Starmer says vote on welfare cuts bill happening on Tuesday amid growing Labour revolt

The Guardian

5 days ago

Update:
Date: 2025-06-25T08:41:27.000Z
Title: Keir Starmer says he is going ahead with welfare benefits cuts as number of Labour MPs joining rebellion grows
Content: Good morning. MPs are due to vote on the universal credit (UC) and personal independent payments (Pip) bill next week, the legislation enacting the disability and sickness benefit cuts worth around £5bn. As Pippa Crerar and Aletha Adu report in our overnight story, Keir Starmer insisted yesterday that he was pressing ahead with the plans.
But this morning it seems all but certain that, if the government goes ahead with the vote without offering a colossal concession, it will lose. And, if governments know they are going to get defeated on flagship legislation, they normally pull the vote at the last minute.
Here are the key developments this morning.
The Labour rebellion is growing – even though some cabinet ministers spent yesterday trying to persuade rebel Labour MPs to back the bill. By last night, 123 Labour MPs had signed the amendment, up from 108, plus 11 MPs from opposition parties, all from Northern Ireland. You can read all their names on the order paper here. They are the MPs who have signed Meg Hillier's amendment, listed under business for Tuesday 1 July.
Starmer has failed to quell speculation that the vote will be postponed. Despite what he said publicly yesterday, the BBC is reporting a source close to government thinking saying: 'Once you take a breath, it is better to save some of the welfare package than lose all of it.' And the Times is reporting:
Privately, some close to the prime minister are preparing to delay next Tuesday's vote in an attempt to buy time and find concessions to win enough of the rebels around. One minister described the mood in government as one of 'panic'.
But Starmer has again confirmed the vote will go ahead. He told LBC:
There'll be a vote on Tuesday, we're going to make sure we reform the welfare system.
He said the welfare system had to change:
It traps people in a position where they can't get into work. In fact, it's counterproductive, it works against them getting into work. So we have to reform it, and that is a Labour argument, it's a progressive argument.
John Healey, the defence secretary, refused to rule out the government making further concessions before the vote in an interview on the Today programme this morning.
Kemi Badenoch has in effect confirmed that the Tories will not support the bill. She implied the opposite in a statement she released last night, saying:
The government is in a mess, their MPs are in open rebellion. If Keir Starmer wants our support, he needs to meet three conditions that align with our core Conservative principles.
The first condition is that the welfare budget is too high, it needs to come down. This bill does not do that.
The second condition is that we need to get people back into work. Unemployment is rising, jobs are disappearing, and even the government's own impact assessments say that the package in this bill will not get people back to work.
The third is that we want to see no new tax rises in the autumn. We can't have new tax rises to pay for the increases in welfare and other government spending.
We are acting in the national interest to make the changes the country needs. And if Keir Starmer wants us to help him get this bill through, then he must commit to these three conditions at the dispatch box.
There is no chance of the government committing to no tax rises in the autumn, and so, while sounding supportive, this statement is anything but. The bill also fails Badenoch's first condition, because it would not stop spending on disability benefits still rising (but by less than it would without the cuts). Ministers have made this point to Labour rebels in a bid to persuade them the bill is not as harsh as people suppose.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Stephen Timms, minister for social security and disability, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee about the proposed disability benefit cuts.
10am: Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the spending review.
Morning: Keir Starmer and other leaders arrive at the Nato summit in The Hague. Starmer is expected to hold a press conference in the afternoon, after the main meeting.
Noon: Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, takes PMQs.
Also, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is giving a speech in Blackpool where he will say that England's poorest areas will get billions in extra health funding under new government plans to tackle stark inequalities.
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