Andy Burnham is facing an early warning from Labour’s Left that MPs could reignite their rebellion over what they regard as “punitive” cuts to benefits.
Since entering Downing Street, the Prime Minister has argued that Britain “must get really serious” about bringing welfare spending under control.
But Labour MPs have urged him not to “ignore the lessons of the last Parliament”, when his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, was hit by a major backbench revolt over proposed welfare reforms.
The former prime minister was forced into an embarrassing retreat last summer after attempting to restrict access to disability benefits.
Sir Keir had sought to toughen the eligibility rules for Personal Independence Payment, known as PIP, as part of an effort to cut billions from Britain’s rapidly rising welfare bill.
However, a large-scale rebellion by Labour MPs threw the plans off course, prompting Sir Keir to ask disability minister Stephen Timms to carry out a wide-ranging review of PIP instead.
With Sir Stephen expected to publish the final findings of that review in the autumn, Mr Burnham has indicated he is prepared to make a fresh argument to Labour for changes to the benefits system.
Kim Johnson, who sits in the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, warned the new Prime Minister against trying to “revive the failed politics of welfare cuts instead of asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share”.
Andy Burnham has been warned by Labour’s Left that they could revive their rebellion against ‘punitive’ benefits cuts
Data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed there were four million claimants entitled to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at the end of April
The Liverpool Riverside MP told Bloomberg she was concerned that Mr Burnham’s appointment of John Healey, the former defence secretary, as his Chancellor ‘signals a return to a “warfare, not welfare” approach’.
‘If the new leadership believes it can revive the failed politics of welfare cuts instead of asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share, it will be repeating not only Keir Starmer’s mistakes but 14 years of Tory austerity,’ she added.
‘If the first instinct of a new leadership is to target disabled people and low-income families rather than challenge the wealth and inequality at the top of society, then nothing has been learned.’
Ms Johnson added that it would be ‘absolutely mad to ignore the lessons of the last Parliament’ and forget that Labour MPs ‘made our opposition to welfare cuts crystal clear’.
She warned Mr Burnham would face the ‘same resistance’ if he opted for the same approach.
John McDonnell, another member of the Socialist Campaign Group who was Labour’s shadow chancellor during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party, said any future welfare reform ‘must be based upon a strategy of providing positive support to people rather than punitive sanction’.
He said it would otherwise not be backed by Labour MPs and the party’s wider membership.
‘I believe Andy Burnham gets that and my hope is that those around him appreciate it too,’ the Hayes and Harlington MP added.
Asked on Tuesday if he is ready to do battle with Labour MPs on welfare reform, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I want to reform the welfare system in a way that puts work and opportunity at its heart.
‘I believe that we owe young people in particular more than an income, we owe them a future too.
‘It’s changing the system to put work and opportunity and a good future at its heart that drives me every day, and is also the best way to control the welfare bill in the longer term.’
The number of people in England and Wales claiming Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the main disability benefit, has now passed four million for the first time.
The number of claimants has roughly doubled since 2019, with spending on PIP forecast to rise to more than £41billion by the end of the decade.
PIP is intended to help with everyday tasks and extra living costs if someone has a long-term physical or mental health condition or disability.
It has been revealed that teenagers claiming PIP for conditions such as anxiety receive £100 a week more than part-time workers on a minimum wage.
In an interview with the BBC at the weekend, Mr Burnham said: ‘I think we’ve got to get really serious as a country at getting the welfare bill down.’
Pressed on how he might attempt to cut the ballooning benefits bill, the PM added: ‘It’s about changing the nature of the support and making some of the support conditional upon people taking opportunities that are presented in front of them.’
Mr Burnham on Tuesday vowed to tackle Britain’s youth employment crisis – although he declined to set a deadline for cutting the number of jobless 16 to 24-year-olds.
The PM said he is ‘on a mission’ to halt the rise in the number of young people not in education, employment or training – so-called NEETs.
But he added: ‘When precisely I can get there is a hard thing to say right now.’
He pledged his intent to tackle the NEETs crisis as he unveiled plans to open up new technical education routes to 14-year-olds.
Latest data, published in May, showed the number of young people aged 16-24 neither working nor learning surpassed one million for the first time since 2013, reaching 1.01 million in the three months from January to March.
An interim report by former Labour minister Alan Milburn, also published in May, warned the figure could rise to one in six by 2031 and that Britain risks leaving behind a ‘lost generation’ of young people ill-prepared for work.
