Sir Keir Starmer has faced Labour MPs amid concern about the Government’s plans to cut disability benefits.
The Prime Minister is facing the threat of a major rebellion over plans which will tighten the eligibility criteria for the main disability benefit in England, the personal independence payment (Pip).
Restricting Pip would cut benefits for about 800,000 people while the sickness-related element of Universal Credit is also set to be cut.
The package of measures is aimed at reducing the number of working-age people on sickness benefits, which grew during the pandemic and has remained high since.
The Government hopes the proposals can save £5 billion a year by the end of the decade.
Sir Keir was accompanied by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper as he entered the private meeting on Parliament’s committee corridor.
Clapping could be heard from the MPs within as he came into the room, and again as he began to address them.
After the meeting, a Labour source said the PM “acknowledged that MPs were having to face incredibly tough decisions”.
“He described the welfare reforms that we are introducing as a ‘Labour cause’ and part of how we turn the country around,” they added.
When previously faced with criticism over the plans, Sir Keir has spoken about the importance of work, as well as ensuring that the social security system is there for people when they need it.
Despite the PM’s insistence of the need to go ahead with the plans, he appears to be facing mounting opposition.
Some 100 Labour MPs – more than a quarter of the party’s parliamentary numbers – are reported to have signed a letter urging ministers to scale back welfare cuts under consideration, according to media reports.
In a separate, earlier letter, 42 MPs said the cuts were “impossible to support”.
Rachel Reeves’s local Labour party, Leeds West and Pudsey Constituency Labour Party (CLP), has, meanwhile, agreed to write to the Chancellor voicing its opposition to the cuts.
In a motion seen by the PA news agency, the CLP said disabled people “are not responsible for the state of the national finances and should not be made to pay the price for Tory economic mismanagement”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman earlier suggested ministers were resolutely pressing ahead with the benefits reforms.
The current welfare system is “fundamentally not working and the argument for reform is overwhelming”, he added.
Some media reports have suggested ministers could remove the two-child benefit cap or reconsider its decision to means-test the winter fuel payment for pensioners, as a means of placating Labour rebels.
The PM’s spokesman did not rise to suggestions the winter fuel payment could be reinstated, telling reporters: “Means-testing winter fuel payments was a difficult decision, but it was one we had to take to repair our public finances and stabilise the economy.”
He also claimed there was “no single silver bullet to tackling child poverty” when asked about the future of the two-child benefit cap.
