EXCLUSIVE The 'useful idiots' in the Prime Minister's ranks who blew up the law to prevent the hounding of veterans
A former Conservative minister has described military veterans in the Labour Party as 'useful idiots' after they tore up his law to protect soldiers.
Johnny Mercer, the architect of the Legacy Act, took aim at the former troops who have left Northern Ireland veterans exposed.
The former Veterans Minister brought in the first legislation to shield service personnel from historical witch hunts.
Mr Mercer, who served in Afghanistan, blamed veterans who joined the Labour Party for undoing his work.
The current Veterans Minister is Al Carns, a former Royal Marines officer. Action to remove protections for troops has happened on his watch.
Yesterday, the Mail launched a campaign to stop the betrayal of British troops hounded by the threat of legal action decades after their service.
The newspaper is demanding ministers U-turn on their bid to repeal the Legacy Act or produce a proper alternative.
Last night, a petition calling for the protections of Northern Ireland veterans had reached just under 150,000 signatures. There will be a full parliamentary debate on the issue on July 14.
It comes as former SAS soldiers face possible murder charges after a judge in Northern Ireland ruled the shooting of four IRA terrorists in 1992 was unlawful.
Yesterday, the Mail's campaign received fulsome backing from MPs, including Sir David Davis and Tory defence spokesman Mark Francois.
Last night Mr Mercer, who is no longer an MP, said: 'Veterans in the Labour Party should hang their heads in shame.
'They have become modern day useful idiots in a party determined to shout about veteran credentials then roll back all the important advances made by the previous government.
'None more so than legislation to protect our people from vexatious prosecutions in Northern Ireland. I made promises to veterans and I kept them. It took almost ten years. To repeal what we fought so hard for is frankly unconscionable. The hounding of these veterans is fundamentally unjust. So we kept going to produce the Legacy Act.
'I am proud of that and I fully support what the Mail is doing to ensure soldiers are protected.'
The Labour manifesto at last year's general election included a pledge to repeal the 'unlawful' act. This followed a ruling by a court in Northern Ireland on clauses in the act providing conditional immunity from prosecutions for Troubles-era crimes.
The act also introduced a ban on inquests and future civil actions related to the same period.
In February 2024, the High Court in Belfast found these were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Article 2 of the ECHR places an investigative duty on the state where its agents may have been involved in causing death or serious injury.
In such circumstances, countries that are signatories to the convention are obliged to conduct an effective and independent investigation.
In parliament yesterday Mr Francois said: 'The present Labour government intends to use a Remedial Act to remove key provisions within the Act.
'This will open the endless cycle of investigation and re-investigation, often by coronial inquests. This policy is a disaster for recruitment and retention and we vigorously oppose it. In that context, we warmly welcome the Daily Mail's campaign, launched this morning, to defend our veterans.'
Mr Francois, who served as a defence minister in a previous Conservative government also quoted the Mail's editorial which said it was 'profoundly unfair that frail ex-servicemen will continue to live in dread of a knock on the door by the authorities, while IRA murderers sleep easily, with letters of immunity handed to them by Tony Blair'.
In the same debate, Sir David said: 'This is not just about Special Forces, it is about all of the armed forces. There are about 20 inquests into actions by government agencies that could be restarted after the end of the legacy legislation.
'If we continue down this path we will betray our past and jeopardise our future.
The Mail's campaign has received fulsome backing from MPs, including Sir David Davis and Tory defence spokesman Mark Francois
'This campaign of persecution sends a chilling message to the next generation: serve your country, risk your life and face prosecution in your old age. Why would any young man or woman sign up for that.'
The case at the centre of the campaign involved 12 SAS soldiers facing possible murder charges over the 1992 shooting of four IRA terrorists.
Police concluded at the time there should be no prosecutions. But earlier this year a coroner ruled their use of force was excessive, despite the terrorists being armed with a heavy machine gun and other weapons. Files have been passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland.
A move which could trigger a criminal investigation.
Last night, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: 'The Legacy Act has been found by our domestic courts to be unlawful.
