Yorkshire cities among the top 10 in welfare spending league

Only Birmingham sees more spent on welfare than Leeds and Bradford, which are second and third on the list with Sheffield sixth and Kirklees tenth.

When population is taken into account, Bradford is the sixth highest council area in the country with the Government spending an average of £5,252 per person every year on welfare according to the figures produced by the Centre for Social Justice thinktank.

Its report warns that Britain is on track to spend more than £1 trillion on welfare during the course of this Parliament and major reforms would be needed to regain control over the cost even if
the economy was performing better.

It also identifies “welfare ghettos” where huge swathes of working age people are living on benefits.

An area of Grimsby’s East Marsh ward is identified as having 51 per cent of its working adults on benefits with another part of the same ward on 48 per cent.

Centre for Social Justice managing director Christian Guy said: “The welfare ghettos trapping as many as 6.8 million people are a national disgrace.

“They represent years of tragic failure and indifference from the political class.

“People in these neighbourhoods have been consistently written off as incapable and their poverty plight inevitable.

“Their lives have been limited by a fatalistic assumption that they have little prospect of anything better.

“While some campaigners accuse this Government of being callous for its benefit cap, the truth is there has been a much more damaging welfare cap in these communities for years – an unjust cap on personal potential.”

According to the report there are 45 neighbourhoods in Hull where a third of the population are on out-of-work benefits and 37 in Leeds.

It says nearly one fifth of British children are growing up in a workless household.

That puts the UK second only to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where nearly one in four children live with adults who are not in work.

It says: “the vast majority of charities helping the unemployed surveyed ...say that they know of families where two or three generations have no one in work”.

The report also charts the huge leaps in welfare spending in recent years, even when the economy was performing better.

The welfare state cost £11bn in today’s money when it was established in 1948 and has now passed the £200bn mark.

The Coalition has embarked on a wide-ranging welfare reform programme including the replacement of the disability living allowance and limits on housing benefit as well as imposing limits on annual rises in benefits.

It is also in the process of introducing a new ‘universal credit’ which aims to simplify the welfare system and ensure working always pays more than living on benefits.

These reforms have already proved hugely controversial, with Labour arguing they are hitting some of the most vulnerable people in society.

But in its report, published today, the Centre for Social Justice warns more needs to be done if spending is to be brought under control.

It says: “These reforms alone will not be enough to tackle Britain’s crisis of worklessness and economic dependency.

“There is a need for far-reaching reform in many other areas in order to make it easier for people to find work and become economically independent.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “Despite paying out £170bn in tax credits alone, the previous Government failed to meet child poverty targets and far too many families were just left behind.

“Our welfare reforms will improve the lives of some of the poorest in our communities and make sure that people know they are better off working than on benefits.”