Labour leader explains refusal to sign letter to Westminster

Dudley Council’s Labour leader had defended his decision not to join other leaders in signing a letter to Westminster slamming welfare cuts.

At a meeting on July 14, the authority voted to accept a Notice of Motion to contact Liz Kendall MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, about welfare reforms.

The letter says millions of people suffered ‘anxiety and upset’ due to changes in government policy forced by Labour MPs, which Lib Dem councillor Andrew Tromans described as ‘screeching u-turns’.

Dudley’s Conservative leader, Cllr Patrick Harley plus Black Country Party leader, Cllr Pete Lowe, and Cllr Ryan Priest, leader of the Liberal Democrats, all signed but Labour’s Cllr Adam Aston declined.

Cllr Aston said: “I would have been happy to sign a letter calling for disability charities to be involved in the co-design and co-production of any changes to welfare benefits so that people with disabilities have a proper voice (as have many Labour MPs) but the letter in its current form is just a copy of the motion and doesn’t actually make any specific requests from the DWP.”

The Notice of Motion was put forward by Cllr Tromans and attacks the Labour government for retaining the two-child benefit cap, planning to save £5bn in support for disabled people and ‘stripping the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners’.

The letter details the council’s commitment to review the impact of changes to its Welfare Rights Team approved in the authority’s 2025/26 budget.

The council also committed to group leaders writing to the government to urge it to take welfare changes ‘back to the drawing board’.

Cllr Aston said: “It was disappointing that other parties felt unable to support our Labour amendment which would have made the motion more relevant and therefore attracted cross-party support.

“Dudley folk shouldn’t forget that it was the Conservatives with the support of the Liberal Democrats who have proposed to abolish the council’s Welfare Rights Team later this year, a team who identify unclaimed benefits for the most vulnerable members of our community.”