'Any incoming government would have to repeal unlawful legislation and it is wrong for anyone to suggest otherwise.
'The Defence Secretary and I are engaging with our veterans community and with all interested parties over future legislation and we will ensure there are far better protections in place.
'We owe it to all who were affected by the Troubles across the United Kingdom to be honest about the unworkability of the Legacy Act and to get this new legislation right.'
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Top Gear
24 minutes ago
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Seoul train: is the Hyundai Ioniq 9 the best electric seven seater right now?
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The 'Universal Island' is a console with bidirectional armrests that can slide up to 190mm between the first and second row of seats. There are little rubberised pixels on top of the console island that stop your phone from sliding around. It's also cooled so it won't fry while it charges. The HVAC uses a heat pump that recycles waste heat to maintain an appropriate cabin temperature without draining the battery. There are six USB-C ports on all three rows that can deliver 100W of power. A steriliser cubby can sanitise phones, wallets and whatever else ends up in there. For a country that didn't endure a COVID lockdown, the Koreans are keen on cleanliness. The Ioniq 9 uses Hyundai's E-GMP architecture, a modular platform that underpins other Hyundai and Kia EVs. A compact electric power system combines the motor, transmission and inverter into a single unit. 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Auto Terrain mode uses AI to interpret the weather conditions and track the road ahead to select a suitable driving mode. On which note, there's the usual selection – Normal, Eco, Sport and a My Drive one that allows you to personalise the setup – but as ever Normal feels like the best bet. The steering is nicely weighted without being especially interactive, and everything is in phase with everything else. The regen braking gives you the option of single pedal driving if you want it, and brake feel is pretty good. Our Long Range AWD test car can get to 62mph in 6.7 seconds and we manage 2.85 miles per kWh, although it was subzero outside most of the time. Expect to see over 300 miles in warmer conditions. Having made a break for the border, we head back into the city, all reflections and neon. Electrification suits this big Hyundai, a soothing luxury experience in a world that's slipped its moorings. It's a worthy winner of our Best Seven Seat EV.
Times
28 minutes ago
- Times
Michael Gove on divorce, gay rumours, dating and the Camerons
Michael Gove has agreed to this interview nominally to plug his new podcast, which he says will be 'mischievous, right-wing, not always predictable' — core brand Gove — but we both know why I'm really here. His ex-wife, Sarah Vine, has just published her memoir, How Not to Be a Political Wife, garnering a gazillion column inches, and Gove wants either to brief his own version of events or surf the wash of her publicity wave. (Possibly both.) And, since I've already interviewed Vine at length, I now feel like a niche form of couples therapist — or Derek Batey, host of the Eighties game show Mr & Mrs. Gove is detained, so I sit for 20 minutes in his office at The Spectator taking in the bookish clutter, knackered furniture, depressing strip lights and a plastic fern in a pot. On his desk is a book of essays by Denis Healey — he's fascinated by the intellectual hinterland of Seventies politicians — and behind it is a silhouette of Churchill, the only thing he's unpacked. Although he became editor of the magazine last October, everything else, including a drinks cabinet of half-empty single malts, belonged to his predecessor, now a Times columnist, Fraser Nelson. Finally Gove, 57, materialises looking hassled, then is off again: 'So, so, so sorry, back in three minutes.' When he eventually settles beside me, looking slimmer than of late, he seems surprisingly nervous. Always articulate, 20 years in politics made him a fluent performer and navigator of interviewer bear traps, especially personal ones. But Vine's book has plunged his private self into public print and, although mainly warm and affectionate, she paints him as a prodigious drinker, social climber, absentee husband and distracted father tethered to the wheel of political ambition. Moreover, Gove must be wary that since I knew him and Vine (both former Times staff) until the mid 2010s, I've witnessed much of this for myself. So every Gove sentence is punctuated by loud, prolonged 'ahhhhhs' and 'ummmms' to buy time while he selects the precise (ie safest) word. Even so, he's incapable of dullness. When I suggest that as Spectator editor and the newly ennobled Lord Gove of Torry he has attained his final form, neither journalist nor politician but a synthesis of both, he says, 'I never expected really to be a peer, but I suppose it's a, ahhhh, sort of, ummm, capstone on a political career. It's a way of, ahhhhh, saying almost all the previous chapters have closed, but the story hasn't quite ended.' Then he adds, 'I don't know anything about golf, but being in the Lords is a bit like being a superannuated golf pro turning up to a pro-celeb tournament. Having played in the Open, now you're appearing with Russ Abbot.' I say I'm not sure how his noble friends will take that. 