UK: Taxpayers shelling out £800 a MINUTE in disability benefits to people claiming to suffer from ‘anxiety’ – as private firms cash in by coaching claimants
UK Mail | 11 April 2026 | Daisy Graham-Brown
Firms cash in by coaching claimants in exchange for half their payout
Taxpayers are shelling out £800 in disability benefits every minute to people claiming to suffer from anxiety, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The cost of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for the disorder has rocketed from under £100million in 2019 to nearly £427million last year – under rules that allow anyone, regardless of their income, to collect the payments without ever seeing a doctor.
Instead, the benefit – worth up to £194 a week – can be awarded on nothing more than a personal diary or a letter from a friend describing how anxiety affects daily life.
The payments are not means-tested and there is no requirement to stop working to receive them. A full-time company director on a six-figure salary qualifies on exactly the same basis as anyone else.
Critics say the figures are the latest proof that Britain’s benefits bill is out of control, with total PIP spending projected to rise from £26billion a year to £38billion within five years.
Keir Starmer was forced into a humiliating climbdown last year when he abandoned plans to rein in the soaring costs – pulling the proposal 90 minutes before a Commons vote after biggest rebellion of his premiership.
Ministers had wanted to tighten the rules so claimants had to prove they struggled significantly in at least one area of daily life, rather than qualifying by accumulating small difficulties across several.
Plan collapsed after 126 Labour MPs threatened to block it, with rebels arguing the changes would push disabled people into poverty.
PIP is assessed on points across 12 daily living and mobility activities, from washing and cooking to socialising and planning journeys. Needing prompting to socialise scores two points; being unable to manage it at all scores eight.
