How Keir Starmer walked into avoidable trap set by Tories years ago

The Tories did nothing as the cost of disability benefits spiralled, but everyone with an ounce of common sense knows the system needs reform

I was in London long enough this week to be reminded why, when in parliament, I used to regard it as the worst month of the year – sweltering hot, grossly overcrowded and business dragging on towards the recess.

For Labour MPs, that break will offer some blessed relief from a very tough year and not at all what most of them had anticipated. There are plenty who never expected to be there and will already have one eye on future career options.

Heat does not encourage cool, calm decision-making and may have contributed to this week’s ‘things that should never have happened’. The private emotions of a Chancellor should never have been exposed to public view. A government with a huge majority should never have to pull a major piece of legislation at the last moment, and so on.

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People protest against Labour's plan to cut disability benefits, which was gutted after a major backbench rebellion against it (Picture: Carl Court) | Getty Images

Failure of basic competence

None of this is irreversible. Politics is a series of small earthquakes with not many dead. Sure, this week’s debacle registered higher than most on the Richter scale but apocalyptic interpretations can quickly subside if lessons are learned and acted upon.

Get the second year right and this week’s pundits of doom might, in 12 months’ time, be recalling the welfare climb-down as a turning point, rather than a disaster in its own right. It all depends on what happens from here.

In the way they concluded, this week’s events, which saw a successful Labour backbench rebellion against the government’s plan to cut disability benefits, represented a failure of basic competence more than of policy. The job of the whips is to tell Downing Street whether legislation can be delivered and at what cost. Either these messages were not delivered or they were ignored. It’s important to know which and make sure it never happens again. If that means changes of personnel, then so be it.

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A week before Tuesday’s finale, it should have been clear that it was too late for the usual formula of “concessions” and arm-twisting to overcome a rebellion. The whole thing should have been shelved with whatever dignity was still available.

It would have been embarrassing but not nearly as bad as the alternative. A narrative about listening to voices of MPs and the disabled would have had credibility. Instead, ploughing ahead with what turned into the maximum display of weakness was the worst of all managerial options.

Tories’ many poisoned chalices

But what about the policy itself? Everyone with an ounce of common sense knows that the benefits system needs reform but also that it is an arena which must be tip-toed into with sensitivity – not headlines about saving £5 billion a year which raises the obvious question of who is going to pay for it. It is literally impossible to cut any benefit without provoking an outcry, so a government must be very sure of its ground before it starts.

That, presumably, is why the Tories let personal independence payments (PIPs) grow and grow without doing anything about it, since introducing them in 2013. It was one of many poisoned chalices they were delighted to leave for their successors, which was another obvious reason why Labour then had to handle it with great care. The economy is not going to collapse along with the Bill which is, in itself, confirmation of why these reforms should not have been rushed into in a way Labour MPs found unsaleable.

For all the political damage that has been done, the challenge has not gone away. In a sense, it is easier to recognise its scale through the more comprehensible Scottish numbers and the fact that the devolved budget is relatively finite. According to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the benefits bill will rise, in real terms, from £6.1bn in 2024-25 to over £9bn by 2029-30 with our version of PIP, the adult disability payment, costing £5bn.

A risk to Scotland’s finances

There’s a lot of politics at play, of course, with the Scottish Government anxious to present itself as more generous and, hence, caring. The other interpretation is that it is simply resistant to reform and is doing thousands of Scots no favours by encouraging them into the benefits system rather than into work, where that is a realistic objective.

Either way, the fact is that an extra £3bn being spent on benefits is £3bn that will not be spent on other social goods. As Holyrood’s cross-party Public Audit Committee told the Auditor General this week: “We agree with your assessment that ‘social security spending is increasingly outstripping Barnett consequentials in Scotland’ and that this is a risk to the Scottish Government’s financial position.”

So the issue can be kicked down the road but it does not go away. Whether at Westminster or Holyrood, the assumption that a system which sees more than 1,000 new claimants for PIP/ADP a day can be left unreformed may seem virtuous in the short term but it comes at costs which cannot be concealed for ever.

Making a botched job of reform has been foolish. Pretending that there is no need for reform is irresponsible.

Clear thinking required

There are plenty exonerating factors for Keir Starmer’s government in the events of the past year. They expected a grim economic legacy and it proved to be much, much worse than even that. The extent to which international events and demands for defence spending overtook the agenda could not have been predicted. The many good things that have been done have been undeservedly overshadowed.

But these are realities which must now be contended with. The next couple of months must be used for clear thinking – on priorities, communication (which has been awful) and management. It’s fine for Starmer to say he takes responsibility but he also has to ask hard questions about the quality of advice that has led him into so many avoidable traps.