A Cabinet minister has said the Government will “stretch every sinew” to get people back into work as a Labour MP warned of “deep concern” from colleagues over expected changes to the welfare system.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed said it was “quite right” that the Government looked at the benefits system ahead of potential cuts to welfare.
His comments came after Labour MP Rachael Maskell said she had detected “deep, deep concern” from colleagues in the Commons, amid risks of a rift between the Government and the backbenches.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be making a spring statement at the end of this month (Dan Kitwood/PA)
Reforms to the welfare system are expected ahead of the spring statement at the end of this month, as the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will likely look to make a raft of public spending savings given tighter fiscal headroom.
Speaking to the BBC’s Westminster Hour on Sunday, Ms Maskell, the MP for York Central, said she had had a “flurry of emails” from people who were “deeply concerned” about the prospect of changes to the system.
She told the programme: “We recognise the economic circumstances that we’re in and the hand that we were given and of course it is right that the Chancellor has oversight over all those budgets but not at the expense of pushing disabled people into poverty.”
She added: “There’s got to be a carrot approach not a stick approach.
“We’ve got to make the right interventions and that doesn’t start with the stick.”
Ms Maskell said that she had “picked up … deep, deep concern” from colleagues and called for a “compassionate system and not taking just draconian cuts”.
The Environment Secretary was asked on Monday how comfortable he was with potential cuts, and told BBC Breakfast he would need to wait and see what proposals came forward.
“But I do know, for instance, the fact that we’ve got one in eight young people of working age in this country not in employment or educational training, is catastrophic, because if a young person doesn’t start working by the time they’re in their early 20s, they may never work again in their entire life,” he said.
Mr Reed said that could put them on a path to “spend their lives living in poverty” and “never able to realise their true potential”.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has already told Cabinet colleagues that the benefit system is ‘holding back the economy’ (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
“So this government is determined that instead of facing a life on benefits … we stretch every sinew and pull every lever to ensure that we can get those people into work, because that is the best way for them to have a successful and happy life into the future.
“So I think it’s quite right to look at a benefit system which is clearly broken.
“It’s not serving anybody well, not the taxpayer and not the people who are on benefits.”
Meanwhile, The Times reported on Sunday evening that a group of 36 new MPs would be rowing in behind the Government and had written a letter to the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall backing reforms to the system.
Ministers have made clear in recent weeks that there will be an overhaul given an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending”.
Ms Kendall has already told Cabinet colleagues that the current system is “holding back the economy” and is “bad for people’s well-being and health”.
Downing Street said on Friday that the “broken security system is holding our people back”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that there had been an “unsustainable rise in welfare spending”, and added: “Left as it is, the system we’ve inherited would continue to leave more and more people trapped in a life of unemployment and inactivity, and that’s not just bad for the economy, it’s bad for those people too.”
The shadow home secretary said on Sunday that the benefits system needed to be made tougher and suggested it was too easy for people to get welfare payments.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Chris Philp said: “People are now being able to be signed off because they’ve got anxiety and they are not having to even look for a job.
“I think it’s gone far too far and it is costing us billions and billions of pounds a year, and we need to make the system, frankly, a little bit tougher. Benefits have actually gone up quite significantly, the level of benefits have actually gone up quite significantly.”