By Andrew MacAskill and Sachin Ravikumar
LONDON (Reuters) -Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made concessions to dissenting lawmakers from his Labour Party on planned welfare cuts, two lawmakers said on Thursday, as the British leader tries to avoid a damaging parliamentary rebellion at a vote next week.
More than 100 Labour lawmakers opposed Starmer’s welfare reforms, arguing the plans failed to provide support for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.
Those lawmakers have spearheaded an effort to kill the government’s welfare bill at the vote on Tuesday, presenting a potentially major blow to Starmer a year after he won a large majority in parliament.
One Labour lawmaker, who did not wish to be named, said Starmer had agreed late on Thursday evening to change the plans so that the cuts only apply to new welfare claimants, with existing recipients of so-called Personal Independent Payments (PIP) remaining unaffected.
The lawmaker said he was still undecided whether the changes would convince him to back Starmer’s plan at the vote.
Starmer’s Downing Street office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Any climbdown on welfare by Starmer will be criticised as yet another U-turn from the government following a reversal in cuts to winter fuel payments and the decision to hold an inquiry into grooming gangs.
The government has argued that cutting the ballooning welfare budget is necessary to shore up the public finances and get more people into work.
Annual spending on incapacity and disability benefits already exceeds the country’s defence budget and is set to top 100 billion pounds by 2030, according to official forecasts, up from 65 billion pounds now.
Despite Starmer’s concessions, one Labour lawmaker, Peter Lamb, said after learning of the changes that he would vote down the bill “alone” if necessary.
“To me, it’s insufficient when better options have repeatedly been put forward and ignored,” Lamb said on X.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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