Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to be “ruthless with cuts” on welfare spending has sparked anger from some MPs in the Labour Party.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will introduce changes to the welfare system in the spring after warning that it must be made “more sustainable” to avoid continuing to pay the “costs of failure”.
The UK welfare system is projected to exceed the Conservatives’ cap of £137.4 billion for 2024/25 by £8.6 billion. While full details have not emerged, the Prime Minister has said Labour would be “ruthless with cuts” to benefits spending if necessary to balance Government spending.
However, dissenting backbenchers don’t feel that cutting back on welfare spending fits with Labour’s traditional position – nor their preconceptions when they were elected seven months ago.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful,” Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, told The Telegraph, accusing ministers of “attacking some of the most vulnerable in our society and picking the pockets of those most in need”.
Some worried MPs, fresh-faced and keen to please their constituents, said they view the prospect of reduced benefits spending as the latest in a series of unpopular policies they’ve been left to justify to angry voters.
“A lot of MPs are bracing themselves, if I’m honest,” one said, while another recounted emails detailing the “terror” of their electorate, one of whom told them: “This will have a devastating impact on me if it affects me, I’m already on the bread line. I couldn’t lose anything else.”
Ms Kendall has hit out at the out-of-control benefits spending as a failure of the outgoing Tory Governmen, accusing them of failing to tackle the record number of people out of work due to long-term health conditions.
The minister even suggested that some recipients of health and disability benefits were “taking the mickey”, after 49% of those surveyed by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) said they didn’t think they would ever be able to work again.
The survey also found that 27% said they might be able to work in the future but only if their health improved, rising to 44% for those suffering from mental health problems.
“I think what the survey shows … is that despite all the myths, a lot of people who are currently on sickness or disability benefits want to work,” the minister told ITV.
“Many of them have either just lost jobs that they desperately miss, or really want to get back to work once they’ve got their health condition under control.
“So I think that there are many more people who want to work. I have no doubt, as there always have been, there are people who shouldn’t be on those benefits who are taking the mickey and that is not good enough – we have to end that.”
Tempers recently flared over Government proposals to curb benefit fraud by allowing the DWP to recover money directly from fraudster’s bank accounts and obtain bank statements from people they believe are capable of paying back welfare debts but are refusing to do so.
Paula Barker, Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, warned that automating the benefit fraud detection process could cause a repeat of the Horizon Post Office-style injustices, which led to subpostmasters being wrongly convicted of fraud, theft and accounting crimes.
Backbenchers have also called for “meaningful tweaks” to Rachel Reeves’ inheritance tax raid on farmland, which saw over 1,000 tractors descend on Westminster in protest on Monday.
During a debate on the measure, Sam Rushworth, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, said: “If you inherit a £5 million farm you’re not a millionaire, you’re the custodian of agricultural land with the responsibility to farm it to produce food for the nation.
“[Farmers are not] asking for a full U-turn, but they are asking for some meaningful tweaks that will help the policy to better target the goals it intends to achieve.”
Treasury minister James Murray responded that the Government had committed £5 billion to farming over the next two years, £60 million to help farmers affected by wet weather last year, and £2.4 billion over two years to help build “crumbling flood defences”.