'Well, you know, it [the Lords] is a wonderful place, but the Commons …' Now on to the book, the Amazon status of which he's tracking so carefully — 'It's No 1 in political biographies!' — I feel he's worried it will steal the thunder of his own vaguely mooted memoir. Was it strange seeing his private life laid so bare? He says that given Vine, as a Daily Mail columnist, had already written so much about him, 'It's not quite out of a clear blue sky,' and in any case she has a right to her view: 'Sarah put up with a hell of a lot being married to me.' And while it was painful to recall upsetting moments, such as when the couple and their children were accosted on holiday in New York and told, 'Wankers like you shouldn't have kids,' none of it was 'a new shot through the heart'. Vine's thesis is that Gove strove to keep up with his far richer, posher fellow Tory modernisers, David Cameron and George Osborne, via affectations such as paying for his outer London house to have a more prestigious 0207 (ie central) phone number, learning how toffs pronounce 'Ascot' (ASS-cutt), and buying wine or cologne at fancy shops in St James's with royal warrants. Yet since in class terms David and Sam Cam never saw the parvenu Goves as equals, they were treated not as true friends but family retainers who, when no longer useful or biddable, could be coldly dispatched. • The Camerons froze me out too, but I didn't moan like Sarah Vine Although he won't explicitly contradict Vine's account — and reading her book pre-publication, he asked for no changes — he paints it as a rather broad brushstroke: 'I think the heuristic is an oversimplification of things, but it's not — what's the word? — untrue.' He claims no memory of the 0207 business, although says in London postcode terms, 'They [the Camerons] were the elves and we were the hobbits.' But his tastes were established 'before I ever got involved in politics, before I met David Cameron. And it's definitely the case that I gravitate towards, in terms of creature comforts, things that are establishment-coded. For example, you'd be more likely to find me in tweed than a denim jacket. Also, I like pedantry and … all the curious aspects of life in Britain and England.' As the adopted son of an Aberdeen fish merchant, he compares himself to Pip in Great Expectations, the lowly orphan who clambered up through society to become a gentleman. 'I think it's particularly a feature of having been adopted,' he says. 'I grew up in a house where there were books, but not many. My dad's favourite reading matter was Reader's Digest condensed books. My mum's was Catherine Cookson. I was spoddy, swotty, bookish from an early age, and so there was an element of being a cuckoo in the nest. And my sister — also adopted — is profoundly deaf. So there was a sense in my mind growing up that I had this intellect or curiosity that set me apart slightly from my family. Not in terms of feeling unloved — quite the opposite — but in terms of being slightly different as a sort of breed, you know? I had different interests, different characteristics.' (Of his biological family, whom he has never tried to trace to spare his adoptive parents pain, he will say only that it feels like an unanswered question.) Oxford contemporaries recall Gove wearing tweed suits bought in Oxfam for £1.50, already a young fogey. His politeness, self-deprecating wit and appetite for debate with those with whom he disagreed meant he was liked even by those on the left. Yet Gove had a strand of theatricality: he acted in plays, even a film, was a star debater, president of the Oxford Union and, before the term 'troll' was coined, wrote opinion pieces intended to provoke. Gove identifies with Alan Bennett, who chronicles the expanding gulf between himself and his working-class Leeds parents after he goes to Oxford. Gove's own family were proud their private-school scholarship son was entering a prestigious university, 'but, by definition, your interest in a variety of things creates a certain sort of distance. So for my dad, when he was alive, or for my mum now, having a drink would not involve a glass of wine. And drawing distinctions between bordeaux and burgundy would seem like a different life.' Fine wine, opera (especially Wagner), gambling at gentlemen's clubs and running with a fast, rich set who revelled in such pastimes were just, he says, things he enjoyed. If he were a truly determined social climber, he argues, wouldn't he feign other 'establishment-coded' passions for 'tennis, horse racing, property porn, which I have no interest in at all'? According to Vine, their inferior standing in Tory high command first became apparent when David Cameron moved Gove from education secretary to chief whip — a demotion and a pay cut to a job he hated — because Lynton Crosby's polling found his unpopularity with teachers an electoral drag. 