Lib Dem Darling pledges to do more to highlight how spending on social security is not spiralling

The Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson has pledged to do more to highlight that spending on social security is stable, so he can challenge right-wing politicians who claim it is spiralling out of control.

Steve Darling told Disability News Service (DNS) at his party’s conference in Brighton that he accepted he “could do more” to challenge the rhetoric of political opponents such as Conservatives Kemi Badenoch and Helen Whately and Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick.

He said Liberal Democrat colleagues agreed with him that the way to cut social security spending was by increasing employment opportunities rather than slashing benefits, and that spending on non-pensioner social security had remained at about five per cent of GDP in recent years and was predicted to stay that way.

Darling (pictured), a member of the Commons work and pensions committee, said he still believed there was a deep-seated cultural problem within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

He said: “It doesn’t feel as if the Department of Work and Pensions is fit for purpose. There needs to be serious culture change.”

Among the areas he promised to probe over the next year is the soaring number of internal process reviews into deaths of benefit claimants that result in recommendations for improvements within DWP.

DNS revealed earlier this month that 50 secret DWP investigations into deaths of claimants had led to calls for change in 2025-26.

Darling, who is himself disabled, also promised to push DWP to research what was happening to former employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants who have not moved onto universal credit in the major “migration” process that is now almost complete.

DWP has admitted terminating the claims of more than 1,200 disabled people on ESA who failed to engage with migrating onto universal credit, raising fresh fears over the safety of the process.

Their claims were stopped despite previous evidence that the migration from benefits such as ESA was putting claimants at risk of homelessness, destitution and severe mental distress.

For years, disabled campaigners have been warning of the disastrous impacts of DWP’s forced migration process on disabled claimants.

DWP figures released in August show that of nearly 880,000 ESA claimants who stopped receiving these “legacy benefits” in the migration process, 22,870 failed to migrate onto universal credit.