ANDY Burnham has signalled he is looking to slash UK Government spending on welfare, in a move likely to damage his standing with Labour's backbenchers.
In 2025 his predecessor, Keir Starmer, U-turned on his planned reform package after more than 100 of his MPs came out against it.
His reforms would have led to around 150,000 people being pushed into poverty by 2030, an official Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report found.
Despite this, supporters of the cuts suggested it would be the path to bring down youth unemployment and stimulate GDP growth.
Burnham has now said the UK must “get really serious” about bringing down the welfare bill.
The new Prime Minister indicated ministers could tighten the conditions attached to receiving support, similar to Starmer's planned changes to the personal independence payment (Pip) while insisting more should be provided to help people into work.
In his first major broadcast interview since entering Downing Street, Burnham also promised to bring “substantial change” to the social care system “as quickly as I can”, although he declined to give a timeline.
Within the party he faces a battle between backbench MPs who oppose plans to cut the welfare bill over fears it will have a dramatic impact on people with disabilities, and those who believe the level of payments are contributing to the growing number of people out of work claiming sickness benefits.
The number of people in England and Wales claiming Pip, has passed four million for the first time – roughly doubling since 2019, with spending on Pip forecast to rise to more than £41 billion by the end of the decade.
Pip is one of the benefits devolved to Scotland, where it uses a different system and is known as the Adult Disability Payment (ADP). The Scottish Government has previously ruled out following the UK Government's reforms that would make it more difficult to claim the benefit.
Asked whether there were people claiming benefits who did not need them, the Prime Minister told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg he would not “go straight to blaming those people”.
“What I would say is that there are people in the benefits system, young people in their 20s, who have been I would say quite seriously let down because the support wasn’t there for them when it should have been there.”
Pressed on whether he could remove or reduce benefits for current claimants, Burnham said: “It’s about changing the nature of the support and making some of the support conditional upon people taking opportunities that are presented in front of them.
“So you might increase the conditions required to receive benefits.
“I think it’s a good thing that the Government has given guarantees of opportunities for young people. And I think we need to continue down that approach and where mental health support is needed, for instance, it’s provided in work to support people in an opportunity.”
While ministers are awaiting the final recommendations from two government-backed reports into youth unemployment and disability benefits, both have already identified significant shortcomings in the welfare system and called for action.
A Government spokesperson said: “The Timms review interim report is clear Pip, as designed in 2013, is no longer fit for purpose, and the final recommendations due this autumn will lay the foundation for reform.”
Burnham also said in the interview: “I will go as quickly as I can on the reform of social care.”
He warned that, without change, “we will never get the NHS back to good waiting time standards” and that the health service “will collapse under the weight of trying to care for people who’ve really not needed to end up in the NHS system”.
Unlike NHS care, social care is not free at the point of use and high costs sometimes mean people are forced to sell their homes to pay for what they need.
People with savings worth more than £23,250 are not entitled to help with the cost of care from their local council.
Burnham said: “Whatever political capital I have, I will put in to fixing broken social care and I would not want to leave office without having brought in the substantial change.”
But pressed on whether the overhaul would come before the next election, he said: “I can’t put a timeline on it right here, right now.”
The Prime Minister is expected to make interventions on social care, youth unemployment and devolution in the coming days.
