Andy Burnham says he would cut the triple lock pension welfare bill, but he has not spelled out the short-term reductions that would be needed to make that work. Welfare spending is projected to hit £400bn by the end of the decade, and the case for cuts now turns on which current benefits would have to change.
Andy Burnham and welfare cuts
Burnham said: "I am not squeamish about saying that the plan would be to reduce the welfare bill. Not at all." He also said he wanted to avoid "crude cuts" and move "towards a more preventative state that makes the right investments to support people into work".
That leaves the immediate policy choice untouched. Reducing spending at that scale would require some people who currently get disability or sickness benefits to lose them in future, because preventative work would not reduce the bill in the short term.
Keir Starmer's welfare defeat
The issue has already cut through Labour politics. Keir Starmer did not get his welfare reform proposals past his own MPs, and Treasury cuts to disability and sickness benefits worth £5bn damaged his authority.
Labour MPs see the rebellion over the welfare reform bill in June last year as the beginning of the end for Keir Starmer's leadership. They are now said to view Burnham as the likely answer to the party's leadership problem, which is why his welfare language is being read so closely.
Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister's Questions
Burnham has made headline noises about cutting welfare to fund defence, and Kemi Badenoch is expected to raise welfare in his first Prime Minister's Questions. The same debate has already exposed the problem Labour faces: the spending target is easy to state, but the first reductions would have to land on current entitlements.
Iain Duncan Smith argued that universal credit would cost more money at the outset but save over time, and he fought with George Osborne over how much money to spend upfront on universal credit. Osborne tried to shave more and more cash away. Burnham's version would have to answer the same practical question in reverse: what gets cut first, and who loses out first.
