases , where you know the person , it is entirely possible to know that they are getting benefits they don't deserve ! They make it difficult for the genuine claimants .

Well said.

The basic rate of income tax needs to rise. It’s utterly mad that Labour thought they needed to commit to the current level to be elected. They didn’t. And now they’re in a mess.

What if they're not UK tax residents/nationals? The UK have no power to tax Bill Gates or Elon Musk, yet presumably they are 2 of the 35 families??