Ministers are scrambling to avoid a damaging rebellion this summer when MPs vote on controversial cuts to disability benefit payments, even offering potential rebels the chance to miss the vote altogether. The government is due to hold a vote in June and dozens of Labour MPs are worried it will hurt their constituents and could cost them their seats. Possible solutions include allowing backbenchers to abstain – a major climbdown from earlier votes, when rebels were disciplined or suspended from the party. Ministers are also looking for ways to mitigate the cuts with extra spending on measures to tackle child poverty, including extra benefits payments for poorer parents of children under five. One Labour MP said: “When people abstained on the winter fuel vote, they were warned that it had been taken by the leadership as voting against the government. This time, however, a number of MPs have been offered the opportunity to abstain.” Government sources said whipping arrangements had not yet been decided for the vote in two months’ time, but did not deny that potential rebels had been offered the opportunity to abstain. The cuts to benefits have become one of the biggest sources of tension within the Labour party since it came to power. In recent months, backbenchers have been stripped of potential privileges for abstaining on a vote to remove the household cap on winter fuel payments, while several were suspended last summer for defying the whip over the two-child benefit cap. The vote in June over £4.8bn worth of cuts to disability payments is expected to trigger an even bigger backlash from within the parliamentary party. Disgruntled backbenchers say as many as 55 MPs are prepared to rebel at that vote, with more than 100 others still considering their position. Recent analysis by the Disability Poverty Campaign Group showed more than 80 Labour MPs have a majority which is smaller than the number of their constituents who could lose some or all of their benefits. Labour backbenchers are also irritated that they are being asked to vote on the package without an assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility on how effective the government’s back to work scheme will prove. One MP said: “The obvious truth is that people will lose money under these proposals – including those who clearly don’t deserve to. This can’t simply be spun away. The mood in Westminster may seem calm, but this issue isn’t going to fade quietly.” As well as offering MPs a chance to abstain on June’s vote, ministers are hoping to win favour among backbenchers with a separate package on child poverty which is likely to propose increasing benefits for poorer parents of young children. Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, will announce the government’s child poverty strategy about the same time as the benefits vote, and is looking for ways to lift children out of poverty without entirely removing the two-child benefit cap. Kendall recently told the Mirror she would consider it a personal failure if child poverty was not lower by the next election. The Guardian revealed this year Kendall was particularly interested in proposals to boost the incomes of parents of children under five, which is likely to cost less than the £3.6bn it would take to remove the cap altogether. Officials are looking at a suggestion promoted by the Fabian Society thinktank to increase universal credit payments for parents of babies and toddlers. The group found that ministers could reduce child poverty by 280,000 by doubling the child element of universal credit for those with children under one, while raising it by 50% for those with children between one and four. Doing so would give parents of babies an extra £293 per month, and those of toddlers an extra £146 per month, at a cost of £2.4bn a year. Alternatively, increasing the payment by £20 a week for those with babies and £10 a week for those with toddlers would lift 80,000 children out of poverty at a cost of £715m a year. The Fabians recommended paying for the move by reducing or ending the marriage tax allowance, through which married couples can share part of their tax-free allowance. Officials said they were looking at any suggestion that could be shown to take children out of poverty. One said: “There are a lot of discussions and options on the table for what that might look like.” Ministers held a series of meetings with MPs to discuss the welfare changes in the days before the Easter recess in an attempt to take the wind out of any rebellion this summer. At the same time, anti-poverty charities are holding private briefings for MPs to lay out the likely implications of the welfare reductions. One MP said the sessions they had became a forum for backbenchers to vent their anger at the government’s actions. “There is a serious depth of concern about how we got into this mess,” they said. “There’s a growing sense of frustration that the leadership simply isn’t listening.” Others in the party have become irritated at what they see as an organised campaign to exaggerate the impact of the changes. “The network tend to get together, message each other and get terribly worried about these proposals,” said one MP. “But nothing that’s been sent to me has given me hard evidence of cases that are at risk of really losing out.”
Author: Aletha Adu and Kiran Stacey