Government whip Vicky Foxcroft quits over disability benefit cuts

Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has resigned as a whip over the government’s plans to cut disability benefits.

In a letter to the prime minister, Foxcroft said she understood the need to address “the ever-increasing welfare bill” but that cuts to personal independence payments and universal credit should “not be part of the solution”.

She had “wrestled with whether I should resign or remain in the government and fight for changes from within. Sadly it now seems that we are not going to get the changes I desperately wanted to see”.

Responding to her letter, a government spokesman said it was fixing a “broken welfare system” that was failing the sick and vulnerable.

“Our principled reforms will ensure those who can work should, that those who want to work are properly supported, and that those…