'If anything,' Gove says, 'Sarah took it harder than I did at the time, although I definitely felt let down.' But while Vine smarted about a betrayal of friendship, Gove saw Cameron as 'a CEO saying, 'We've got to carry on making a profit and what you've been doing is not a profit centre, so I'm going to have to move you on. Otherwise the whole thing will sink. So, you know, suck it up.' ' Similarly, when Cameron decided to call the EU referendum he expected Gove to abandon his longstanding, deep-rooted Euroscepticism to support the PM's Remain position. 'His view was 'we' — as in the group of people in his leadership campaign, in modernising the Conservative Party — are a team and tribe, and the people who want us to leave the EU are the guys who generally got things wrong about how the Conservative Party needs to change. 'So you might agree with them on this issue, and it might be a really big issue, Michael, but these guys are only going to take the country and the Conservative Party back. So swallow your doubts on this. Just trust me and get with the programme.' ' But this time, Gove did not fall in line. What he regrets now, he says, is being 'insufficiently clear' to Cameron that he would campaign for Leave. 'Sarah is right,' he says, 'in that I often find it difficult — and I hope I find it easier now — when I disagree with someone and it's likely to be painful, to say what I really think.' He deferred telling Cameron his intention in the hope 'something would turn up to prevent an inevitable rupture'. Does he believe his friendship with Cameron was real, not merely political? 'Yes,' he says emphatically. But that friendship is over? 'Impaired, which is sort of a euphemism. Not the same, and I can completely understand why. He felt he'd earned the right, as the captain, to expect members of the team to recognise it was better for us all to hang together.' But Cameron, in his own memoir, accuses Gove of fundamental disloyalty, both over Brexit and for dramatically changing his mind about supporting Boris Johnson's 2016 leadership bid. Are you a disloyal person? 'No.' Do you still see Cameron? 'Infrequently, cordially. Remember we shared a cabinet table for a year. [When Cameron was Rishi Sunak's foreign secretary.] The last time I saw him was about three weeks ago, at a reception for the New Schools Network, and he couldn't have been nicer.' Gove admits his conflict-averse nature may surprise those who see him as 'a guy who crosses the road to have a fight … who can't see a controversy without joining on one side or the other'. But his distaste for shouty rows means he was ill suited either to be chief whip or (briefly and earlier) news editor at The Times. Vine, who is similarly anti-confrontational, depicts their marriage as quietly petering out rather than as a series of stormy battles. She describes how when they moved house in 2017, Gove totally disengaged, retreating to their bedroom to read, leaving his wife and mother-in-law to unpack. 'I think now I was depressed,' he says. (He'd just been sacked as justice secretary by Theresa May.) Nonetheless, it was pretty selfish. Has the book made him wish he'd done anything differently? 'Yes,' he says. 'Simply being more present. Being at home and with the family more, and then, when at home with the family, being there.' Not always distracted? 'Yes.' • Everything we've learnt from Sarah Vine's new book But isn't the truth that a ministerial career is simply more exciting than sitting at home with small children watching Peppa Pig? 'Politics is much more than a job — it's a crusade. You get involved in politics because things really matter. Now, people might say I'm deluded or that I got terrible things wrong. But you don't do it to pay the bills or because it's intellectually interesting — although it is. You're doing it to change things. So in my mind, a phone call unreturned, a submission unread, a speech unmade, a meeting postponed, were all opportunities to advance what we were doing. So if you're going to turn around how the country's prisons are run or change the school system, it's closer to being involved in a conflict than a job.' Vine and Gove's problem, he says, was lacking either extended family or a cushion of wealth to help them cope. Yet Cameron was famous for 'chillaxing', regular date nights, balancing his life. 'David was in that respect, as in so many, just a cut above,' Gove says, echoing the gushing terms in which Vine writes of Sam Cam. 