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Britain spent £1.1 trillion MORE on welfare than infrastructure over 20 years, damning report finds

John Healey, Chancellor of the Exchequer, faces pressure to cut the benefits bill at the October 28 Budget after a report found Britain spent £1.1 trillion more on welfare than infrastructure over 20 years.
John Healey, Chancellor of the Exchequer, faces pressure to cut the benefits bill at the October 28 Budget after a report found Britain spent £1.1 trillion more on welfare than infrastructure over 20 years.

The think-tank warns welfare has acted as an 'anaesthetic' numbing struggling communities rather than rebuilding them, with economic output per head barely rising in parts of the North, Midlands and South Wales in two decades. The findings land as Chancellor John Healey faces pressure to slash welfare at the upcoming Budget. The report, a 250-page successor to Sir Iain Duncan Smith's landmark 'Breakdown Britain' series, calls for root-and-branch reform.

In the postwar era Britain spent 4.5 per cent of GDP on infrastructure and 2.5 per cent on benefits — those proportions have now REVERSED.

Ben Gregg of the CSJ: 'Governments have tried to compensate struggling regions for decline rather than reverse it, using welfare to numb the pain.'

MoreDaily Mail NewsBritain has spent £1.1trillion more on welfare than infrastructure, report findsLBCUK spent £1.1 trillion more on benefits than infrastructure since 2006, with Burnham urged to get a grip on welfare bill - LBCLondon Evening StandardUK spent more than £1 trillion more on welfare than infrastructure in past 20 years - London Evening StandardThe TelegraphWelfare spending three times higher than infrastructure bill over 20 yearsupday NewsUK spent £1.1 trillion more on welfare than infrastructure over past two decades - upday News
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