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Sir Keir Starmer will attempt to rally his MPs around plans to make cuts to the welfare system, amid fears of a growing rebellion.
The Treasury is expected to make significant welfare cuts ahead of the Spring Statement at the end of this month in order to make up for tightening fiscal headroom.
Rachel Reeves, who will deliver her statement on March 26, is expected to make a raft of public spending savings through curbing the cost of welfare and a drive for greater efficiency across Whitehall.
But Labour MP Rachael Maskell said she had detected “deep, deep concern” from colleagues in the Commons, sparking fears of a rift between the government and the back benches.
Meanwhile, 16 major charities – including the Trussell Trust, Scope, and Mind – have penned a letter to the government warning that benefit cuts would have a “catastrophic impact on disabled people up and down the country”.
They claimed that as many as 700,000 more disabled households could be pushed into poverty as a result of the plans.
It comes against a backdrop of growing concern among Labour backbenchers over the government’s direction, following a cut to the winter fuel allowance, the slashing of international aid and a failure to scrap the two child benefit cap.
The government is now being accused of “pushing disabled people into poverty”.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Maskell said that she has had a “flurry of emails” from people who are “deeply concerned” about the prospect of changes to the welfare system.
“We recognise the economic circumstances that we’re in and the hand that we were given and of course it is right that the chancellor has oversight over all those budgets but not at the expense of pushing disabled people into poverty”, she added.
“There’s got to be a carrot approach not a stick approach. We’ve got to make the right interventions and that doesn’t start with the stick.”
The MP for York Central said that she had “picked up […] deep deep concern” from colleagues and called for a “compassionate system and not taking just draconian cuts”.
Her comments come ahead of the weekly meeting of Labour MPs on Monday evening, where Sir Keir will attempt to defend the plans to his party and see off any potential rebellion.
According to The Telegraph, as many as 80 backbenchers could rebel over the issue.
Meanwhile, Fire Brigades Union general secretary Steve Wright warned Ms Reeves not to adopt Tory welfare benefit cuts, urging her not to become the “austerity chancellor”.
“Cutting billions of pounds from Welfare would be a return to the austerity of George Osborne and the Tories. It would be an outrageous attack on the poorest and most vulnerable”, he told The Independent.
“Many workers who are in receipt of income support and other benefits would suffer from any cutbacks.
“Food bank use and ‘in work’ poverty remain widespread after nearly 15 years of Tory austerity.
“To make further cuts to the already derisory levels of welfare support would be to declare war on poverty-stricken families.”
Mr Wright added: “Hard pressed families must not be made to pay the price of nearly a decade-and-a-half of Tory mismanagement of the economy.
“The chancellor must use her Spring statement to tax the rich to properly fund public services and increase pay .
“Rachel Reeves must not become Labour’s ‘austerity chancellor’. The Fire Brigades Union will fiercely resist any cuts announced in the Spring Statement.”
However, 36 MPs rowed in behind the government on Monday, insisting there is a “moral duty” to tackle the spiralling welfare bill.
“Research clearly shows that many economically inactive people want to work, if given the right support.
“Yet the current system often acts as a barrier against finding work, making it riskier for people with health conditions to look for work”, MPs in the newly formed Get Britain Working group wrote in a letter to the work and pensions secretary.
It comes after justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said there is a “moral case” for cutting the welfare bill.
“We know that there are many people who are currently receiving state support for being out of work who want to be in work. We know that we have too many of our young people currently out of work, not in education, employment or training”, she told the BBC.
“There is a moral case here for making sure that people who can work are able to work and there’s a practical point here as well, because our current situation is unsustainable.”
Ministers have made clear in recent weeks that there will be an overhaul given the “unsustainable rise in welfare spending”.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has already told Cabinet colleagues that the current system is “holding back the economy” and “bad for people’s wellbeing and health”.
Meanwhile, Downing Street on Monday said our “broken social security system is holding our people and our country back”.
“We’ve got 3 million people out of work for health reasons, one in eight young people not currently in work, education or training, and we’ve got the highest level of working age inactivity due to ill health in western Europe”, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.
“The fact is that the current system is trapping millions of people out of work”, the spokesperson added.
They also denied that changes to the welfare system would lack compassion, saying: “We want to support people who can work to do so. All the evidence suggests that being in work is good for people, not just from a financial job security perspective, but also from a from a health perspective.
“Clearly, we also need to have a system that supports people who cannot work, but you can only continue having a system that supports people who cannot work if it is a sustainable system.”
The Department for Work and Pensions has been contacted for comment.