'Better at politics, better at managing life. Most politicians don't have the degree of focus, self-discipline, consideration — the all in one package that David had. Whether I'm one of the worst, I don't know. But politics is littered with relationships that have undergone tremendous strain and gone wrong. And there will be different explanations for that — the male ego, the propensity of politicians to take risks, and other deformities that characterise people who are drawn into public life. But one of the things about David is that he's just a more effectively operating human being than most of us.' Gove makes government sound like dancing in The Red Shoes: passion turns into an unstoppable frenzy that ultimately destroys you. He lists the sundry pressures: the constant public scrutiny, so no MP 'can walk down the street and pick their nose'; the risk of a misspeak on breakfast TV, which 'for 24 hours — and it is only 24 hours — means you will be laughed at on social media'. Vine often notes Gove's heavy drinking, that he glugged half a bottle of whisky during the expenses scandal, was nearly sick on the Pope after a heavy night and (I've observed this at dinner myself) his unquenchable thirst for red wine. Vine told me she was once so concerned she sent him to the Mayr clinic in Austria, where he was told 'he has the liver of a baby'. Did he drink to combat stress? He swerves the question and says the reason he runs in the morning is because, 'Exercise clears mental space. I think for all sorts of people there will be different ways of coping — and I'm a Scot. But I'm not drinking at the moment.' (He does still smoke.) After the divorce in 2021, his life changed dramatically. While Vine lives with their daughter, Bea, 22, and son, Will, 20, both students, Gove moved initially to a grace and favour apartment for his own protection, since Ali Harbi Ali, the jihadist who murdered the Tory MP Sir David Amess, was found to have first stalked Gove as a potential target. Now he lives with Dr Lola Salem, 32, an Oxford lecturer in music and French. A trained opera singer who is, as a mutual friend puts it, 'even more combative and right-wing than Michael', she sounds like his perfect match. He says he'd rather be discreet about Salem. But, I say, you did snog her openly in J Sheekey fish restaurant. (A photo was passed on to the papers.) 'Manifestly,' he says. 'In my mind, the street is sniper's alley. But in a restaurant, you expect a certain amount of politeness.' Before meeting Salem at a Civic Future leadership conference, Gove tried the Bumble dating app. His experiences, he says, were fairly standard 'except for the aspect of being the notorious Michael Gove'. He had to prove to one woman it was really him by holding up a copy of that day's newspaper, hostage-style. He had a few pleasant dates without any mutual spark, but found the process 'fascinating … the pictures people choose, the descriptions they give themselves'. To the question, 'What does your online ad algorithm assume you are?' Gove replied, 'Loaded, but sadly that isn't true.' Before Vine, Gove had several serious girlfriends including the historian Amanda Foreman and Simone Kubes, now the Tory peer Baroness Finn. Even so, rumours still persist that Gove is a closeted gay man. Vine ascribes this to his many gay friends (he lived in Mayfair with the entrepreneur Ivan Massow and the former Tory MP Nick Boles) and his gay advisers, such as Henry Newman, plus his slightly camp taste for fripperies such as Geo F Trumper colognes. Gove adds, 'I also think people like the idea anyone in public life will have a kink or secret of some kind. So everyone from Peter Lilley to the current PM has had rumours spread about them. And this was one that latched onto me. I find it hilarious. But any protestation sounds like you're trying to cover something up.' Has he ever kissed a boy? 'No … except my son.' He seems happy to be outside politics, liberated from ministerial cars, using the Tube again, no longer walking with his head fixedly down. He goes into an excited reverie about the pleasures of people-watching, how amazed he is by the fashion dominance of 'athleisure wear'. Did he stand down as an MP last year because he knew when he lost Surrey Heath in the general election people would talk about 'staying up for Gove'? He admits 'that was at least one part of it', but he reckoned too that having angered over the years everyone from teachers to Boris fans he was an electoral liability. 'And also,' he says, 'I felt exhausted.' In the end, the Lib Dems won with a mighty 21 per cent swing. He says politicians rarely have legacies: 'Things are never static; there are never permanent victories.' He says he made his greatest mark in education, had a genuine zeal for reform as justice secretary, but there was too much unfinished business. He mentions how, after the Grenfell fire, he brought in the Building Safety Act. But of course, his one abiding legacy is Brexit. I ask if in 2016 he'd known how the next decade would play out, how exiting the EU would suck away so much energy from issues he cared about, whether he'd still have supported it. 