Britain's welfare bill continues to soar as 4 million people now claim main disability benefit - as Labour struggles to fund defence plan

By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Published: 11:10, 16 June 2026 | Updated: 11:14, 16 June 2026 Some 4 million people now claim the main disability benefit in England and Wales, latest figures show - as fears grow about the size of Britain's ballooning welfare bill. New data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed there were 4 million claimants entitled to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at the end of April. This was a 2 per cent increase in the PIP caseload in England and Wales from the end of January this year. Of the 4 million PIP claimants, 3.3 million (83 per cent) were of working age and 680,000 (17 per cent) were of state pension age. Meanwhile, 37 per cent of claimants received the highest level of award - the same level as in January. 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. The latest DWP figures were published after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch offered to lend her party's votes to the Government to push through welfare reform. She said she would work with whoever is Labour prime minister - whether Keir Starmer or leadership rival Andy Burnham - to slash the benefits bill in order to boost defence spending. Mrs Badenoch tore into Sir Keir over the Government's shambolic Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which has been delayed again amid a funding row within Whitehall. New data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed there were 4 million claimants entitled to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at the end of April Keir Starmer is under pressure to slash Britain's ballooning benefits bill in order to boost defence spending John Healey quit as defence secretary last week as he fumed at Sir Keir for being 'unable' to find the billions of pounds needed to properly fund the DIP, while he claimed Chancellor Rachel Reeves was 'unwilling' to do so. The Government last year attempted to restrict access to PIP by tightening the rules, but Sir Keir was forced to abandon the changes due to a huge Labour revolt. Messages sent by Pat McFadden, who is now Work and Pensions Secretary, to Peter Mandelson at the time showed how he complained Labour MPs just wanted to know 'who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'. The messages from June 2025, shortly before the Government caved in to Labour rebels on the planned welfare changes, were published as part of a large tranche of files related to Lord Mandelson's time as US ambassador. Since PIP was first introduced in April 2013 - to replace the previous Disability Living Allowance (DLA) - until April this year, there have been 4.6 million successful PIP claims, according to the latest DWP figures. Of the total 9.7 million PIP claims registered over the same period, of which 4.5 million were disallowed, 7.5 million were new claims and 2.2 million were DLA reassessment claims. The DWP said there was a gradual increase in the total number of people with entitlement to either PIP or DLA, from 3 million to 3.5 million, between February 2013 and February 2020. There was a sharper increase from 3.5 million to 5.3 million between February 2020, when the Covid crisis began, and November 2025, it added. The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.