Proposals to freeze some dis­ability benefits are reportedly being scrapped after concerns from Labour politicians about the scale of planned welfare cuts.

The work and pensions secretary had been under pressure to cut the benefits bill and was expected to cancel an inflation-linked rise to the personal independence payment (PIP).

But it is reported those plans will be ditched by Liz Kendall, despite the Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisting “we do need to get a grip” on the welfare budget, saying the “current system is not working for anyone”.

👉 Click here to follow Electoral Dysfunction 👈

Reforms to the welfare system are expected to be announced this week, ahead of the spring statement on 26 March.

Explainer: Where could welfare cuts be made?

Some MPs fear drastic cuts to support for the most vulnerable, but Ms Kendall may have attempted to partly address concerns from cabinet colleagues and Labour backbenchers about the scale of the reforms.

Almost four million working-age adults in England and Wales currently claim incapacity or disability benefits, up from 2.8 million before the pandemic.

It is being widely reported that instead of scrapping a rise in PIP, savings could be achieved by changing the eligibility criteria along with cutting the top rate of incapacity benefit.

Ms Kendall told The Sunday Times it was an “absolute principle” to protect welfare payments for people unable to work. “For those who absolutely cannot work, this is not about that,” she said.

She said the number of people on PIP is set to more than double this decade, partly driven by younger people.

“Increasingly, there is lots of clear evidence that work is good for mental health and physical health too… social security alone for many people will never be the key to a better life. It should be a springboard and not trapping people,” she told the newspaper.

Ms Kendall has revealed plans to give disabled people the right to try employment without the risk of losing their benefits.

The so-called “right to try guarantee” aims to prevent those people who receive health-related benefits from having their entitlements automatically re-assessed if they enter employment.

The Observer said the details are due to be announced as part of a green paper on Tuesday.

Read more from Sky News:
Welfare cuts could trigger backbench fight
Tough choices the chancellor has to make
Harriet Harman: Stop briefing against DWP

Research published in February by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed the number of 16 to 34 year-olds who are long-term sick with a mental health condition has reached 270,000, increasing by 60,000 (26%) in the last year alone.

Some on benefits ‘taking the mickey’

The figure for all working-age people is 790,000, an increase of 140,000 (22%) over the last year.

Responding at the time to those figures, Ms Kendall said some people on benefits were “taking the mickey”.

“I have no doubt, as there always have been, there are people who shouldn’t be on those benefits who are taking the mickey and that is not good enough – we have to end that,” she told ITV News.

The same survey found 200,000 people receiving health-related or disability benefits were ready to work if the right job or support was available.

Welfare cuts are supported by the Conservatives, albeit the party has accused Labour of “dithering, delay and division” on the issue.

Meanwhile, the SNP argues any planned cuts to disability payments should be “abandoned”, and disability charities have expressed a similar view.

Sky News’ Trevor Phillips will be looking at all the political headlines this week from 8.30am this morning. He will be joined by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, shadow education secretary Laura Trott and former national security adviser Lord Ricketts.

English rugby union’s top teams and the sport’s private equity backer are in advanced talks to fund a multimillion pound loan to Newcastle Falcons to help it meet financial criteria allowing it to play next season.

Sky News has learnt that the nine other Gallagher Premiership Rugby sides, which include current league leaders Bath, Saracens and Harlequins, and CVC Capital Partners are drawing up plans for a loan worth about £4m to the north-east club.

The Falcons, who are propping up the Premiership table with just two wins from 11 matches, are said to need the additional funding in order to meet the tests applied by the league’s recently created Financial Monitoring Panel.

Newcastle’s plight comes two years after Worcester, Wasps and London Irish all went out of business, leaving the Premiership with just ten teams.

A further loan, which could be finalised within weeks, would require approval by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), according to insiders.

The exact size of the loan has yet to be determined but one source said it could be worth between £4m and £5m.

Premiership clubs are said to be keen to ensure that any new funding they provide ranks on at least equal terms to emergency loans provided to the sport by the government during the pandemic.

In 2021, the then culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, signed off an £88m support package to the top flight of English rugby to ensure the league’s survival.

Much of that funding has yet to be repaid.

CVC, which bought into Premiership Rugby in 2019, owns a 27% stake in the league.

Under its stewardship, broadcast audiences and attendances have turned a corner, with total TV audiences up 40% this year – partly as a result of an increase in the number of games being shown.

Sponsorship revenues are said to have nearly doubled since CVC’s initial investment, with fan interest among the crucial 18-34 age demographic rising by 30% during the last year, according to insiders.

The Newcastle loan talks come amid negotiations over a new broadcast rights deal for Premiership Rugby, with sources suggesting this weekend that TNT Sports, the incumbent rights-holder, was expected to agree to a renewal at a premium to the current sum in the coming weeks.