'I don't know that I would have had the courage to say, 'Let's leave.' I hope I would have done.' But then he adds, more robustly, 'Some of the things which made me more pro-Brexit were the reactions to it. How the condescension towards people beforehand became more vivid and strident afterwards. 'These people didn't know what they were voting for,' or, 'Voting Leave is correlated with a lower level of education.' That only made me more pleased to have been on that side.' As for Brexit bonuses, he says, 'It's literally too soon to say. But the loudest predictions of ruin from the Remain side have certainly not come true, nor have the most extravagant predictions of benefits from Leavers.' Of his most notorious quote that 'people have had enough of experts', he says, 'I went through a period of actually thinking, 'Well, that isn't quite what I said. It's an inaccuracy. I want to try to make the case properly.' And now I think, 'That's fine. And do you know what? [His eyes gleam.] We have had enough of experts.' You're doubling down? 'Yes.' Whom do you mean by experts? 'People in organisations with three-letter acronyms. The IFS, CBI, IFP. And so on. Book-smart people who attempt to reduce the complexity of humanity to something that will fit into a PPE essay.' Can you imagine voting anything but Conservative? 'No. I used to, but now it's too late.' It's in your blood? 'Yes.' Never Reform? 'No.' I ask if he's back on speaking terms with Kemi Badenoch after having an affair with her friend, causing the break-up of a marriage. His eyes go saucer-wide and he won't comment. 'I am a huge fan of Kemi, but she's got a much more high-pressure job than me.' Do you think she's doing it well? 'Yes.' Isn't she too fighty to bring the electorate or even the Tory party with her? 'I think it's a good thing to be fighty.' He's fascinated by Blue Labour, got to know Lord Glasman during the referendum, has known Labour's campaign strategist Pat McFadden since the Nineties, when he worked for Donald Dewar, while Gove was a researcher on Scottish TV. 'I admire Morgan McSweeney. I very much admire Shabana Mahmood. I admire Wes Streeting. I don't dislike Keir Starmer at all; I just think he and Rachel Reeves have got themselves into an unnecessarily difficult situation … I'd say he's handled foreign affairs and defence better than I would have expected, and domestic politics worse.' Editing a political magazine must be fun, but doesn't he miss the power and tumult at the heart of government? 'This is a crap analogy, because I haven't been either, but it's a bit like I was a farmer and then I was called up. I served my time as a soldier and then, at the end of it, I was demobbed. Maybe it's the case that I will forever carry the PTSD from the trenches with me, but I'm now back on the farm. I really enjoy being a farmer, but there were experiences that were irreplaceable as a result of having been called up where we did things that needed to be done.' Then, as I am leaving, I note several shirts on the back of his office door. 'I need them to get changed into because I'm always spilling things down me,' Gove says. (He is noted for his lack of physical coordination.) But he does smell very nice. What is that fragrance, I ask, and he rushes to his briefcase to pull out a bottle of a Geo F Trumper cologne called Spanish Leather. 'I know!' Gove says. 'It's only going to fuel the gay rumours.' Quite Right, a new podcast from The Spectator, launches in September. Find out more at
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Government announces concessions to welfare bill after talks
People who currently receive the personal independence payment (Pip) will continue to do so after the Government made concessions to Labour rebels on controversial welfare reforms. A letter from Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to MPs said adjustments to universal credit would also see incomes protected. The announcement comes after crisis talks with backbenchers, with some 126 MPs within the party signing an amendment that would halt the legislation in its tracks. Sir Keir Starmer's Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has its second reading on Tuesday, the first opportunity for MPs to support or reject it. A spokesperson for Number 10 said: 'We have listened to MPs who support the principle of reform but are worried about the pace of change for those already supported by the system. 'This package will preserve the social security system for those who need it by putting it on a sustainable footing, provide dignity for those unable to work, supports those who can and reduce anxiety for those currently in the system. 