Starmer leaves welfare reform out of King’s Speech despite ballooning bill

Pieter SnepvangersWed, May 13, 2026 at 10:41 AM UTC

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Sir Keir

Sir Keir Starmer has left welfare reform out of the King’s Speech, despite 830,000 more people claiming Universal Credit in the past year.

Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions showed claimants had reached a record high under Labour. There were 8.3 million people claiming Universal Credit in February, up from 7.5 million 12 months earlier.

Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said the Government’s failure to tackle welfare reform in this parliamentary session showed that Sir Keir was “terrified of his own MPs”.

He said: “Labour’s benefits bonanza is spiralling and Starmer is too weak to act. Terrified of his own MPs, Starmer talks tough but bottles every real welfare reform.

“Labour are completely incapable of gripping the welfare bill and Britain cannot afford his weakness any longer.”

Of the more than eight million people now claiming benefits, 5.2 million are unemployed, equivalent to 62 per cent of all claimants. A year earlier, the number of claimants who did not work was 56 per cent.

Sir Mel said the figures made a mockery of Labour’s promise to “get Britain working”.

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The Government has pledged to raise the employment rate to 80 per cent by tackling the 2.8m working-age people who are out of work because of long-term sickness.

However, attempts by ministers to cut the disability benefits bill by £5bn last summer ended in a humiliating climbdown following a back-bench revolt.

Sir Keir, who faced down calls to quit on Tuesday, is setting out the Government’s planned legislative programme in the monarch’s address to the Lords and MPs on Wednesday.

So great was the chaos in Westminster on Tuesday that Palace aides were understood to have asked government officials whether the speech was going ahead.

The King’s Speech focuses on immigration, green energy and the reform of special educational needs schools.

There will also be legislation to strip peerages from disgraced members of the House of Lords, in response to the Lord Mandelson scandal.

Sir Keir appointed Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the US despite his known friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted paedophile. Lord Mandelson was sacked last September.

The Telegraph has approached the Department for Work and Pensions for comment.

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Source: “AOL Breaking”