Downing Street will not suffer a major rebellion when MPs vote next month on cuts to disability benefits, Lisa Nandy has insisted, despite the resignation of a government whip on Thursday.
The culture secretary said Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned from the government saying she could not vote for the controversial measures, was the only frontbench MP she knew of who had been thinking of quitting.
Despite 170 Labour MPs having expressed concerns about the bill, which will make it harder for disabled people to claim personal independence payments (Pips), Nandy said the government was not expecting many other Labour MPs to defy the whip.
Asked on Friday whether she was detecting signs of a major rebellion, Nandy told BBC Breakfast: “I’m not. It would be wrong to say that, when you bring forward big reforms there aren’t concerns and there aren’t dissenting voices, of course there are. But Vicky is the only frontbencher that I’ve had a conversation with about resigning.”
Asked how many backbench Labour MPs had approached her with worries about the plans, she said: “A handful have expressed concerns about the detail, and I’m really confident that we’ve listened and we’ve put forward a package that is absolutely right.”
Foxcroft said on Thursday night she was unable to do her job as a whip because she disagreed with the changes and did not believe that cuts were part of the solution to rising inactivity.
The changes, which are at the centre of a £4.8bn welfare reduction programme, will mean even people who are unable to wash half their body or cook a meal will be denied the payments if they have no other impairments.
In a letter to the prime minister, Foxcroft said the benefits system was “in desperate need of reform” but that her pre-election experience as shadow disability minister had shown her the struggles of disabled people were “even tougher than I had imagined”.
Nandy said the measures were about helping people back to work rather than making immediate savings to the welfare bill, even though the benefit is paid regardless of employment status.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Lots of people want to work and just can’t at the moment, because we’re not helping them to do so. I think we’ve struck the right balance between that and protecting people who will never be able to work.”
Ministers have previously said the Pip cuts are being made to make the system more financially sustainable.
