Taxpayers' Alliance welfare map puts nine Labour-held seats in top ten benefit claim areas

The Taxpayers' Alliance has published an online welfare map and benefits data tool that lets users check how much each constituency claims in benefits and what it costs taxpayers. The group says the map shows nine of the top ten benefit-claiming constituencies are represented by Labour MPs.

Tottenham, represented by David Lammy, topped the table with £624 million in benefit claims, according to the figures cited. Brent East, represented by Dawn Butler, was put at £605 million. Birmingham Ladywood, represented by Shabana Mahmood, was listed at £590 million. Diane Abbott's constituency was put at £553 million. The top ten constituencies received £5.44 billion in benefit payments last year.

William Yarwood, campaigns director at the Taxpayers' Alliance, said the £5.44 billion total was the lifetime tax equivalent of around 4,200 households, before saying 402,000 households would work their entire lives to pay the bill for those ten constituencies. He argued Labour did not want to get welfare under control and said the welfare bill would reach over £400 billion by the end of the decade. He also said more than 200 Labour MPs have majorities smaller than the number of PIP claimants in their constituencies, which he said gave them a political reason to avoid reform. He directed the public to benefitsdata.uk, where the group has published maps on Universal Credit, PIP, young people on PIP and Universal Credit, and a benefits bill lookup. The broadcast said more than a million people had logged on to the benefits finder.

The findings were discussed by a panel. Nigel Nelson said Labour MPs tend to represent poorer constituencies and that David Lammy's Tottenham topping the table was not surprising. He said the benefits bill should be cut but not with the 'brutality' he associated with Conservative proposals. Rafe Heydel-Mankoo said 'data isn't racist' and noted that the top ten constituencies have higher shares of non-white, black, Asian and Muslim populations than the national average, with particular figures for Tottenham and Ladywood. He said over 70% of Somalis live in social housing and claimed the country was replacing high-skilled emigrants with people who are a net drain. He said the welfare bill is £156 billion a year, with £56 billion spent on working-age people, up from £36 billion before Covid, and put the wider cost including the NHS at £212 billion.

Matt Goodwin said he wanted nationality and immigration status data published alongside welfare data so the public could get a more detailed picture. He said the Labour government would not do that because it does not like giving out such data. The host described the map as a 'league of shame' and said the pattern helped explain Labour backbench opposition to benefit cuts. The programme did not include a Labour MP or government spokesperson responding to the findings.