Taxpayers are shelling out £800 in disability benefits every minute to people claiming to suffer from anxiety, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The cost of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for the disorder has rocketed from under £100million in 2019 to nearly £427million last year - under rules that allow anyone, regardless of their income, to collect the payments without ever seeing a doctor. 

Instead, the benefit - worth up to £194 a week - can be awarded on nothing more than a personal diary or a letter from a friend describing how anxiety affects daily life.

The payments are not means-tested and there is no requirement to stop working to receive them. A full-time company director on a six-figure salary qualifies on exactly the same basis as anyone else.

Critics say the figures are the latest proof that Britain's benefits bill is out of control, with total PIP spending projected to rise from £26billion a year to £38billion within five years.

Sir Keir Starmer was forced into a humiliating climbdown last year when he abandoned plans to rein in the soaring costs - pulling the proposal 90 minutes before a Commons vote after the biggest rebellion of his premiership.

Ministers had wanted to tighten the rules so claimants had to prove they struggled significantly in at least one area of daily life, rather than qualifying by accumulating small difficulties across several.

The plan collapsed after 126 Labour MPs threatened to block it, with rebels arguing the changes would push disabled people into poverty.

PIP is assessed on points across 12 daily living and mobility activities, from washing and cooking to socialising and planning journeys. Needing prompting to socialise scores two points; being unable to manage it at all scores eight.

Just eight points from a possible 72 triggers the standard daily living rate of £73.90 a week, with a separate mobility component adding up to £77.05 on top.

Under current rules, a person who needs occasional prompting to socialise, takes a little longer to cook, needs reminding to wash and finds travelling stressful accumulates enough points to qualify for a payout - without a diagnosis or a doctor's note.

Since the Covid pandemic there has been a boom in payments for psychiatric disorders, which now account for more than 40 per cent of PIP claims. 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said mental health conditions accounted for 55 per cent of the rise in disability benefits. A thriving cottage industry of unregulated no-win, no-fee firms has grown up to coach applicants through the process, taking up to 60 per cent of any backdated payment secured.

Unlike PPI firms - limited by law to 20 per cent of any payout - benefit claims companies face no fee limit and answer to no regulator.

On TikTok, accounts boasting hundreds of thousands of followers coach people on exactly which words to use and how to describe symptoms for maximum effect.

Think-tank Policy Exchange found last month that AI chatbots are generating model answers for PIP claim forms - even when users state they have no medical evidence for their condition.

Last month Cath Wieland, 33, from West Sussex, was given a suspended jail sentence after the Department for Work and Pensions found she had been surfing and ziplining in Mexico and visited Thorpe theme park three times - while claiming her anxiety was so crippling she was housebound.

She had raked in £23,000, spending it on acrylic nails, tanning sessions, a private Harley Street dentist, 76 beauty appointments and 60 visits to pubs, clubs and restaurants - all while telling the DWP she could not cook, wash herself or travel alone. 

Sara Morris, 50, from Stone, Staffordshire, told the DWP her anxiety left her unable to leave the house.

Yet she competed in 73 races as a member of a running club and was exposed by her own Facebook posts. She fraudulently claimed £20,528 and was jailed for eight months by Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court in July 2024.

In the year to this January, 66,818 people in England and Wales listed anxiety as their primary disability condition and collected an average of £122.77 a week - running up a taxpayer bill of £426.5million, or £811 every minute.

The total claiming PIP for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has surged from 24,697 to 91,181 in six years, while those receiving it for autism has risen from 61,641 to 210,605, at a combined £2.4billion annual cost.

'The eye-watering amount we spend on mild mental health conditions is absurd,' said Reform Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick. 

'It is offensive to the hardworking majority that so much of their taxes is being wasted. The spiralling benefits bill now threatens to bankrupt the country.'

Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said: 'The bill is too high and the system is broken.' A DWP spokesman said: 'We recognise that the welfare system we inherited is in need of reform, which is exactly what we are doing.

'Our recent changes to Universal Credit narrow the gap between payments for people on health-related benefits and those actively seeking work - with an expected saving of nearly £1billion for the taxpayer and the removal of perverse incentives that drive sickness claims.'

Additional reporting: Matt Davis

And the firms raking it in by filling in the paperwork... 

By Gabriel Millard-Clothier and Daisy Graham-Brown 

Private firms are cashing in on Britain's disability benefits boom by coaching claimants through the system in exchange for pocketing half of any government payout.

