Keir Starmer has been accused of allowing a benefits crisis to “spiral out of control” as record numbers of people claimed cash for a disability or long-term illness. The number of people in England and Wales claiming the main disability benefit has passed four million for the first time, figures show.
Record PIP Claims
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is intended to help with everyday tasks and extra living costs if someone has a long-term physical or mental health condition or disability. There were 4.01 million PIP claimants in April 2026, according to data published on Tuesday by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This is up from 3.74 million a year earlier.
The number of claimants has roughly doubled since comparable figures began seven years ago in January 2019, before the Covid pandemic, when the total stood at 2.05 million.
Political Reactions
Helen Whately, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “Labour have let a sickness benefit crisis spiral out of control. We have a system that’s too quick to write people off and too slow to help them into work – and which is costing us a fortune at a time when we must boost Britain’s defences.”
Ms Whately added: “Instead of helping them into work and independence, our welfare state is signing them off and parking them on benefits. Labour’s answer to every problem is to spend more of the taxpayers’ money and duck the difficult decisions.”
She outlined Conservative plans: “The Conservatives will review the entire PIP system, remove eligibility for low-level mental health PIP claims, rapidly assess hundreds of thousands of additional claims, and get Britain working again.”
Government Response
Last year, ministers were forced to climb down on plans to reform disability benefits, including for those with mental health conditions, in the face of backbench Labour opposition. Instead of immediate reform, the Timms Review was established to gather views on PIP and how it works. Ministers have promised that any changes to the benefit will be postponed until after that takes place.
DWP said the review will ensure PIP is “fit and fair for the future”. An interim update from the review is expected “in the coming months”.
Demographic Shifts
While more than half of PIP claimants are aged 50 and over, this proportion has been falling over time, from 56.4% in January 2019 to 52.2% in April this year. Teenagers and young adults continue to account for an increasing share of those receiving PIP.
Some 16.6% of claimants in April this year were aged 16-29, up from 14.5% in January 2019. There has been a similar rise for the 30-44 age group, which accounted for 20.9% in April, up from 18.9% in 2019. By contrast, 45 to 59-year-olds made up 28.9% of claimants in April, down from 37.3% in 2019.
Downing Street Statement
Downing Street said the welfare system “has trapped people in poverty and kept them out of work for too long”. A No 10 spokeswoman said: “The broken system we inherited wrote nearly three million people off as too sick to work, left them off benefits, and saw the welfare bill rise by £88 billion over the last Parliament, and that’s why we are reforming the system.”
She added: “Those reforms are already under way, and we will go even further, which also includes increasing face-to-face PIP assessments and tackling backlogs in work capability assessments, which have contributed to £1.9 billion pounds in savings by 2030.”
A spokesperson for the DWP said: “We’re fixing the broken system we inherited by creating a welfare state that works for disabled people and taxpayers and have launched the Timms Review – co-produced with disabled people and their representative organisations – to make sure PIP is fit and fair for the future.”
