March 17, 2025 - 10:00am
The media has been awash with claims that, in order to cut the ballooning welfare bill, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have set their sights on PIP (Personal Independence Payments). These help with extra living costs for people with long-term physical or mental health conditions or disabilities, and the move has been met with howls of rage from around 80 Labour MPs. Many are telling any journalist who will listen that they are willing to rebel on the issue.
There is no doubt that this is bad news for Starmer. Complaints are coming from across the party, not just the usual suspects in the hard-Left Socialist Campaign Group. Many of these potential rebels came of political age complaining about Conservative cuts, and certainly did not enter politics to enact austerity with Labour characteristics.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to rumours that the Government will U-turn, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday refusing to rule out the possibility. But tracking back would not only be embarrassing for the PM: it would undermine the rest of his legislative programme and open the door to a range of attacks from the Right .
For one thing, it would kill his internal authority. Despite talk of a recent “Ukraine bounce”, more people than not still think Starmer is doing badly as Labour leader, and over half of voters think he is incompetent. Folding to discontented backbenchers is not a way to show strong leadership or to win over the public, especially when Britons are supportive of reforming the benefits system and making payments conditional on seeking work.
It is worth remembering that although 80 potential rebels seems like a lot, the Government’s majority is over 170. So, assuming that the number of potential rebels is slightly inflated — MPs can always be bought off with a promise of a job later or some money for their pet project — then it is entirely survivable. What is the point of having a big majority if the Government can’t pass policy which is unpopular with some backbenchers? Tony Blair’s 2001-5 parliament was the most rebellious of the postwar era at the time, and yet Labour won a third term in 2005.
Successive recent Conservative governments should act as a warning here: on issues of planning, they capitulated to loud voices from the shires when it came to issues around HS2 or housebuilding, and still lost many of those seats in the 2024 election. Giving in to rebels does not work: they always come back asking for more.
The second threat to Starmer is that if his government can’t get this controversial measure through, then what happens when future contentious legislation comes forward? Allowing backbenchers to defeat controversial legislation just nine months into his term is a recipe for disaster and disunity. The Government should show no quarter, pour encourager les autres.
Third, the last thing Laboru needs going into the Runcorn and Helsby by-election is to give Reform UK ammunition for accusations of “two-tier Keir”, this time with the Government backing claimants over workers. There is already a broad sense among the public that those who work hard do not get their fair share, compared to those who do not work at all. And if Labour does lose the by-election, as one recent constituency poll suggests, alongside significant local election losses, Starmer will haemorrhage political capital. This might be his last chance to pass big, controversial legislation.
A U-turn now would be the worst of both worlds for Starmer. His government has identified a problem with the welfare system and prepared the ground for reform, which is popular with the public. By changing course, he will undermine his own authority, make future rebellions much more likely, and allow Reform UK and the Conservatives to paint him as supportive of a wasteful system. Every leader occasionally needs to face down their own party: this is where Starmer can prove his mettle.
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SubscribeI have been repeatedly turned down for Personal Independence Payment, even on appeal, despite having osteoarthritis from head to toe, the remains of the most ulcerated colon of anyone who ever lived to tell the tale, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoid personality disorder, anankastic personality disorder, anxious personality disorder, and an Autism Spectrum Disorder, possibly Asperger’s Syndrome. So I can assure you that PIP is hard to get. Anyone who is receiving it must really, really, really need it.
Those who suggest that it is possible to self-certify as mentally, or if some of them were to be believed even physically, ill enough to be awarded PIP, yet for some unknown reason most people, including themselves, did not therefore do so, are on the same level as those who suggest that anyone might use a foodbank, yet for some unknown reason most people, including themselves, did not therefore do so.
In the spirit of 40 years of Education Secretaries who have presumed to opine as to how much homework should be set, how often disruptive pupils should be put out of class, and so on, Wes Streeting, whose only degree is in History and who has never worked outside politics, now informs us that there is an “overdiagnosis” of mental illness. It is particularly galling to hear the approval of people who opposed the lockdowns, and who have rarely stopped banging on about them in the five years since. They predicted an explosion in mental illness, and that is undeniably a factor. But the alternative was mass deaths from Covid-19. The lockdowns were the less bad option. Yet those who most noisily foresaw its downside seem not to have noticed their vindication.
Streeting is personally opposed to assisted suicide, although it would be interesting to see whether he would resign rather than implement it. But his attitude is the context in which it is being railroaded through Parliament, with even the requirement of approval by a High Court judge having been abandoned, meaning that the Bill itself ought to be, in the terms in which it was given a Second Reading. Streeting’s enthusiasm for contracting out the National Health Service to his own private donors is the context in which assisted suicide is openly expected to be treated in the same way, no doubt with prepayment plans, with advertising, and with sales staff paid by footfall. The withdrawal of benefits from the already suicidal ought to do those interests no end of good. And with them, their pet politicians.
Yet Streeting is right to take back control of the NHS in England by abolishing NHS England. The complaints about job losses are never made by or on behalf of more useful workers. Streeting has empowered his successors, and it is now our task to supply them.
Labour are hoist by their own petard,as the saying goes. The demographic time bomb that is a REAL PROBLEM was identified at least 30 years ago and it should have been discussed in a rational way back then. There was plenty of opportunity but Labour just wanted to point score and keep what they perceived as their voter base sweet. Changes to the whole system would have hurt but nothing like they are going to hurt now. Of course Tony Blair made it even worse. How is it going to help me if I hit 80 and get a young Afghan man to come and do my 30 minute care visit. Not going to happen is it. All this was foreseen and instead of thumbing their noses in Westminster and na-na-na-ing Labour should have worked with Conservative to remake the system THEN and not as a PONZI scheme which it has been up to now.
Good analysis. We are beyond the Laffer curve – the 48% who pay tax have had enough. Fascinating Treasury finding on the new private school VAT bill. They believed that parents switching their kids out of private into state education would continue to work at previous levels and simply trouser the disposable income. Wrong. Early evidence from kids who were switched for September intake shows parents are reducing their output and wage levels. After all, who wants to pay 62.5% marginal tax for no good reason. Saw our accountant today. Entrpreneurs coming up to business sale are leaving the country for 0% CGT territories with a view to staying out for the 5 year period. The current behavioural shifts speak to a highly motivated cohort.
PIP is open to abuse and a whole slew of extra benefits follow if you get it. For many low paid workers who struggle on working with illnesses because they were brought up that way it is particularly bad as you cannot get a bit of help – it is all or nothing eg Motability provides a new car every 3 years and servicing etc is paid for by the taxpayer. You would have to earn a high wage to afford that. Don’t get me started on those who newly arrived access facilities paid for by our ancestors – at great cost, thinking they were providing resources for their descendants if they fell on hard times
Are you advocating scrapping PIP because I can tell you that isn’t the cake walk you are off-handedly disregarding it as. PIP is essential for the vast majority of claimants. The criteria have been changed by Labour already, removing eligibility from people with depression & low mood; some may support this measure. Other benefits available to people with mental & physical illness or disability are universal credit, council tax reduction (now only a reductio, not necessarily exemption), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) which fewer people receive & Limited Capability to Work & Related Activities (LCWRA), which is being cut. The amounts that people receive as a result of these benefits are low and when water, energy bills and service charges are paid there is precious little left.
I think you need to look into what this benefit cut would mean to people before you start discussing the cosmetic dangers of a u-turn.
Pretty sound analysis, imo.
Not that i think Starmer’s position is anything to be admired at the best of times, but the author is entirely correct in explaining how capitulating to left-wing rebels would be the worst of all worlds – not least for the UK, which should always be the primary focus.