NEARLY £170 million a year is being paid out in benefits to claimants in the Tiverton and Minehead Parliamentary constituency.

An online postcode tool launched by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) now allows people to look up how much they pay for welfare spending locally.

TPA is an independent grassroots organisation campaigning for lower taxes and giving taxpayers a ‘voice in the corridors of power’.

Its calculator showed a £169,840,047 constituency payout in the 2025-26 financial year.

The bill represented £1,825 per resident, up by 17.1 per cent in two years, compared to an average local wage of £35,911, an increase of 13.7 per cent in two years.

The payments were broken down as:

• Universal Credit £90,774,921

• Personal Independence Payment (PIP) £41,931,003

• Housing Benefit £12,524,574

• Disability Living Allowance £12,297,872

• Employment Support Allowance £7,008,311

• Carer’s Allowance £5,303,365

TPA said 7,641 households were claiming Universal Credit, and there were 5,594 PIP claimants, up by 18.3 per cent in two years.

There were 2,886 people eligible for a Motability vehicle, while 37.9 per cent of PIP awards were for psychiatric conditions, including six people with panic disorders.

One in 16 working-age adults were assessed as ‘limited capability for work and work-related activity’ (LCWRA), meaning they had severe health conditions or disabilities making work or work-related activity ‘unreasonable’.

TPA believes rising welfare spending is putting pressure on public finances and it wants politicians to take action to reduce the overall cost of the benefits system.

Chief executive John O’Connell said the tool was designed to show ‘what our broken welfare system means in the real world’.

He said: ‘It brings the big numbers we hear on television and radio right down to what it means for you and your town.”