By Elizabeth Piper
LONDON (Reuters) -More than 100 British Labour lawmakers have supported a move to try to block Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government from changing the welfare system, saying the package does not provide for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.
In what could be a major blow to Starmer a year after he came to power with a large majority in parliament, Labour lawmakers have spearheaded a plan to kill the government’s welfare bill at a vote due next week.
Due to a ballooning welfare system, Labour had in March said it planned to cut more than five billion pounds ($6.48 billion) from its welfare budget by 2029/30.
The lawmakers, including the heads of select committees which probe government policy, have tabled a “reasoned amendment,” used to express opposition to a proposed law.
If that amendment is selected by parliament’s speaker and then passed in next week’s vote, it would halt the proposed law.
Starmer has said welfare reform is essential to protect benefits for those who need them and get more people back into work.
The welfare bill had been on course to top 100 billion pounds ($129 billion) by 2030, partly as Britain has one of the highest reported rates of working-age people out of work due to ill health among European peers.
The government has argued that its proposed welfare budget cuts by 2029/30 would be backed by support for people using benefits to get back into work.
Even though ministers have tried to soften the impact of changes to the sickness-related part of Universal Credit benefits and to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), designed to cover disability-related costs, dozens of lawmakers are still opposed.
In their amendment, the Labour lawmakers declined to support the progress of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
They said the bill contained “dangerous and counterproductive cuts to entitlements aimed at disabled people” and lacked “measures to take proper account of the needs of people with … long-term conditions.”
One Labour lawmaker who supports the government said the amendment was “very awkward” but that ministers might yet try to contain the scale of the potential rebellion.
($1 = 0.7350 pounds)
(Reporting by Elizabeth PiperEditing by Bernadette Baum)
Comments