Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of abandoning welfare reform during a testy exchange at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, using the absence of a welfare bill from the King’s Speech and newly released private messages from a senior minister to argue that Labour’s backbench MPs have blocked meaningful changes to the benefits system. The King’s Speech, which sets out the government’s proposed legislation for the upcoming parliamentary session, contained no welfare bill — a fact Badenoch seized on as evidence that Starmer had “given up” on reform after his own MPs forced a U-turn on planned changes to personal independence payments in June of last year.
Official figures show that welfare costs have risen by just under £20bn over the past two years, with approximately £10bn of that increase attributable to the state pension. Badenoch claimed the full increase had occurred since Labour won the general election. She also pointed to messages from Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden that were released in the latest batch of the Mandelson files — a collection of private correspondence and communications from Lord Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the US. Badenoch quoted McFadden as saying in private: “Every meeting I have with Labour MPs is about who we can tax so we can pay more benefits.”
Starmer responded by arguing that Labour had inherited a broken welfare system from the previous Conservative government and listed several measures his government had taken. “Welfare reform is balancing universal credit so it no longer pushes people away from work,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing, they voted against it.” He cited a new “right to try” initiative intended to incentivise people to take up employment opportunities, record funding for apprenticeships, and a youth guarantee that offers companies a £3,000 grant for every 18-to-24-year-old they take on who has been unemployed for six months or more. He also noted that the government is providing 300,000 work experience placements and recently published the Milburn review into how to tackle a record level of young people not in education, employment or training — official figures show that figure has reached one million, the highest level in 12 years.
Starmer added that his government had delivered the fastest growing economy in the G7, reduced immigration by 82%, cut the asylum backlog by 46%, and lifted half a million children out of poverty.
Badenoch continued her attack by invoking Starmer’s precarious political position. “I’m glad to see the PM still has a sense of humour given we all know he’s losing his job soon,” she said. “He has no authority and we know why — his MPs will not let him do anything.”
Starmer countered by pointing to the Conservatives’ own record, saying the welfare bill had “soared by £88bn on their watch,” that nearly three million people were “written off” under the previous government, and that face-to-face assessments collapsed because of contracts signed by the shadow chancellor.
On Tuesday, Starmer’s spokesman confirmed that the latest batch of Mandelson files did not include some of the prime minister’s WhatsApp messages because he had been using the disappearing messages function. “Disappearing messages from a disappearing PM,” Badenoch said.