Is welfare over warfare right in our dangerous world’?

Bill for working-age benefits twice that of defence, analysis reveals, as debate over government spending intensifies

- DAVID MADDOX

The UK spends more than twice as much on benefits for working-age people as it does on defence each year, a new analysis by The Independent can reveal, laying bare the shocking scale of Britain’s welfare bill.

As Sir Keir Starmer faces a potential backlash over plans to end disability payments for around 1 million people, figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show the government spend on all working-age benefits is £117.6bn – representing 4.5 per cent of GDP and is 9.2 per cent of the government’s overall budget.

That is more than double the amount spent on defence (£56.4bn) and more than the entire education budget (£116bn).

The former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Lord West warned: “This is unsustainable if we wish to avoid war and survive as a nation.” The discrepancy with defence spending appears to be stark in what is now widely acknowledged to be a “dangerous world”, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The prime minister has already pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 and 3 per cent by 2030.

Critics are concerned that Sir Keir’s government has not fully grasped the nettle of benefits reform and needs to go well beyond the £5bn of savings outlined by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall.