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Some 39 Labour MPs have signalled they’ll vote in opposition to Sir Keir Starmer’s welfare reforms on Tuesday night in a tense showdown between the prime minister and his backbenchers regardless of a £2.5bn U-turn that watered down the package deal final week.
Starmer’s concessions final Thursday led to the withdrawal of a “reasoned modification” designed to kill the invoice — which had the backing of 126 Labour MPs.
However on Monday night, Labour MPs tabled a second reasoned modification with the identical intention that shortly garnered 39 signatures from Labour MPs, and a handful from members of different events.
Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central, mentioned the modification had been tabled on behalf of deaf and disabled folks’s organisations, “giving them a voice on this debate as their company has not been heard”. She mentioned: “Even loyal MPs who had been going to vote for [the government’s reforms] are considering of abstaining.”
That complete may rise over the day, with expectations Tuesday shall be a day of frantic last-ditch lobbying of undecided MPs in Westminster.
Some 83 Labour MPs who would in all probability have to insurgent to defeat the invoice if all different events vote in opposition to it, given the federal government’s working majority of 165. The Conservatives, who’ve mentioned the measures don’t go far sufficient, have mentioned they’ll vote in opposition to the invoice.
Ministers nonetheless count on to see the most important rise up of Starmer’s premiership, eclipsing the 16 who opposed the planning and infrastructure invoice earlier this month.
Tony Blair’s greatest rise up in his first 12 months concerned 47 backbenchers, in keeping with Philip Cowley, politics professor at Queen Mary College.
Enterprise secretary Jonathan Reynolds defended the invoice on Tuesday, saying it was higher “than what we have now at current”.
“For the time being we’re spending some huge cash on outcomes which might be simply not excellent,” he instructed BBC Radio 4’s Immediately programme.
Official estimates on Monday confirmed the revised measures will nonetheless push 150,000 folks into poverty by limiting entry to incapacity advantages to new candidates.
Talks are ongoing between authorities whips and Labour MPs, though additional concessions earlier than Tuesday’s vote are unlikely, in keeping with folks briefed on the discussions.
Liz Kendall, work and pensions secretary, will start the controversy at lunchtime with a vote anticipated at about 7pm.
Kendall laid out the federal government’s intentions on the subsequent stage of the invoice, together with the concessions on Monday, however the proposals nonetheless confronted heavy criticism from Labour backbenchers, together with fears they’ll create a “two-tier” system with higher assist for current claimants.
Starmer is anticipated to defend the reforms — designed to rein within the ballooning welfare invoice whereas encouraging folks again to work — throughout a cupboard assembly at 9.30am.
The unique package deal was anticipated to avoid wasting £4.8bn for taxpayers, however that determine is now extra like £2bn after the partial reversal. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will face questions over how she can pay for the U-turn when she faces MPs within the Home of Commons within the late morning.
The welfare reforms will make it more durable for brand new candidates to acquire “private independence funds” (Pip), the principle sort of incapacity profit, though Starmer’s concessions imply the modifications won’t have an effect on current beneficiaries.
Debbie Abrahams, a senior Labour MP, instructed ITV that she would “implore the federal government to assume once more” forward of the vote. “We completely recognise these are good concessions, however we’re not fairly there but,” she mentioned.
