Liz Kendall has insisted she will press ahead with measures to cut the welfare bill amid Labour pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to change course over the squeeze on benefits and pensioners’ winter fuel payments.

Work and Pensions Secretary Ms Kendall said she would listen to concerns about her plans to save around £5 billion-a-year but said the system needed to change.

The plans, including tightening eligibility for the personal independence payment (PIP) benefit, have faced stiff resistance within Labour.

Some 100 Labour MPs – more than a quarter of the party’s parliamentary numbers – are reported to have signed a letter urging ministers to scale back welfare cuts under consideration while charities have also warned about the impact the measures will have.

Sir Keir and Chancellor Rachel Reeves were already battling a backlash over the means-testing of pensioners’ winter fuel payments, an issue which has been blamed for contributing to Labour’s poor performance in May’s local elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.

Restricting Pip would slash benefits for about 800,000 people, while the sickness-related element of universal credit is also set to be cut.

In a speech in London, Ms Kendall said: “We are the only economy in the G7 whose employment rate still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels and spending on sickness and disability benefits in most other comparable countries is either stable or falling since the pandemic, yet ours continues to inexorably rise.

“There is nothing Labour about accepting the cost of this economic – but above all, social – crisis,  paid for in people’s life chances and living standards.”

She acknowledged that “welfare reform is never easy and it is rarely popular, perhaps especially for Labour governments”.

But she said: “No responsible Labour government can resile from taking decisions because they are too difficult because this is not good enough for the people we came into politics to serve.”