Pat McFadden has said Labour should move away from merely paying health and disability benefits and instead focus more on helping people who can work into jobs. He argued that government should offer more than financial support alone, while stressing that people who will never be able to work must still be protected. The comments signal that welfare reform is likely to be a central part of Labour’s response to mounting concern over rising benefit costs and long-term worklessness.

The government is awaiting final recommendations this autumn from two reviews commissioned by McFadden: Alan Milburn’s inquiry into youth worklessness and Stephen Timms’s review of disability benefits. Timms’s interim report said personal independence payment (Pip), claimed by nearly 4 million people in England and Wales, was “not working”, while Milburn’s first phase said more than 1 million young people are out of work or education and called for a “whole system reset”. McFadden said he was already working across departments, including education and health, to prepare a broader government plan. His intervention also comes after Labour was forced into a partial U-turn on a proposed £5bn welfare cuts package amid party opposition and wider pressure on the public finances.