Kendall steps up efforts to win over Labour welfare rebels, as Burnham tells MPs to vote against ‘unfair' bill

The Guardian

5 hours ago

Update:
Date: 2025-06-30T08:15:54.000Z
Title: Clive Efford.
Content: Good morning. Last week, on their Political Currency podcast, Ed Balls and George Osborne were talking about the Labour rebellion over the legislation to cut disability benefits – the universal credit (UC) and personal independence payment (Pip) bill – and Osborne asked for an example of an MP who would never normally rebel against the government because they were inherently mainstream and loyal, but who was opposed to this plan. Balls menioned Clive Efford, the veteran MP for Eltham and Chiselhurst. They were speaking on Thursday, before the government announced massive concessions to the bill worth £3bn a year.
Those concessions have won over some Labour MPs who were going to vote against the bill tomorrow, and Keir Starmer, instead of facing certain defeat, now seems likely to win the vote – although with a much reduced majority. But many moderates are still opposed and this morning one of them was on the Today programme. It was
He told the programme that he was still not in a position to support the bill because the government has not yet published the full assessment of how people will be affected, and whether (as ministers claim) the cuts won't lead to more poverty because people will get jobs instead. He said:
There are still £3.5 billion-worth of savings that are required in these measures and we don't yet know the poverty impact that they will have. The original motion [the reasoned amendment to kill the bill, signed by Efford and more than 120 other Labour MPs] was asking for more time for us to understand the impact of these changes and that still applies to those people who will be adversely affected.
I think there are a lot of people waiting to hear what the government is saying today who may be inclined to accept what the government has done. For me the situation hasn't changed for those people who will be adversely affected and until we know and understand the impact on them, we shouldn't be taking what I think is a leap in the dark.
There are choices that the government can make here; there are other places it can go to identify the resources. What we want to see, and fully support, is measures the government is putting in the palace to assist people to move into work, the right to try, we support, but we can't guarantee the savings.
When you're asking for £3.5bn regardless of the impact of those changes that can only adversely affect people who are in the benefit system.
We cannot make assumptions about how much we can save in the welfare system ahead of actually bringing in those changes and seeing how they work.
As Pippa Crerar and Rowena Mason report in their overnight story, Efford is far from alone; Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned as a government whip over the cuts, has not been won over by the concessions.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is expected to make a Commons statement today giving more details of the concessions. The Department for Work and Pensions issued some details overnight.
At the weekend the continuity rebels won the backing of Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester. Burnham, who has become increasingly vocal in recent weeks in setting out an alternative, more muscular, soft left alternative to what Keir Starmer is offering, was at Glastonbury where he urged Labour MPs to vote down the bill. As Huffpost UK reports, he said:
What's been announced is half a U-turn, a 50% U-turn. In my view I'd still hope MPs vote against the whole bill when it comes before parliament …
[Labour MPs] face the prospect, if they accept this package, someone could come to their surgery in two years saying 'why did you vote to make me £6,000 worse off than someone exactly the same, but who was protected because they were an existing claimant'?
I hope they think carefully before the vote, because the vote will create that unfairness and divide in disabled people.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10.30am: The high court will deliver its judgment on a legal challenge to the government's policy on arms exports to Israel brought by human rights groups.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about the government concessions on the UC and Pip bill.
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