'Our reforms are underpinned by Labour values and our determination to deliver the change the country voted for last year.' The Government's original package restricted eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability payment in England, and limited the sickness-related element of universal credit. Existing claimants were to be given a 13-week phase-out period of financial support in an earlier move that was seen as a bid to head off opposition by aiming to soften the impact of the changes. In her letter, the Work and Pensions Secretary said: 'We recognise the proposed changes have been a source of uncertainty and anxiety. 'We will ensure that all of those currently receiving PIP will stay within the current system. The new eligibility requirements will be implemented from November 2026 for new claims only. 'Secondly, we will adjust the pathway of Universal Credit payment rates to make sure all existing recipients of the UC health element – and any new claimant meeting the severe conditions criteria – have their incomes fully protected in real terms.' She said a ministerial review would ensure the benefit is 'fair and fit for the future' and will be a 'coproduction' with disabled people, organisations which represent them and MPs. 'These important reforms are rooted in Labour values, and we want to get them right,' she said. The change in Pip payments would protect some 370,000 existing claimants who were expected to lose out following reassessment. If the legislation clears its first hurdle on Tuesday, it will then face a few hours' examination by all MPs the following week – rather than days or weeks in front of a committee tasked with looking at the Bill. The so-called 'reasoned amendment' tabled by Treasury select committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier had argued that disabled people have not been properly consulted and further scrutiny of the changes is needed. She said: 'This is a good deal. It is massive changes to ensure the most vulnerable people are protected… and, crucially, involving disabled people themselves in the design of future benefit changes.' While the concessions look set to reassure some of those who had been leading the rebellion, other MPs remained opposed before the announcement. Speaking to the PA news agency before the concessions were revealed, Rachel Maskell said: 'As the Government is seeking to reform the system, they should protect all disabled people until they have completed their co-produced consultation and co-produced implementation. 'I cannot vote for something that will have such a significant impact … as disabled people are not involved, it is just a backroom deal.' One MP said that ministers would need to 'go back to the drawing board' to make the Bill acceptable. Another said they expected the legislation would get through second reading if the Government conceded the key sticking points relating to existing Pip claimants, the health element of universal credit and a policy consultation. 'It would need to be in the Bill, not just a commitment,' they said. Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, Sir Keir told MPs he wanted the reforms to reflect 'Labour values of fairness' and that discussions about the changes would continue over the coming days. He insisted there was 'consensus across the House on the urgent need for reform' of the 'broken' welfare system. 'I know colleagues across the House are eager to start fixing that, and so am I, and that all colleagues want to get this right, and so do I,' he said. 'We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness. 'That conversation will continue in the coming days, so we can begin making change together on Tuesday.' There was a mixed reaction among charities to the prospect of concessions. Learning disability charity Mencap said the news would be a 'huge relief to thousands of people living in fear of what the future holds'. 'It is the right thing to do and sends a clear message – cutting disability benefits is not a fair way to mend the black hole in the public purse,' director of strategy Jackie O'Sullivan said. But the MS Society urged rebels to hold firm and block the Bill, insisting any Government offer to water down the reforms would amount to 'kicking the can down the road and delaying an inevitable disaster'. Head of campaigns at the charity, Charlotte Gill, said: 'We urge MPs not to be swayed by these last-ditch attempts to force through a harmful Bill with supposed concessions. 'The only way to avoid a catastrophe today and in the future is to stop the cuts altogether by halting the Bill in its tracks.' The Tories described concessions as 'the latest in a growing list of screeching U-turns' from the Government. Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: 'Under pressure from his own MPs, Starmer has made another completely unfunded spending commitment. 'Labour's welfare chaos will cost hardworking taxpayers. 'We can't afford Labour.'
