Left-wing Labour MPs have warned Prime Minister Andy Burnham that he faces a rebellion if he makes “punitive” welfare cuts. Burnham is expected to set out his policies on youth unemployment in the coming days amid a ballooning benefits bill, but backbenchers on the left of the party have cautioned against cuts to welfare.
Warnings from Left-Wing MPs
Labour MP Kim Johnson told Bloomberg: “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 learnt.”
John McDonnell, who served as Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow chancellor, said any welfare reform “must be based upon a strategy of providing positive support to people rather than punitive sanction”.
Burnham's Stance
In his first major interview as Prime Minister, Burnham told the BBC he did not want to “blame” people for being on benefits. But he added: “I think we’ve got to get really serious as a country at getting the welfare bill down.” Noting that young people had been “quite seriously let down” by a lack of support into work, he indicated he wanted to “increase the conditions required to receive benefits”.
Burnham also suggested providing mental health support “in work to support people in an opportunity”. He said: “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.”
Burnham stressed he would not pursue “a kind of crude approach, crude cuts to benefits to get the welfare bill down”. He explained: “Often that just pushes people into even more crisis and then even more public spending in another part of the system. We need a system that sets people up for success rather than pays for failure.”
Reform Response
Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said: “You can change prime ministers, but you can’t change the Labour Party. Hard-pressed families will invariably suffer with higher taxes at the Budget to pay for the spiralling benefits bill.”
The warning comes after Sir Keir Starmer was forced to U-turn on plans to slash benefits in the face of a major Labour revolt.
