Pat McFadden's welfare warning will be a gift to Labour's critics for years to come, writes Natasha Clark

Speaking with Lord Mandelson on 24 May 2025 about the brewing welfare rebellion, the then Cabinet Office chief Pat McFadden agreed that the Parliamentary Labour Party were in a "mutinous state".

He said: "Yes. Every meeting I have is 'who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'. They're asking the wrong questions."

He's since become the man responsible for taking on the welfare brief, and may in future have to fight another battle with Labour MPs over how much money is being spent.

The £5 billion in cuts had to be abandoned after Labour MPs made it clear they wouldn't back them.

Yet the increase in the number of people across the UK receiving incapacity benefits, Personal Independence Payments, and, indeed, the ever-rising costs of the triple lock for the state pension may make those conversations impossible to ignore.

It's this message which goes to the heart of what critics of Labour think this government is about - spending too much, and borrowing and taxing extra to pay for it.

It was Sir Tony Blair who, in last week's attack on the government, said that we shouldn't be spending more on welfare than on defence (that was a milestone actually passed by a Labour government in 2010).

This message, tongue-in-cheek though it may have been, does appear to reflect what many Labour MPs think the government should be doing.

The government won't say right now that they want to cut the welfare bill, and Rachel Reeves is mulling further interventions to help with the cost of living, which is squeezing people so tightly.

Despite the fact that the economy isn't growing enough to pay down our debts, or support further intervention.

Naturally, though, the Tories have jumped on this one message as proof of the clear blue water that exists between the two traditional political parties.

Kemi Badenoch says Labour are now the welfare party, adding: "The party for Benefits Street will tax us all into poverty to pay for more welfare."

The PM should have taken up her offer to work together to find a solution to this spiralling problem, which will blight all governments if it's not sorted.

Mr McFadden, now the DWP boss, couldn't tell Lewis Goodall on Sunday last weekend whether he wanted to save money on the benefits bill.

The political fight he may have to have if Sir Keir stays in office will be one that Labour MPs may be confident they can see off, so strong was the last rebellion.

I was in the audience when Alan Milburn, the former Health Secretary, launched his review into young people not in a job or training last week.

Aside from being an astute political operator and a fantastically eloquent, down-to-earth speaker, he was damning about the state of our welfare system and how it works.

He asked how we, as a country, can spend just £1 on back-to-work schemes while spending £25 on benefits?

Governments of all colours over the last 40 years were to blame, and the entire education, NHS, welfare and benefits system needs to be totally ripped up to fix it, he concluded.

That's no small task, but it would give Sir Keir Starmer and this Labour government a real rallying cause.

Young people today are struggling with the realities of growing up worse off than their parents for the first time, without a job, or without the proper support to get one.

Labour MPs should realise the political opportunity here to discover a mission for the PM that the whole country can get behind, rather than another attack ad for opponents to hit them with.

____________________

Natasha Clark is LBC's Political Editor.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk