A SCOTTISH Labour MP is among rebels urging Andy Burnham against raiding the welfare budget to fill a £4.7 billion black hole in defence spending.
If he becomes prime minister later this month, Burnham will need to lay out how he plans to fund a third of the £15bn hike in defence spending announced by Keir Starmer this week.
The plan was set out in a speech on Tuesday and will see road and energy projects scrapped to pay for the military.
Reported in The Independent, Alloa and Grangemouth MP Brian Leishman said that the UK Government should "fund welfare and methods of looking after people and improving their lives and the infrastructure of the country, instead of billions that will go to weapons manufacturers".
Leishman, who has been a regular critic of the Labour UK Government, was part of a backbench rebellion last year against Starmer's plans for an annual £5bn cut to welfare.
Leishman said: "You cannot cut departmental budgets and lift people out of poverty and improve people’s lives."
Another Labour rebel, Rachel Maskell, has also said financial security for disabled people and people who are on poverty pay "must remain the principle of our social security system".
"We need to look at companies with excessive profits, including in the defence industry, to ensure national and individual security; redistribution is vital if we are going to see a fairer and safer country," she said.
If Burnham did not cut welfare he would likely need to look to other departments to raise the funds, and some Labour MPs have already been angered by cuts to the roads improvement budget including Foreign Office Minister Hamish Falconer.
A new YouGov poll has revealed that the public like the idea of raising the very top rate of income tax for those earning £125,140 and above as a means of filling the defence spending black hole with a +43% rating to fill the gap.
James Taylor, director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, said "we don't need to balance the books on the backs of disabled people".
“The benefits system needs reform, but reform cannot become code for cutting support," he said.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has, meanwhile, urged the future prime minister against any further borrowing to fund defence.
During Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, SNP Westminster leader Dave Doogan branded the defence investment plan as "paper thin".
But Starmer dodged the grilling and instead attacked the SNP over the Peter Murrell scandal.
Doogan said: "I am gravely concerned that time and time again this Prime Minister in response to the abject and honest criticism of his defence investment plan, he cites recent trends in defence spending, when he should be calibrating it against the chronic and very real threat that the people of these islands face," he said.
"In his limited time left in Number 10 will he get a grip of his paper thin plan?"
Starmer replied: "This is the party that thinks we should give up the nuclear deterrent and he stands there to talk about defence, so we need no more advice and sanctimonious nonsense.
"Their chief executive has just been jailed for five years for embezzlement. They're all pretending they didn't know anything about it. They couldn't even see the motorhome parked in the driveway apparently, and now they're blocking an inquiry in the Scottish Parliament.
"Before they offer any more advice, they should look in the mirror."
