A SCOTTISH Labour MP has admitted he is not “proud” of the first year of Keir Starmer’s Government amid an internal party row over looming disability benefit cuts.
Brian Leishman, MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, told the BBC Sunday Show that his “gut reaction” was there were enough backbench rebels to force Number 10 into changing its decision on welfare reforms.
Last week, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to MPs wrote to MPs setting out the UK Government’s “concessions” after more than 120 rebels signed an amendment that would essentially kill the welfare bill.
Those who currently receive Personal Independence Payments (PIP), or the health element of Universal Credit (UC), will continue to do so.
However, planned cuts will still hit future claimants from November next year. It means anyone who does not score four or more points in one of the activities assessed for the PIP daily living component will not receive it if they apply after November 2026.
Labour ministers seemed confident they had staved off a rebellion, with a vote due on the legislation in the Commons on Tuesday.
The SNP have urged the rebels to “stand firm” and refuse to back down to the concessions ahead of the vote.
Meanwhile, Leishman told the BBC: “I think it’s fair to say that some have been placated by the compromises and concessions, as they're called, but there is still a healthy amount of us, a big cohort of MPs who feel that this should be withdrawn.”
Asked if he thinks the welfare reforms will pass, the MP said: “I’d say that behind the scenes, there's conversations being had all the time…some sort of prediction from me, but my gut reaction would be that there is enough of us to make the Government think again.”
Leishman was pressed on whether he thought the UK Government’s position on changing disability benefits was right or wrong, or if the system should stay the way it is.
“No, it does need to change,” Leishman said.
“These proposals, this is not the change that we need.
“What we have seen over the last decade and a half has been chronic austerity that has really impoverished some of the most vulnerable people in the country, it’s been politics and policy by design to make people poorer.
“The notion that we solve these austere cuts with more cuts, that's frankly ridiculous.”
Asked if he was proud of Labour’s first year in office, Leishman said simply: “No.”
When pressed on why, he said: “Because I don’t think we have tackled…let me just say, let me embellish that, we have done things in our first year that only a Labour Government will ever do. The Employment Rights Bill, a phenomenal piece of legislation, generational improvement for workers, absolutely fantastic.”
He said that over 400 of his constituents had benefited from the restoration of miners workers pension scheme, adding: “Those are two policies only a Labour Government will ever do, have we done enough of those types of things?
“For me, no, that’s my job to make sure we do them more often.”
It was then put to Leishman that he thought the Government had got more things wrong than right.
“I think that’s only fair to say. I’m going to be open and honest with you, I’m not from a political background,” he said.
“We’ve got to do better, of that there’s no doubt.”
Leishman also revealed he had never had a conversation with Starmer, bar exchanges at FMQs, having only met him three times at Downing Street.
Asked if the PM listens enough to his party, Leishman said: “No, I think that’s quite clear.”
