Starmer seeks to win round welfare rebels with promise of 'fairness'

PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer is in talks with Labour rebels over concessions to save the UK Government's welfare reform package.

- DAVID HUGHES, RHIANNON JAMES, NINA LLOYD and AINE FOX

The talks ahead of next Tuesday's Commons showdown come after 126 Labour MPs publicly backed a move to block it.

Mr Starmer told MPs he wanted the reforms, which will restrict access to sickness and incapacity benefits, to demonstrate "Labour values of fairness".

The Prime Minister told MPs there was "consensus across the House on the urgent need for reform" of the "broken" welfare system.

"I know colleagues across the House are eager to start fixing that, and so am I, and that all colleagues want to get this right, and so do I," he said. "We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness.

"That conversation will continue in the coming days, so we can begin making change together on Tuesday."

The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has its second reading on Tuesday, the first opportunity for MPs to vote on it.

If the legislation clears its first hurdle, it will then face a few hours' examination by all MPs the following week - rather than days or weeks in front of a committee tasked with looking at the Bill - with a plan for it to clear the Commons a little over a week later on July 9.

Ministers have said they will listen to suggestions to improve the legislation, but opposition appears entrenched and the swift timetable for the Bill could add to critics' concerns.

Commons Leader Lucy Powell told MPs: "As the House would expect, the government actively engages with parliamentary opinion throughout a Bill's passage, as we are doing intensively with the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill."