WHETHER Keir Starmer can quash a major Labour rebellion over cuts to disability welfare remains “up in the air” ahead of a crunch vote, a rebel MP has said.
The Prime Minister faced losing the July 1 vote on his Government’s proposals to save £5 billion per year, primarily by cutting back Personal Independence Payments (Pip) – the main disability benefit paid to people in and out of work – and the health element of Universal Credit.
After some 129 Labour MPs, as well as dozens from other parties, backed a “reasoned amendment” which threatened to topple the cuts, Starmer rowed back and now plans to create a staggered system whereby current claimants will have their incomes protected in real terms, while claimants after November 2026 face cuts.
UK Government figures projected that Starmer’s original plans would force 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into relative poverty. Under the revised plans, 150,000 people will be pushed into poverty.
Labour MP Cat Eccles told the BBC that the concessions from the UK Government had come “far too late”.
“We're not going to hear what the Secretary of State has got to say until later this afternoon, and then just 24 hours later, we're going to be expected to vote on this and just take the government's word that everything will be OK,” she went on.
“I just feel the bill is being really rushed through. The committee stages and 3rd reading will occur during the following seven days. These are processes that would normally take several weeks.
“They'd go in front of committee and hear oral evidence from people involved in organisations, people with lived experience, and we're not getting any of that.”
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will outline the changes to the Labour Government’s proposed cuts on Monday afternoon in a bid to quell the rebellion.
“I just cannot understand what the hurry is,” she added.
Asked how many Labour MPs may still be planning to rebel and vote against the cuts, Eccles said there were “a very large number of MPs who are awaiting the statement today, a large number who are just still completely opposed, and there's a number of people that we don't know what they're thinking at all, but we do know they're uncomfortable”.
“So I think it's still all up in the air about what could happen [at Tuesday’s vote]”, she added.
Vicky Foxcroft, the Labour whip who resigned over the proposed welfare cuts, told The Guardian on Monday that the UK Government’s concessions do not go far enough to win her round.
“I would hope that actually we start to ensure we listen to disabled people and their organisations right across government. This isn’t just about warm words. This is about making sure we get policy right”, she said.
“Right now, we’re kind of tinkering in terms of things to make it the least worst situation we can, and we need to learn lessons from that and make sure that we get these things right going forward.”
And Simon Opher, a Labour MP and GP, also criticised the revised plans.
“It’s not that we don’t appreciate the concessions, we just feel that really, it’s not going to help the situation,” he told the BBC.
“We want to really design a really good benefits system that looks after people, encourages people back to work, and also doesn’t incorporate a two-tier system into the benefit system, which will cause problems in the future I’m sure.”
“The PM surely does not expect anyone to believe he did not realise taking over £5 billion from the disabled was wrong because he was abroad,” Abbott wrote on social media.
The Prime Minister is expected to continue talking to would-be rebels in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, when the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Bill faces its first Commons test.
A No 10 spokesperson said: “The broken welfare system we inherited is failing people every single day.
“It traps millions, it tells them the only way to get help is to declare they’ll never work again and then abandons them.
“No help, no opportunity, no dignity and we can’t accept that.
“For too long, meaningful reform to a failing system has been ducked.”
