Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall was fired up by a sense of moral purpose as she outlined plans to save £5 billion in welfare payments by 2030. Behind her in the House of Commons, Labour MPs crossed their arms and furrowed their brows.
“I don’t start from a position of tough, but from a position of compassion,” Kendall said. Labour MPs raised their eyebrows. Some stared at their feet. Even the ambitious backbenchers who still hanker for jobs were only half-hearted in their murmurs of support.
On the front bench Kendall was flanked by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as the Government made a show of putting ministers who opposed the reforms in last week’s Cabinet front and centre. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Commons leader Lucy Powell both sat alongside Kendall as she delivered the statement.
Last week, over half of the Cabinet urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to rethink her plans to scale back welfare cuts with suggestions she could instead change her budgetary rules to allow higher borrowing or raise taxes instead.
On Tuesday morning at this week’s Cabinet meeting, it was a different story. Starmer told ministers that the Government “could not put off difficult decisions” and the current situation in the welfare system “was not defensible in moral or economic terms.”
When she got to her feet on Tuesday, Kendall ruled out freezing or means testing personal independence payments (PIP) given to people who have difficulty completing everyday tasks or getting around as a result of a long-term physical or mental health condition. But she announced the Government will significantly tighten access to the daily living component of the benefit, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
Her raft of measures also included an increase in benefit claim reassessments, but those with the most severe long-term conditions will no longer face any repeat appointments with assessors. Incapacity benefits under Universal Credit will be frozen in cash terms for existing claimants and new claimants will receive a reduced rate. However, those who have the most severe conditions and will never be able to work will see their incomes boosted.
Kendall has been praised by Labour MP colleagues for “being very accessible” to discuss their concerns. Weeks of outreach by her team and Starmer’s key lieutenants in No 10 last week were supposed to have made the case to fractious Labour MPs. Reassuring calls continued up until late last night and a bundle of facts and figures were distributed to MPs on Monday.
According to one MP who had received the pack, it was a copy of the PowerPoint presentation given to MPs in Downing Street last week. It set out how one in 10 people of working age now claim a sickness or disability benefit; how almost one million young people are not in education, employment or training; how 2.8 million out of work due to long term sickness; and how the number of people claiming Personal Independence Payments is set to double this decade, from 2 million to 4.3 million.
Armed with these numbers, the Government hopes Labour MPs will see the overriding macro scale of the challenge ahead of the Spring Statement next week, when the Office for Budget Responsibility sets out the policy’s final costs amid the wider constraints on the budget. But that doesn’t take into account that for Labour MPs the personal is the political.
“I’ve received loads of emails about cuts to PIP over the weekend from constituents who have disabled children and are terrified,” one centrist Labour MP told The i Paper ahead of the statement. “I need to go through it in detail before responding properly.”
Another questioned whether the Government should have conducted the debate over welfare cuts in a semi-public manner.
“I’m not sure they needed to fly a flag on this; it worried people unnecessarily and I got loads of emails,” another Labour MP remarked to The i Paper. “It’s not like floating the idea of a third runway at Heathrow; the people this directly affected were really worried.”
Back in Westminster the question that will concern party managers over the coming weeks is how the outrage and concern to the PIP changes will manifest. Do Labour MPs – some of whom are still very new – keep writing stiff letters to the Government? Or does the issue instead build into an actual rebellion, perhaps when the issue comes to a vote, probably in the autumn?
Judging by the reaction in the Commons chamber and outside it on Tuesday, Labour’s MPs are deeply concerned, even if some are taking time to digest the details.
Debbie Abrahams, the chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee who has been co-ordinating opposition to the changes, said ominously, “I would put that there are alternative, more compassionate ways to balance the books rather than on the back of sick and disabled people.”
“Many disabled and sick people want to work, but the reality is cutting PIP will not address the reasons why they don’t,” Labour MP Florence Eshalomi told the Commons.
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Read MoreLabour MP Clive Lewis said the Government’s welfare reforms will cause “pain and difficulty” to millions of people “who are using food banks, who are using social supermarkets, people who are on the brink”.
John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor, said the changes will cause “immense suffering” especially to those on PIP.
“Reducing welfare by £5 billion is an awful political choice,” Labour MP Brian Leishman told The i Paper. “This is not what the Labour Party should ever do.”
Labour MPs and party managers tend to distinguish any potential dissent into the “usual suspects” and the “unknowns.” The first category counts perhaps up to 10 MPs already known as perennial rebels.
It’s the second category of unknowns which is harder to gauge in a governing party where the whips are still unable to recall the name of every MP in their flock.
Rebellion – serious or not – will be the discussion in the Commons tearoom and on MPs’ WhatsApp groups in the coming weeks.
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