Prime minister defends changes to welfare system but Labour MPs struggle to digest plans for disability payments

The rising benefits bill is “devastating for public finances” and has “wreaked a terrible human cost”, Keir Starmer has said as he defended the government’s drastic changes to the welfare system.

Writing in the Times, the prime minister said “the facts are shocking”, noting one in eight young people are not in education, employment or training and 2.8 million working age people are out of work because of long-term sickness.