Labour finds itself in a muddle over welfare reforms - Jayne Dowle

His concession means that changes to the personal independence payment (PIP), a benefit that helps disabled people with the extra living costs and support their condition demands, will be restricted to new claimants, protecting up to 370,000 existing recipients, many of whom have been vociferous in their concerns.

Responding to the protests is one thing, but what then of the genuine new cases of disabled people who will have to score a dizzying number of points relating to their daily living activities? Starmer has hung these people out to dry in the name of saving his own skin.

It's clear that the compromise is a pragmatic political move which will appease the rebels – for now – amongst whom are at least 15 Yorkshire MPs, including former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh. But there are 403 Labour MPs in the House of Commons. More than a quarter of them took the firmest possible stance against their leadership and the whips. They have done it once and they may do it again, especially now they know that strong-arm tactics work.

At first sight it is shameful that, under a Labour government, disabled people should even be the target of any punitive measure at all. Genuinely disabled people that is. The key issue is that the axe proposed by Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall would have fallen without addressing the corrosive rot in society, the voluntary opting out of so many actually healthy people who have decided that the working life is not for them.

At the heart of every PIP claim is a person; whether they are claiming legitimately or not is the issue.

Every day I see disabled people who would be directly affected by losing financial support. It is cruel beyond measure to take the same broad brush to an individual who has had a leg amputated and one who can’t walk more than a few yards for the benefit for the PIP assessment, then gets caught on social media limbo-dancing at a barbeque. And this does happen. Yet when do we ever hear a politician actually address this uncomfortable truth?

It is reported that a quarter of the population of Birmingham now subsists on benefits; in Manchester and Glasgow, the figure is one in five. The fastest growing group living ‘on the sick’ are those aged 25 to 34, up 69 per cent in five years, since the Covid pandemic. This should strike fear into any government, not just because of the impact on future tax receipts, but the destructive effect on society.

As a priority, this Labour government must tackle the poverty of aspiration that has set in across parts of the country, including our region. The sad thing is, a year into their tenure, it would probably be too late to convince the public it means it.

Still, instead of tinkering so dangerously around the edges, Labour must seize the initiative. It is no longer good enough to blame the long years of Conservative rule which left benefits assessment lingering in a state of neglect.

Starmer bangs on a lot about ‘getting people back to work’, but refuses to accept that many people simply do not want to work when there is a cash-paying alternative on offer.

He should take a walk through any town or city on a weekday afternoon. He’d see the moving cases of genuinely disabled people, reliant on carers to go shopping. And he’d see the others; the ones fraudulently claiming benefits when they should be earning a living.

Welfare reform does not require legislation, so his government must set an example, roll up their sleeves and tackle the process by which people apply for all benefits.

This could be achieved by a pragmatic refresh of qualification. Too much is done online. It’s easy to game the system; there are even questionable individuals on social media offering advice.

Re-introducing a rigorous occupational health-style assessment requiring incorruptible medical evidence, instead of point-scoring through a series of tick-boxes on a form, would be a start.