epa12208405 The Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, 01 July 2025. The UK government's flagship Welfare Bill is facing a crunch vote in the House of Commons on 01 July. EPA/ANDY RAIN 
By Andrew MacAskill and Elizabeth Piper
Lawmakers voted 335 to 260 in favour of the reforms to change some rules for people to claim certain disability and sickness benefits.
A year after winning one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history, Starmer has seen his personal approval ratings collapse and been forced into several policy reversals by his increasingly rebellious lawmakers.
"Welfare reform, let's be honest, is never easy, perhaps especially for Labour governments," work and pensions minister Liz Kendall told parliament.
Starmer came into office last year promising his big parliamentary majority would bring an end to the political chaos that defined much of the Conservative Party's 14 years in power. But the revolt over the welfare bill underlines the difficulty he has pushing through unpopular decisions.
The government had initially hoped to save 5 billion pounds ($6.9 billion) a year by 2030 by tightening rules for people to receive disability and sickness benefits.
But after the government conceded to pressure from its lawmakers, it said the new rules would now apply only to future applicants, not to the millions of existing claimants as had been proposed. Analysts estimated the savings would likely be closer to 2 billion pounds.
In the run-up to the vote, ministers and party enforcers known as "whips" had been locked in frantic last-ditch lobbying of undecided members of parliament to try to win their backing.
In a further last-minute concession to rebels during a debate on the changes, the government backed down on implementing tougher eligibility rules for a key benefit payment until a review into the welfare system had been completed.
Rachael Maskell, one of the leading Labour rebels, called the cuts "Dickensian" and said they "belong to a different era and a different party".
Debbie Abrahams, the head of the work and pensions committee, called the plans a "dog's breakfast". Paula Barker, another Labour member of parliament, called the attempt to pass the plans "the most unedifying spectacle that I have ever seen".
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Andrew MacAskill and Alistair Smout, editing by Kate Holton)