Minister defends disability benefit cuts, saying you can't ‘tax and borrow your way out of need to reform state'

The Guardian

18-03-2025

Good morning. Nothing is permanent in politics. This year will be the 10th anniversary of Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader, in a contest where Liz Kendall, seen as the rightwing, Blairite candidate, came last, on a humiliating 4.5% of the vote. A decade on, Morgan McSweeney, who managed her campaign, is now more or less running the country as the PM's chief of staff, Kendall herself is work and pensions secretary and she is about to announce cuts to disability benefits that may horrify many of the 59.5% who voted for Corbyn in 2015 (some of whom will no longer be party members).
Here is our overnight preview story, by Pippa Crerar, Heather Stewart and Jessica Elgot.
Yesterday Diane Abbott, the Labour leftwinger, was saying the government should introduce a wealth tax instead and this morning Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, is making a similar argument in an article for the Daily Mirror. She says:
That is not the sort of society that we want to live in. I can't understand why we're making these types of decisions, whether it's winter fuel cuts or looking at taking Pip away from people with disabilities.
Why are we making those decisions prior to us looking at things like a wealth tax, prior to us looking at things like a profits tax? The richest 50 families in Britain are worth £500bn. That's the same as half the wealth of Britain. That's the same as 33 million people in Britain.
It is not just the Corbynites who are thinking like this. Last week, in an interview with Matt Forde's Political Party podcast (here, at 57:30m in), while not quite advocating a wealth tax, Alastair Campbell did describe it as a reasonable policy 'hard choice' rather than a wild leftwing fantasy – which is probably how he would have responded to the proposition in his No 10 days.
This morning Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, has been giving interviews. Echoing the line used by Downing Street yesterday, he said the changes being announced today weren't just about saving money, but were intended to fix a broken system that can leave sick people trapped on benefits when they would be better off returning to work. Asked why the government wasn't just taxing the rich more, he replied:
Well, there are always going to be people who say [find the money] elsewhere.
We have a progressive tax system. The top 1% pay about a third of tax.
I don't think you can, in the end, tax and borrow your way out of the need to reform the state.
The prime minister spoke about reform of the state in a major speech last week. We are reforming the state in more ways than one, and part of an essential reform of the state is to make sure that the welfare state that we believe in as a party is fit for the 21st century.
And we cannot sit back and relax as millions, literally millions, of people go on to these benefits with little or no hope of work in the future.
(McFadden's figure about the top 1% paying a third of tax is true of the share of income tax they pay, but not the figure for their share of the entire tax burden.)
In interviews, McFadden also insisted that the cabinet fully supports the Kendall plans. 'Yes, I believe the cabinet is united behind taking on the issue of the growing benefits bill,' he told Times Radio.
Today will be dominated by the publication of the sickness and disability benefits green paper, but we are getting a speech from Kemi Badenoch first. It is another example of how nothing is permanent in politics. Six years ago the Conservative government passed legislation making reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 a legally binding aim. There was a strong, cross-party consensus in favour of the target. Today Badenoch is dismantling that, with a speech saying 'net zero by 2050 is impossible'.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10.30am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech launching the Conservative party's policy renewal programme.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Morning: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, meets Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign affairs chief, in London.
After 12.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, makes a statement to MPs about the green paper on changes to sickness and disability benefits.
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