Health Services and State Retirement Pensions: Expenditure
(asked on 2nd March 2026) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of public spending was accounted for by (1) national insurance-funded pensions, including the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme and the additional pension, and (2) UK health expenditure, in (a) 1996–97, (b) 2009–10, and (c) 2024–25.
The requested information is in the table below. The data presentation is consistent with PQ HL3608 that was tabled in November 2022.
| 1996-97 | 2009-10 | 2024-25 |
(1) National insurance-funded pensions (£billion) (1) | 32.0 | 66.8 | 136.4 |
as a percentage of Total Managed Expenditure | 9.75% | 9.28% | 10.56% |
|
|
|
|
(2) UK Health Expenditure (£billion) (2) | 42.8 | 116.9 | 242.5 |
as a percentage of Total Managed Expenditure | 13.04% | 16.23% | 18.77% |
|
|
|
|
Total Managed Expenditure (£billion) (3) | 328.2 | 720.3 | 1,291.8 |
Data Sources:
(1) Figures taken from benefit expenditure and caseload tables published by the Department of Work and Pensions. Figures for National insurance-funded pensions are in line with data provided in a similar PQ from November 2022.
(2) Data from 2009-10 onwards taken from Table 10 of the Public Spending Statistics (PSS) release of February 2026. Data for 1996-97 are taken from Table 4.2 of PESA 2020.
(3) Data originally published by the Office for National Statistics consistent with the February 2026 PSS release from HM Treasury.