New official figures expose how politicians and media have repeatedly lied about social security spending

New official figures – hidden by government and opposition parties – have exposed months of lies by politicians and the media about “spiralling” spending on social security and the need to cut benefits.

The updated statistics from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that, rather than “spiralling out of control”, social security spending is predicted to be lower in 2029-30 than it is this year.

Previous figures published by OBR in October 2024 showed that the share of GDP* taken by social security spending was stable, and even predicted to fall from 11.1 per cent to 11.0 per cent in 2027-28 and 2028-29, before rising slightly back to 11.1 per cent in 2029-30.

Despite those figures, it appears to have become an accepted fact across the mainstream media – and particularly right-wing publications – that social security spending is out of control.

But the new OBR figures**, published in March this year but apparently not reported on by the media, show predicted spending to be even lower than previously forecast.

They show that social security spending is predicted to be 10.9 per cent of GDP this year, then 11 per cent in 2026-27, 10.8 per cent in 2027-28, 10.7 in 2028-29 and 10.8 per cent in 2029-30, when it will be 0.2 percentage points lower than next year’s expected level.

The figures – which may be adjusted again later this month by OBR – highlight the repeated dishonesty of politicians and media commentators who insist that chancellor Rachel Reeves must act in this month’s budget to curb what they claim is rapidly-rising spending on social security.

Although spending on personal independence payment (PIP) has been rising quickly, and is predicted to rise further – likely due to the combined impact of the pandemic on long-term health, the rise in mental ill-health, lengthy NHS waiting-lists after 15 years of austerity, greater awareness of PIP, the rising state pension age, and the cost-of-living crisis – the OBR figures show overall social security spending to be stable and even predicted to fall slightly.

This week, Disability News Service (DNS) approached the Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Conservative party, the Labour party and Reform UK, asking why they have repeatedly stated that social security spending was spiralling and needed to be cut when it was now set to fall over the next few years.

By noon today (Thursday), Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK had all failed to comment on the figures or even acknowledge the approach.

The Treasury passed the questions to DWP.

A response from DWP ignored the questions asked by DNS and so is included as a footnote to this article***.

The last few days have seen Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage both calling for cuts to social security spending.

Badenoch said in a speech on Tuesday that she had a plan to “cut welfare”, and “reduce eligibility for lower-level mental health issues”, repeatedly conflated PIP with out-of-work disability benefits, misleadingly claimed that “sickness benefits pay more than the minimum wage”, and attacked the Motability car scheme.

Two months ago, she said the social security system was “out of control”.

Last week, Reform UK’s work and pensions spokesperson Lee Anderson said his party would cut £3.2 billion a year from PIP spending by “fully [removing] those with anxiety disorders, but not serious psychiatric disorders, from PIP eligibility”.

And this week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wrongly claimed that the benefits bill had “ballooned” this year, while he also claimed – again wrongly – that the million lowest-paid workers would “all be better off if they claimed to have mild anxiety”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves was more subtle in her “scene setter” speech ahead of the budget, describing welfare spending on Tuesday misleadingly as one of the “pressures on the public finances”.

Last month, she repeated the false claim that welfare spending was spiralling, telling Channel 4 News: “We can’t get to the end of this parliamentary session and have done nothing, because if more and more of our money that we spend as a government is spent on welfare, you’ve got less for the NHS, you’ve got less for schools.”

Meanwhile, the harm caused by previous efforts to cut spending on disability benefits was highlighted on Tuesday by a protest outside DWP’s Caxton House headquarters by disabled artist, writer and filmmaker Dolly Sen.

Sen – who declared the building a “crime scene” (pictured) because of the “structural violence built into the welfare system” – was joined by campaigners Joy Dove and Ian Briggs.

One of their aims was to call on the government to “prioritise the safety, dignity and lives of claimants in all welfare policy”.

Dove’s daughter Jodey Whiting died in February 2017, and in June a second inquest into her suicide – following her mother’s eight-year campaign for justice and accountability – found that her “deteriorating” mental health had been “precipitated” by the withdrawal of her out-of-work disability benefits after she missed a work capability assessment.

Briggs has campaigned for justice for five years over his claims that the actions of the Child Maintenance Service – part of DWP – contributed to Gavin’s decision to take his own life.

Sen said: “They call it welfare; I call it warfare.

“The DWP wages war on the poor, the disabled, and the already-broken.

“It’s a ministry of cruelty that has turned suffering into policy, despair into a spreadsheet.

“Behind every tick box is a human being who didn’t survive the paperwork.”

She added: “We will continue to campaign until the state stops treating life as a cost to cut.”

Dove said: “I want to show I am not going away. I want a public inquiry and justice for Jodey, if that’s the last thing I do.

“The coroner said the DWP triggered Jodey to kill herself, and I think someone should be held accountable.

“I am also doing this for the other families who have lost loved ones due to the DWP.”

*Gross domestic product, the size of the country’s economy in a particular year

**Chapter five of OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook – March 2025, chart 5.2, shows welfare spending as a percentage of GDP: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2025/

***A DWP spokesperson said: “We’re shifting our focus from welfare to work, skills, and opportunities, so more people can move out of poverty and into good, secure jobs as part of our Plan for Change. We’re also modernising jobcentres, delivering a youth guarantee, and funding local programmes like Connect to Work so people get the skills to thrive, and businesses get the workforce they need.”

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…