Dozens of backbench Labour MPs are unhappy with plans to cut billions from the rising welfare bill, with ministers holding meetings to convince them that the changes to disability benefits are necessary.
Labour MPs told the Guardian there were deep concerns within the parliamentary party that the changes would take money from the poorest, which was not what they had entered government to do.
No 10 is preparing to make the case for welfare cuts before Rachel Reeves’s spring statement, with Keir Starmer’s spokesperson saying on Friday that there had been an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending”.
“Our broken social security system is holding our people back, our economy back,” he said. “We’ve got 3 million people out of work for health reasons, one in eight young people [are] not currently in work, education or training, and that is a shocking situation to be in.”
He added: “Left as it is, the system we’ve inherited would continue to leave more and more people trapped in a life of unemployment and inactivity, and that’s not just bad for the economy, it’s bad for those people too, and it’s why this government is going to set up plans to overhaul the health and disability benefits system in the coming weeks.”
No 10 said the prime minister was in agreement with Reeves, who told Sky the welfare system was “letting down taxpayers” because it cost too much. “We don’t need an Office for Budget Responsibility forecast to tell us that we’ve got to reform our welfare system,” the chancellor said.
The government is trying to separate the arguments about changes to the welfare system from Reeves’s need to find savings and balance the books, with proposals expected before the spring statement.
Given the government’s large majority, there is little chance of it failing to push through its planned changes to the disability benefit system, but some Labour MPs said they would nevertheless struggle to vote for any measures that take money away from the poorest in society.
Labour MPs said they had met ministers in small groups about the proposals for welfare changes and some have also written to the Department for Work and Pensions expressing concerns.
One senior Labour MP said there had not been enough effort to work on the reasons for higher disability benefit payments, from poor mental health provision and long waiting lists to declining health and life expectancy in many parts of the country.
“We are a rich country but we have lots of poorer people. Do not target stuff at the poorest and most vulnerable. There are others ways of doing it,” the MP said. “There are lots of backbenchers concerned about this … it’s unhelpful in terms of how this has been trailed in the media and I feel that it’s too politically slanted as well. You can’t outflank the right.”
Another Labour MP, Rachael Maskell, a former shadow cabinet minister, told the Guardian many colleagues were “feeling really nervous and concerned” and that mental health services and schools need to be better equipped to help young people before changing the social security system. “We need to get into why people are so challenged at the moment and to force people into work is not going to solve that problem,” she said.
“We know people who depend on social security, with people struggling in our constituencies. It should be a Labour government alleviating poverty, not adding to it … the Labour government needing to hold its values about addressing poverty. Measures like raising the living wage are really helpful but it is [Gordon] Brown economics we need at this time, which are complicated, technical and targeted. That’s not what we are seeing with these broad-brush approaches.”
Maskell said many previous governments had tried unsuccessfully to cut the social security bill, so the fresh effort may be “more rhetoric than reality”.
But she added: “What I’ve written to the minister with concerns about is people moved into a work-related activity group and being told they can work when they in fact can’t … I am concerned that’s where we will see the shift.”
Another Labour MP said: “I think it is not sensible to punish the most vulnerable in society for a situation which is not their fault. We should be helping those with disabilities flourish and forcing employers to be more inclusive, not blaming disabled people for not being able to find employment.”