An investigation by this newspaper today exposes the thriving benefits industry driven by companies which help clients win disability benefits and then take a 30 to 50 per cent cut of the taxpayer-funded back pay.

Despite being registered as non-profit advice services, the self-styled 'disability advocates' are able to pay their directors hundreds of thousands of pounds a year due to their extraordinary success rates.

One company claims to overturn more than 600 tribunal appeals a year. Three firms even gave an undercover reporter advice on how to claim Personal Independence Payments (PIP) after the reporter said: 'I really need the money as I'm saving for a holiday.'

While some operate on a 'no win, no fee' basis, one of the biggest non-profit firms supplements its income by directing clients to its for-profit sister company which charges hundreds of pounds for helping to fill in application forms. Last night shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately called the findings 'outrageous'.

She said: 'Benefit-fixers make a fast buck on the backs of the vulnerable. Cash from people who work hard and live within their means goes straight to the coffers of these chancers.'

PIP is worth up to £9,700 a year and is not means-tested, allowing claimants to receive it regardless of income.

The number claiming PIP in England and Wales was a record 3.9 million this January, with the surge fuelled largely by mental health claims.

Now The Mail on Sunday has uncovered firms helping claimants to cash in on the boom. But, unlike those pursuing personal injury and PPI claims, the benefits firms are set up as Community Interest Companies, allowing them to operate as non-profit organisations while placing far fewer restrictions on directors' pay and commercial activity than a registered charity.

One company, PIP Help, tells customers it can overturn unsuccessful benefits applications at tribunal hearings and, in exchange, charges '50 per cent plus VAT' of any back pay awarded from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The MoS analysed PIP Help's accounts and found its directors' annual pay has ballooned from £6,200 in 2023 to £148,000 last year. There are two directors and it is not known how much each earns. One director, former nurse Linda Miles, 71, runs the company and lives in Brighton in a luxury flat she bought for £670,000 in 2022.

Another firm, Fightback4Justice, has a range of paid services including an £11.99 monthly 'VIP subscription' which gives claimants priority access to its seven staff as well as resources for helping with PIP applications.

It charges £518 in combined fees for the full package to help claimants appeal unsuccessful benefits applications, on top of demanding £500 of any back pay awarded.

Founder Michelle Cardno, of Cheshire, has overseen pay for herself and another director rising from £14,800 in 2016 to £125,184 last year. 

Though she set up Fightback as a non-profit operation, when an undercover MoS reporter asked for help filling out the PIP forms because they 'couldn't be bothered to do it myself', they were directed to a 'sister site' to book paid sessions via a standard, for-profit limited company. 

This sister company, Disability Forms UK, helps claimants fill out forms at a cost of £115 per 30 minutes, which sessions are 'not limited to'.

Part of the service includes 'one of our trained advocates' completing the form for you 'using our own DWP-approved PDF formats'.

Ms Cardno, 59, and her daughter Chloe Hopkinson, 36, are the sole owners of the company which has reported shareholders' funds of £18,000 and £28,000 in the past two years.

Fightback told an undercover reporter they could use a letter from a friend as evidence for their application if they did not have a diagnosis for a condition. 

They provided detailed templates for these letters as well as templates of daily diaries which could also be used as evidence.

In one diary template, under the section 'communicating', it suggests saying: 'I was nervous and anxious about going to the doctor… my husband came in with me as I get so flustered I can't remember what I need to say.'

In a separate section titled 'mixing with other people', it advises writing: 'I get too anxious and self-conscious to have conversations with people.'

Fightback4Justice said any implication that it encourages false or misleading evidence is 'categorically rejected'. It added it actively discourages applications from people who do not meet the relevant criteria.

It said: 'This is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company which has operated for over 13 years, supporting disabled people through an often complex and distressing benefits system.

'The majority of our services, approximately 85 per cent, are provided entirely free of charge. This includes unlimited advice, advocacy and ongoing support.'

PIP Help said it does not guarantee any outcomes and does not help claimants who are ineligible for benefits but instead 'supports individuals navigating what is often a complex and challenging benefits system'.

It added: 'Our primary aim is to assist people in accessing entitlements they may otherwise struggle to secure without specialist professional guidance.'

The DWP said: 'We condemn those who charge people for help with PIP applications and exploit our system for financial gain.

'We are protecting taxpayers' money with the biggest fraud crackdown in a generation - as part of wider plans that will save £14.6billion by 2031 - and amending contracts signed by the previous government so that we can increase the proportion of face-to-face assessments.'