Helen Whately is the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
That statement last week might have escaped notice — but for the fact that it was made by Lord George Robertson: former Labour Defence Secretary, Labour Peer, and Labour-appointed author of the Government’s Strategic Defence Review.
Lord Robertson is not someone you’d expect to cause trouble for our beleaguered Prime Minister. But like many of us, he has run out of patience. And as former Secretary General of NATO, he knows the consequences more than most.
Britain’s welfare spending is now undermining our ability to defend ourselves.
The state exists first and foremost to keep us safe, yet we spend only 2.4 per cent of GDP on defence. As NATO members we have pledged to reach 5% by 2035 — a level we have surpassed not on defence, but on working-age welfare. Annual working-age welfare spending is now £140bn and rising, against a mere £50bn on defence.
The comments below will say “it happened under your watch” — and indeed it did. Under Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May, because the decline in defence spending goes back to the end of the Cold War. Only when Russia invaded Ukraine did our defence spending – under Boris – seriously step up.
Meanwhile, welfare has kept growing. Working-age welfare went from 2–3 per cent of GDP in the early 1980s to 6 per cent after the 2008 crash. We brought it back to 4.5 per cent pre-Covid; it has since risen to 5.3 per cent.
The nature of welfare has also changed.
When the modern welfare state was built after WWII, support was limited and often short-term — unemployment cover for those who’d paid National Insurance, or temporary sickness relief. Old age benefits were drawn on by fewer people, for less time. Means-tested benefits were a last resort and stigmatised.
Now, the fastest-growing part of the welfare bill is health and disability. More people are assessed as unable to work and go onto benefits; few ever come off them. The welfare state is no longer a stopgap or safety net. For a growing number of people, it is a permanent alternative to work.
Part of the problem is structural. Most public spending is controlled through departmental budgets, with Ministers and Permanent Secretaries forced to balance priorities and operate within limits. Welfare is demand-led: eligibility is set, and anyone who qualifies gets it. As caseloads grow, spending rises automatically. There’s no pressure to keep to a budget, but infinite jeopardy for any Secretary of State who dares make savings.
Add shifting social attitudes. Claiming benefits used to carry a sense of shame. More common now is entitlement — ‘it’s my right’ — without any commensurate responsibility. Meanwhile, working families are going without holidays, deferring purchases, furnishing their homes from charity shops, all the while paying taxes to fund others to have things they cannot afford.
We’ve reached a tipping point. As one constituent wrote to me recently: “You work so hard — and for what?”
Unless something changes, the UK will spend £650 billion on working-age welfare by the end of the decade, against less than £300 billion on defence.
The war in the Middle East has left us exposed. “We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe” — Lord Robertson again.
We have to grip welfare spending so we can invest in defence. That’s clear to me. But to Labour?
Labour MPs have been celebrating the lifting of the two-child benefit cap at a cost of over £3 billion a year. The prospect of weaker-than-ever Starmer persuading his backbenchers to vote for welfare cuts in the months ahead is laughable.
Except this is no laughing matter. The security of our country is at stake.
Serious times need serious leadership. We cannot keep spending more on Welfare, funding millions to stay at home with anxiety and ADHD, while starving Defence.
As Kemi Badenoch has said, whether we like it or not, we are in this war. We must tell the truth. We live in a world that has become more dangerous- and we must change our priorities.
I have already identified £23 billion of welfare savings: restricting benefits to foreigners, stopping sickness benefits for anxiety and ADHD, reforming Motability, returning to face-to-face assessments. I am not stopping there.
A country where those who can work do work will be a stronger country. We have drifted from a culture of “I can because I must” to a culture of “I can’t” — stripping people of agency and turning them into victims. It is time to turn that around. To invest in the defence of the realm over the benefit state. We can, because we must.
Helen Whately is the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
That statement last week might have escaped notice — but for the fact that it was made by Lord George Robertson: former Labour Defence Secretary, Labour Peer, and Labour-appointed author of the Government’s Strategic Defence Review.
Lord Robertson is not someone you’d expect to cause trouble for our beleaguered Prime Minister. But like many of us, he has run out of patience. And as former Secretary General of NATO, he knows the consequences more than most.
Britain’s welfare spending is now undermining our ability to defend ourselves.
The state exists first and foremost to keep us safe, yet we spend only 2.4 per cent of GDP on defence. As NATO members we have pledged to reach 5% by 2035 — a level we have surpassed not on defence, but on working-age welfare. Annual working-age welfare spending is now £140bn and rising, against a mere £50bn on defence.
The comments below will say “it happened under your watch” — and indeed it did. Under Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May, because the decline in defence spending goes back to the end of the Cold War. Only when Russia invaded Ukraine did our defence spending – under Boris – seriously step up.
Meanwhile, welfare has kept growing. Working-age welfare went from 2–3 per cent of GDP in the early 1980s to 6 per cent after the 2008 crash. We brought it back to 4.5 per cent pre-Covid; it has since risen to 5.3 per cent.
The nature of welfare has also changed.
When the modern welfare state was built after WWII, support was limited and often short-term — unemployment cover for those who’d paid National Insurance, or temporary sickness relief. Old age benefits were drawn on by fewer people, for less time. Means-tested benefits were a last resort and stigmatised.
Now, the fastest-growing part of the welfare bill is health and disability. More people are assessed as unable to work and go onto benefits; few ever come off them. The welfare state is no longer a stopgap or safety net. For a growing number of people, it is a permanent alternative to work.
Part of the problem is structural. Most public spending is controlled through departmental budgets, with Ministers and Permanent Secretaries forced to balance priorities and operate within limits. Welfare is demand-led: eligibility is set, and anyone who qualifies gets it. As caseloads grow, spending rises automatically. There’s no pressure to keep to a budget, but infinite jeopardy for any Secretary of State who dares make savings.
Add shifting social attitudes. Claiming benefits used to carry a sense of shame. More common now is entitlement — ‘it’s my right’ — without any commensurate responsibility. Meanwhile, working families are going without holidays, deferring purchases, furnishing their homes from charity shops, all the while paying taxes to fund others to have things they cannot afford.
We’ve reached a tipping point. As one constituent wrote to me recently: “You work so hard — and for what?”
Unless something changes, the UK will spend £650 billion on working-age welfare by the end of the decade, against less than £300 billion on defence.
The war in the Middle East has left us exposed. “We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe” — Lord Robertson again.
We have to grip welfare spending so we can invest in defence. That’s clear to me. But to Labour?
Labour MPs have been celebrating the lifting of the two-child benefit cap at a cost of over £3 billion a year. The prospect of weaker-than-ever Starmer persuading his backbenchers to vote for welfare cuts in the months ahead is laughable.
Except this is no laughing matter. The security of our country is at stake.
Serious times need serious leadership. We cannot keep spending more on Welfare, funding millions to stay at home with anxiety and ADHD, while starving Defence.
As Kemi Badenoch has said, whether we like it or not, we are in this war. We must tell the truth. We live in a world that has become more dangerous- and we must change our priorities.
I have already identified £23 billion of welfare savings: restricting benefits to foreigners, stopping sickness benefits for anxiety and ADHD, reforming Motability, returning to face-to-face assessments. I am not stopping there.
A country where those who can work do work will be a stronger country. We have drifted from a culture of “I can because I must” to a culture of “I can’t” — stripping people of agency and turning them into victims. It is time to turn that around. To invest in the defence of the realm over the benefit state. We can, because we must.