Keir Starmer hinted humiliating concessions are coming on benefits reforms today after failing to quell a massive Labour revolt.
The PM said he wanted to ‘make change together’ as he scrambles to avoid a disastrous defeat in a crunch Commons vote on the flagship legislation.
Making a statement to the House, Sir Keir said there would be ‘conversations’ about how to achieve a better system.
The intervention came after Commons Leader Lucy Powell confirmed that the showdown will go ahead as scheduled on Tuesday.
But she was directly challenged by rebel Rachel Maskell who demanded she ‘withdraw this Bill’.
Despite frantic direct pleas from the PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, more MPs have added their names to a fatal amendment overnight.
Around 130 have now publicly declared they will oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, easily enough to overturn even Labour’s massive majority.
There is speculation that Sir Keir could offer to widen eligibility for Personal Independence Payment (Pip) or weaken curbs on Universal Credit – blowing a hole in hopes the proposals will save the government £5billion.
He has dismissed what has been described as the nuclear option of delaying or abandoning the package altogether.
Ms Reeves has been among the strongest backers of the reforms, as she desperately struggles to balance the books without resorting to more tax hikes. Even with the changes the benefits bill was still due to keep spiralling, just at a slightly slower rate.
In a grim sign for the premier, bitter infighting has been surfacing with MPs and aides swiping at No10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. Some have been demanding ‘regime change’ complaining that Downing Street is dominated by ‘over-excitable boys’.
Keir Starmer is poised to make humiliating concessions on benefits reforms today after failing to quell a massive Labour revolt
Sir Keir finally appeared in the Commons today for the first time in two weeks, giving a statement slated to cover the G7 in Canada.
He skirted the issue of benefits as he gave a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce this morning.
But in the House he said: ‘On social security, I recognise there is a consensus across the House on the urgent need for reform of our welfare system, because the British people deserve protection and dignity when they are unable to work and supported to work when they can.
‘At the moment, they are failed every single day by the broken system created by the Conservatives, which achieves neither.
‘I know colleagues across the House are eager to start fixing that, and so am I, and that all colleagues want to get this right, and so do I.
‘We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness. That conversation will continue in the coming days, so we can begin making change together on Tuesday.’
Earlier Ms Powell set a date of July 9 for the next stages of the welfare Bill – if it survives until then.
She urged MPs to bear in mind that second reading typically only looks at the broad principles of legislation.
However, Ms Maskell said: ‘The leader of the House extols the virtue of parliamentary democracy and yet half of MPs reject the Universal credit and Personal Independence Payments Bill.
‘Because we have spoken to our constituents and organisations representing disabled people who reject the Bill – because it will cause harm to disabled people and their voices have not been heard, as much as we are trying to amplify them in this place.
‘So will the leader of the House go back and urge her cabinet to withdraw this Bill and instead have a general debate on how we support disabled people?’
Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee chairman Toby Perkins, Stoke-on-Trent Central MP Gareth Snell, Newcastle upon Tyne MP Mary Glindon and Tamworth MP Sarah Edwards.
North Ayrshire and Arran MP Irene Campbell and Colchester MP Pam Cox, both of whom won their seats in the party’s 2024 landslide election victory, have also added their names.
The Tories have signalled they will oppose the legislation unless Sir Keir agrees to rule out more tax rises.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the Government should pull the Bill and ‘go back to the drawing board’ instead of ‘cutting vital support from thousands of vulnerable people’.
A No10 source said: ‘The broken welfare system is failing the most vulnerable and holding too many people back.
‘It’s fair and responsible to fix it. There is broad consensus across the party on this.’
The source insisted the reforms were ‘underpinned by… Labour values’.
They said: ‘Delivering fundamental change is not easy, and we all want to get it right, so of course we’re talking to colleagues about the Bill and the changes it will bring, we want to start delivering this together on Tuesday.’
Lord Blunkett last night suggested the PM had failed to focus on the peril the Government is in because he has spent so much time abroad.
And he warned that Sir Keir will be forced to hold a formal confidence vote if he loses. No government Bill has failed to pass second reading – typically a verdict on the broad principles of plans rather than details – since 1986.
The Labour grandee told LBC: ‘If they lost it, they’d have to go for a vote of confidence, I think.
‘But the embarrassment of that one year in leaves you with two problems. One is you’ve been humiliated, and the second is you’ve still got the problem. The welfare issue has not gone away. So, solving the problem, not taking the hit, is the sensible solution.’
Urging a delay in the vote, he added: ‘Keir Starmer, for very understandable reasons, has been diverted on to the international agenda. I think he now needs to come back from Holland and be absolutely focused on this.’
Facing questions at the Nato summit yesterday, Sir Keir bridled at suggestions he had failed to read the mood of Labour MPs.
He risked inflaming the mood by shrugging off the insurrection as ‘noises off’, insisting benefits reform must happen and the vote will go ahead on Tuesday.
Angela Rayner delivered the same message as she stood in at PMQs.
Commons Leader Lucy Powell confirmed this morning that the vote will go ahead as scheduled. But she was directly challenged by rebel Rachel Maskell (pictured) who demanded she ‘withdraw this Bill’
Ms Powell pleaded for Labour MPs to remember that second reading stage is about the principle of the Bill rather than detail
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch goaded that Labour cannot ‘even deliver tiny welfare changes’
But by the evening the tone had changed, with the deputy PM telling ITV that talks with rebels are ‘ongoing’.
Existing claimants will be given a 13-week phase-out period of financial support, a move seen as a bid to head off opposition by aiming to soften the impact of the changes.
Touring broadcast studios earlier, trade minister Douglas Alexander admitted that the government was thinking about how to ‘implement’ the intention of curbing benefits.
He told Sky News: ‘Everyone agrees welfare needs reform and that the system was broken. Everyone recognises you’re trying to take people off benefit and into work, because that’s better for them and also better for our fiscal position.
‘And everyone recognises that we need to protect the most vulnerable.
‘Where there is honestly some disagreement at the moment, is on the issue of ‘how do you give implementation to those principles?”
Angela Rayner insisted the vote will go ahead on Tuesday as she stood in at PMQs flanked by Rachel Reeves (right)
In a grim sign for the premier, bitter infighting has been surfacing with MPs and aides swiping at No10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney
Toby Perkins is among the new MPs to add their names to the fatal amendment
He suggested that normally the second reading of a bill, its first Commons test, was a vote on the principle behind a piece of legislation rather than the way it will be implemented.
‘The effect of what’s happened with this reasoned amendment being tabled is that that’s brought forward the discussion of how to give implementation to those principles,’ he said.
‘So given the high level of agreement on the principles, the discussions over the coming days will really be about the implementation of those principles.’
Mr Alexander also played down the attacks on Mr McSweeney. ‘I’m much less interested in the gossip about SW1 than whether this legislation works on the streets, in the towns, in the communities right across the country,’ he said.
The minister said it was ‘for the Prime Minister to make his judgments’ about who works in Downing Street.
‘The fact is that team delivered us an historic victory only last July, against expectations,’ Mr Alexander said.
‘The task of government is hard, there are always going to be people with strong opinions on all sides of an issue like welfare reform.’
