Keir Starmer throws Rachel Reeves under the bus with huge admission (2025)

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves (Image: Getty)

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was forced to admit Chancellor Rachel Reeves got it wrong when he was challenged to explain why Cabinet colleagues described vital benefits for disabled people as "pocket money". The Government's own figures show that benefit cuts, which mainly target people with disabilities, willplunge 250,000 people into poverty.

He was told by a Labour backbencher that the Cabinet should not use language that "demonises" people with disabilities. Sir Keir admitted: "You are right." The exchange came after Treasury minister Darren Jones apologised after he compared the payments to pocket money. Chancellor Rachel Reeves then said this was "not the right analogy" - but also compared cutting benefits for disabled people to cutting a child's pocket money. She said: "If you have a 16-year-old and you say, 'you know what I'm not going to give you so much pocket money. I want you to go out to work'.

"And then the [Office for Budget Responsibility] does an impact assessment and says your child is going to be worse off - well, they're going to be worse off if they don't go and get themselves a Saturday job.

"But if they do go and get themselves a Saturday job, they'll probably be better off and they probably might enjoy it as well."

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Speaking to the Commons Liaison Committee, Sir Keir was asked by the chair, Labour MP Meg Hillier, how he could justify this language.

She said: “Do you think that the language the cabinet uses is important and not to demonise people?

“Your chief secretary to the Treasury and the Chancellor both talked about pocket money in relation to benefits. I just wondered if you were clamping down on that sort of language?”

He said: “Of course language matters. I think every member of the cabinet knows that. Occasionally people don’t get it quite right. They usually apologise and quite right too. But I cimpletely take your point.”

He said as a lawyer and politician he was driven by “dignity and respect”.

“You are right and there is always the need to remind people about the language that is used," he added.

Sir Keir Starmer was also told that his decision to cut benefit spending by £5 billion was causing “quite a bit of stress” for claimants.

Sarah Owen, the Labour MP who chairs the Women and Equalities Select Committee, read out excerpts from emails from constituents who will lose disability benefits and who said worrying about the changes was making them feel sick.

Sir Keir said he believed the Government’s plans would “reform the system for the better” but he would always be guided by the principle that “those people who do need support and protection should get support and protection”.