Universal Credit Surge: 1.5M Added To 'No Work' List Under Keir Starmer

Britain's welfare system is buckling under extraordinary pressure after 1.5 million people were added to Universal Credit's 'no work requirements' category since Keir Starmer entered Downing Street.

The figures, reported by Express UK, reveal that nearly 4.2 million claimants now receive the benefit without any obligation to seek employment — up from 2.7 million when Labour inherited the system last July.

That means half of all Universal Credit recipients are now exempt from job-seeking conditions.

The surge has triggered a political firestorm, with opposition parties accusing ministers of losing control of welfare spending at precisely the moment public finances can least afford it. Mental health-related claims are driving the explosion.

Whilst officials insist much of this rise stems from the managed transition of claimants from legacy sickness payments onto the new system, the sheer scale of the increase—representing half of all Universal Credit recipients—represents the largest single surge in welfare dependency since Covid ravaged the job market.

Mental Health and Sickness Claims Drive the Universal Credit Explosion

The sharp rise has been precipitated by a dramatic upsurge in mental health-related claims, exposing a significant fault line between government ambitions to get Britain working and the very real barriers preventing millions from entering the workforce. Mental health conditions have emerged as the primary driver, replacing the traditional categories of sickness that dominated welfare rolls for decades.

This shift reflects both a growing willingness among claimants to declare psychological difficulties and, more troublingly for policymakers, a system perceived as increasingly generous to those with such diagnoses.

Officials note that approximately 750,000 people have been transferred from Employment Support Allowance (ESA), a legacy benefit that typically supported people with severe, long-term conditions. Yet this explanation does little to ease the political pressure bearing down on Labour, particularly given Chancellor Rachel Reeves' widely criticised 'Benefits Street' Budget, which was meant to demonstrate fiscal rigour but has instead been overshadowed by anxieties over spiralling welfare expenditure.

Working-age benefits are now projected to reach £177 billion annually by the early 2030s, a sobering trajectory that has left ministers scrambling for answers.

The Universal Credit Reckoning: Political Pressure Mounts on Labour

The controversy deepens as the government faces mounting pressure to curtail welfare spending ahead of fresh austerity measures. Conservative Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately seized on the figures, declaring: 'This is a sure sign of Labour's failure to get a grip on benefits. Labour came into Government with no plans to reform welfare, so it's no surprise they've made no progress.'

Whately outlined a raft of Conservative proposals aimed at fundamentally recasting the welfare landscape: ending sickness benefits for those deemed to have low-level mental health difficulties, reinstating face-to-face medical assessments, and eliminating payments to non-British citizens. The Conservatives additionally pledged to slash business taxes and regulatory red tape, betting that job creation would naturally reduce welfare rolls.

Reform UK, meanwhile, struck an even more combative tone. Lee Anderson, the party's MP, argued: 'This is further evidence that Labour favours the shirkers in this country, not the workers. The welfare system is abused by people who don't need it and people who aren't even citizens of this country. Only Reform has a clear plan to overhaul our benefits system, cut the ballooning £342bn welfare bill and get people back into work.'

The government's position has been further weakened by its retreat from planned cuts to the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) scheme, which subsidises disabled and chronically ill people. A rebellion from backbench Labour MPs forced ministers to abandon £5.5 billion in projected savings, a humiliating climbdown that signalled the government lacked both parliamentary cohesion and the political capital to advance even modest welfare reforms.

Starmer's Response: The 'Get Britain Working' Initiative

Keen to demonstrate that Labour remains committed to reducing worklessness, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has tasked Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary, with reviewing approaches to worklessness among younger people.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman attempted to reframe the crisis as an opportunity, insisting: 'This increase comes as people are moving off legacy benefits—a transition we inherited from the previous government, alongside a system with the wrong incentives that writes people off. This government is determined to fix this.

That's why we're removing the financial incentives in Universal Credit that encourage inactivity, and as part of our wider plans to Get Britain Working, we have redeployed 1,000 work coaches to help thousands of sick and disabled people who were previously left without contact for years.'

Yet such assurances carry diminishing weight amid deepening economic pressures and fractious parliamentary arithmetic. The figures tell a story of a government struggling to reconcile its public sector reform agenda with the everyday reality of a population grappling with serious mental health challenges.

What the Figures Really Mean

For many observers, the 1.5 million figure represents something larger than a welfare crisis. It reflects a policy failure where neither incentives nor encouragement have restored employment at the scale ministers promised.

With mental health conditions now dominating claims and parliamentary arithmetic working against bold reform, Labour faces an uncomfortable truth: the welfare bill keeps growing, and the political room to act keeps shrinking.