Will Labour go to war over welfare?
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
Keir Starmer says he has a "duty" to fix welfare - and has described the current benefits system as "unsustainable" and "indefensible". But many of his own backbenchers fear that the noble rhetoric is an attempt to mask little more than a savings drive, and the backlash is growing.
Andy Burnham became the latest Labour figure to voice his concerns, and there are indications that the government is looking again at some of the harshest measures expected to be unveiled tomorrow.
But is the PM right to be sounding the alarm on the rising welfare bill, if 1.8m more people are claiming sickness benefits than before the pandemic?
Later, Donald Trump claims to have overturned Joe Biden's presidential pardons - a power not bestowed upon any occupant of the Oval Office. Is he stretching the US constitution to breaking point?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.5 | Here's the other thing. I mean, mental well-being illness, it's a spectrum, right? |
| 0:18.2 | And I think too many, I think there's definitely... |
| 0:21.3 | There's an overdiagnosis, |
| 0:22.4 | but also there are too many people being written off. |
| 0:25.6 | And to your point about treatment, |
| 0:28.1 | there's too many people who just aren't getting the support they need. |
| 0:31.1 | So if you can get that support... |
| 0:32.4 | That is West Streeting, the Health Secretary, |
| 0:34.3 | talking to Laura Kunsberg yesterday, |
| 0:36.4 | about overdiagnosis of mental health problems. |
| 0:40.3 | The statistics bear it out. There's been an increase of 1.8 million people claiming sickness benefits |
| 0:49.3 | since 2019. And the biggest rises have been amongst the young. The Labour government want to see if there's |
| 0:58.0 | anything that can be done. This is partly being born of financial necessity. Ministers are arguing that |
| 1:04.7 | it's also the right, the moral thing to do. And yet, it may become the biggest parliamentary rebellion we've seen yet |
| 1:13.4 | in the Stama government. Welcome to the newsagents. The news agents. It's John. It's Lewis. |
| 1:23.6 | And the debate that's raging within the Labour Party, within the Labour government, apparently |
| 1:29.8 | within the Cabinet over what to do about the ballooning welfare budget is really alive |
| 1:37.8 | and kicking. |
| 1:39.3 | And on the one side, you have people saying, it's just not labour to be cutting the benefits of disabled people and the poor and condemning more people to poverty. |
| 1:50.9 | But on the other side, you have the numbers. |
... |
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