The humbling of a prime minister by his own side is rarely an edifying spectacle, but it does at least suggest a pulse in the parliamentary system. Sir Keir Starmer has now staged three conspicuous retreats: over winter fuel payments, over grooming gangs and now – most perilously – over sweeping changes to disability benefits. Two of these reversals followed backbench unrest. This week’s about-face on the government’s flagship welfare bill looks less like a full U-turn than a partial climbdown designed to avert open rebellion.
While Sir Keir has taken a step back over benefit changes, which affect the most vulnerable in society, the result resembles textbook damage control. The concessions, presented as a response to principled pressure, feel more like fallback options held in reserve for moments of internal disquiet.
The first is that existing personal independence payment (Pip) claimants will be spared new, tighter assessments – at least for now. But about 430,000 new Pip claimants who would qualify under current rules still face being excluded when tougher criteria arrive in November 2026. The second is that the health element of universal credit will no longer be frozen for current recipients. But new claimants – many too unwell to work – will be placed on a reduced rate unless they meet a higher threshold. All Pip awards are periodically reassessed, implying that all recipients could eventually face the new scheme.
The upshot is that existing claimants would be protected, but future ones face tougher rules. Two people with identical conditions could receive support, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that differs by up to £6,560 a year – purely due to timing. This, we’re told, is compassion. The savings – halved to £2.5bn a year – come by offloading the cost on to future claimants. MPs rightly fear this locks in a two-tier system that is deliberately harsher on disabled people.
Older Labour MPs will remember denouncing this very playbook. A decade ago, Iain Duncan Smith pioneered a slow, procedural tightening of welfare – hitting new claimants first, then reassessing the rest – precisely to defuse resistance. Labour opposed it then. Today, it is governing by the same method. It feels out of step with a post-pandemic Britain grappling with a cost of living crisis.
Many Labour MPs believe these are still the wrong reforms and will vote against the bill when it comes back to the House of Commons next week. Clearly, tightened eligibility and a two-tier system may exclude many who need support. If the government wants to raise money, it might ask a little more of those with the broadest shoulders – not those with mobility aids, care plans and the audacity to ask for a fair deal. If ministers truly believe they are acting decently, they should publish the impact assessment and be honest about the consequences.
Perhaps the most telling lesson is not about policy detail, but about political temperament. Modern governments are always under pressure to appear fiscally restrained. Yet whether – or how – they choose to meet that pressure reveals what they value, and who they believe can be asked to bear the costs. The welfare state has always relied on consent, and on a basic sense of fairness. If a Labour government cannot convincingly defend that principle, it risks more than backbench unrest; it risks eroding the trust that makes reform, essential in any changing society, possible in the first place.
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