Britain has spent £1.1trillion more on welfare than infrastructure, report finds

Published: 00:04 BST, 13 October 2026 | Updated: 00:04 BST, 13 October 2026

Britain has spent £1.1trillion more on welfare than infrastructure in the past 20 years, the Centre for Social Justice report found.

The CSJ said welfare had acted as an 'anaesthetic that has kept areas of the country numbed during two decades of economic failure'.

The think-tank said the UK had spent £1.6 trillion on working-age benefits between 2006/7 and 2024/25, far outstripping public investment in transport, science and technology, economic development, housing and community amenities.

Ben Gregg, head of welfare at the think-tank, said: 'For decades, governments have tried to compensate struggling regions for economic decline rather than reverse it, using welfare to numb the pain instead of providing a reason to hope.'

Monday's State of Dependency report found that between 1945 and 1979, the UK had spent around 4.5 per cent of GDP on infrastructure and 2.5 per cent on working-age welfare.

But those proportions had now reversed, with the country spending 5 per cent of GDP on working-age benefits and 2.5 per cent on infrastructure investment.

It added that the lack of investment was particularly acute in areas with high levels of worklessness – including areas of the North, the Midlands and South Wales where economic output per person had barely increased in two decades.

Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey, whose role it is to try and get the welfare bill under control 

Mr Gregg added: 'A Britain where everyone has a stake in prosperity is one where good jobs and thriving towns are within reach of every community.

'That is not achieved by writing a cheque and forgetting about people. It comes from investing in these places and removing the barriers that stop businesses doing the same.'

The report comes as Chancellor John Healey faces pressure from opposition parties to reduce welfare spending at his Budget on October 28.

In his speech at the Labour Party conference last month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the Government could get the welfare bill down by supporting more people into work.

But he ruled out 'crude cuts' to benefits, saying that should 'never be the Labour way'.