Keir Starmer has desperately tried to ward off a massive Labour rebellion around plans to make cuts to the UK’s £70 billion benefits bill. Up to 80 of his own MPs are furious about plans.
Dozens of Labour MPs are said to oppose the Prime Minister’s plan to use the savings for an increase in defence spending and to bolster the public finances. They are planning to write to the PM and Treasury outlining their complaints ahead of the Spring Statement on March 26. Reforms to the welfare system are expected ahead of the Spring Statement, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves will likely look to make a raft of public spending savings given tighter fiscal headroom.
Incapacity and disability benefits currently cost £64.7billion and this is predicted to rise to £100.7billion by 2030.
Meanwhile, 16 major charities – including the Trussell Trust, Scope, and Mind – have penned a letter to the government warning that benefit cuts would have a “catastrophic impact on disabled people up and down the country”.
They claimed that as many as 700,000 more disabled households could be pushed into poverty as a result of the plans.
It comes against a backdrop of growing concern among Labour backbenchers over the government’s direction, following a cut to the winter fuel allowance, the slashing of international aid and a failure to scrap the two child benefit cap.
The government is now being accused of “pushing disabled people into poverty”.
Speaking to MPs at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, tonight Sir Keir set out the justification to slashing welfare costs.
“We’ve found ourselves in a worst of all worlds situation – with the wrong incentives – discouraging people from working, the taxpayer funding a spiralling bill, £70 billion a year by 2030,” he told MPs.
“A wasted generation. 1 in 8 young people not in education, employment or training and the people who really need that safety net still not always getting the dignity they deserve. That’s unsustainable, it’s indefensible and it is unfair, people feel that in their bones. It runs contrary to those deep British values that if you can work, you should.
“And if you want to work, the government should support you, not stop you.
“So, this needs to be our offer to people up and down the country: if you can work, we will make work pay. If you need help, that safety net will be there for you. But this is the Labour party. We believe in the dignity of work and we believe in the dignity of every worker.
“Which is why I am not afraid to take the big decisions needed to return this country to their interests.
“Whether that’s on welfare, immigration, our public services or our public finances. We can’t just shrug our shoulders and look away.
“We can’t just tinker around the edges. We won’t try and sow division or create distractions, we’ll roll up our sleeves, take responsibility and make the reforms needed to fix what is broken.”
Speaking to the BBC earlier, Ms Maskell said that she has had a “flurry of emails” from people who are “deeply concerned” about the prospect of changes to the welfare system.
“We recognise the economic circumstances that we’re in and the hand that we were given and of course it is right that the chancellor has oversight over all those budgets but not at the expense of pushing disabled people into poverty”, she added.
“There’s got to be a carrot approach not a stick approach. We’ve got to make the right interventions and that doesn’t start with the stick.”