Cut welfare spending, Labour MPs tell Burnham

Andy Burnham is under pressure from Red Wall Labour MPs to cut the benefits bill, southeastpost can reveal. Several of the party’s northern backbenchers have warned that the Prime Minister must cut benefits or risk losing their seats to Reform UK at the next elections.

As the dust settles on Andy Burnham’s first Budget, there is already disquiet brewing on the Labour backbenches.

The Prime Minister’s failure to cut Britain’s staggering welfare bill – either in this Budget or any time before the next election – is worrying his MPs.

Several influential backbenchers in the Red Wall, Labour’s historical heartland, have told The Telegraph that Burnham must go faster or risk losing their seats to Reform.

He is even accused of trying to appease the “leafy Surrey suburbs” rather than the North of England, where his constituency is.

That charge will surely wound Burnham, who makes much of his Northern identity and pledged that his policies would always pass the “Makerfield test” of public opinion.

Meanwhile, Whitehall insiders are concerned that next year’s welfare reforms may not ever cut the benefits bill, and that Britain’s fiscal watchdog may not be persuaded to factor them into next year’s economic forecast. That would signal other spending cuts, more borrowing or tax rises.

It is possible that in trying to learn from the disaster of Sir Keir Starmer’s welfare cuts, Burnham has overcorrected and become vulnerable in his own backyard. Every day that we wait for the details of his reforms, the benefits bill grows ever higher.