One insider said the sport’s improving commercial backdrop meant it made sense for Newcastle’s nine fellow Premiership clubs and CVC to support the bottom side financially.

It emerged last November that Semore Kurdi, who has backed Newcastle Falcons for more than a decade, had put the club up for sale.

Rugby executives said this weekend that a number of family offices were among the parties which had expressed an interest in buying the Falcons.

It was unclear, however, whether any form of deal was imminent.

A takeover would include the club’s 30-acre Kingston Park stadium site.

The Falcons have been lossmaking for some time, despite Mr Kurdi’s moves to cut costs, with Newcastle Falcons spending millions of pounds less on wages than it is permitted to under the sport’s salary cap.

Of the clubs which collapsed, London Irish has been acquired by a consortium fronted by Eddie Jordan, the former Formula One team-owner, while Wasps said in November that it had secured land in the south-wast to build a new stadium as part of its revival plans.

Worcester Warriors said this month it had submitted an application to the Rugby Football Union to enable it to compete again from next season.

CVC, Newcastle Falcons and the DCMS all declined to comment.

The last thing I was expecting to discover on the doorstep of a Falkirk house was a 70-year-old woman crying at the near 16% council tax rise she and tens of thousands of others face next month.

Falkirk is bracing for the UK’s biggest hike in bills as the local authority faces a crisis of costs.

One councillor responsible for the increases has called in the police after receiving beheading taunts and threats of violence.

The area is facing its most difficult period in its 30-year history, while residents feel fragile and fobbed off.

Councils oversee the running of schools and social care, maintaining roads and collecting bins. They take charge of housing, swimming pools and libraries. The list is endless.

But Britain’s local authorities are cash-strapped and there are questions about how they should be funded in the long term.

Sky News went inside one Falkirk street to get a snapshot of the mood – and it was bleak.

We went door to door on Wilson Road and first stumbled across 70-year-old Catherine Mochar.

The unpaid carer was seemingly unaware of the upcoming changes to her bill and became visibly upset at the prospect of scraping together more cash in her already extremely stretched household budget.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said as her voice cracked.

Ms Mochar looks after her elderly sister and says her care package was revoked as the pensioner was deemed suitable to deal with the situation herself.

She says she is not entitled to a council tax exemption and worries about finding an extra 15.6%.

She said: “I am a pensioner. I don’t know where I am going to get it [the money] from. It is quite scary the thought of it.”

Round the corner from Catherine’s house, we meet a family who feel like they are paying more and getting less.

Claire Hamilton and William Reid have a three-year-old son and regularly use the local foodbank to make ends meet.

“It is going to become a choice between heating the house or paying council tax. Or getting food in and paying the council tax,” Claire says.

“It is quite a jump for not a lot in return. The collections on the bins keep getting longer and longer.”

She continues: “You want to do the best by your child and obviously they are not aware of all these stresses going on in the background.”

Council tax differs across UK

A drop in the frequency of bin collections is a moan people across the UK share and feeds into the narrative surrounding local services.

Council tax rates have been frozen or capped for much of the last two decades in Scotland, but this year the Scottish government has granted local leaders the power to go their own way.

In England, a principle exists which usually prevents more than a 5% increase to council tax without a referendum, mostly to protect taxpayers from excessive increases.

It is thought the average increase in England will not surpass last year’s total of 5.1%. There are some exemptions including Bradford which is hiking costs by 10%.

But Falkirk surpasses everyone and is the UK’s most extreme case.

Independent councillor Laura Murtagh initiated the idea of the 15.6% increase which was eventually voted through by most of her colleagues.

Councillor behind 15.6% rise calls in police

She stresses anything less than the increase she proposed would have resulted in services, including education provision, being slashed.

But it has come at a personal cost.

Ms Murtagh, who stresses she does not want to incite a further pile-on, tells Sky News she has contacted police after threats of violence and taunts online depicting beheadings.

She said: “It has made me not want to go out. It has made me not want to go to events.

“I am having a conversation with the police. They are nasty threats. There are people who have said you could do with a kicking or you could do with more than that.

“People are sharing memes where they are doing beheading memes or whatever.”

Read more from Sky News:
Queen sent letter of support to rape survivor Gisele Pelicot
Why is NHS England being abolished – and what is it?

Local leaders say their rates have been much lower than their neighbours for many years which is unsustainable as demand for services soars.

The leader of Falkirk Council, Cecil Meiklejohn, was asked by Sky News if she could justify the 15.6% rise.

She said: “It is quite a hike. We always knew council tax needed to go up.

“We know that we have to continue to deliver good quality services, and we can’t do that without increasing our revenue and the only way we have the opportunity to do that locally is by increasing council tax.”

She concluded: “We will work with people who are going to be impacted by the increase.”