Patrick Hurley MP interview: Welfare system needs ‘fundamental reform’

Labour members have been gathering in Liverpool this week for the party’s annual conference. The mood this year has been incredibly positive and optimistic – a stark contrast to the experience last year.

The reason for that optimism? Andy Burnham. MPs and rank and file members alike are buoyed by the impact his ascent to Number 10 has had on the opinion polls, and by the more upbeat rhetoric he’s been deploying.

But that optimism isn’t unconditional. Among the Parliamentary Labour Party, there’s a clear sense that Burnham has begun to turn the party’s fortunes around. But there’s also a sense that they are anxious that he delivers in government in such a way so as to keep Labour’s popularity up.

As with other MPs, that’s the case for Patrick Hurley – the Labour MP for Southport.

At Labour’s conference, Hurley told LFF: “Conference has been great – really upbeat, positive. Last year, 2025, we were all feeling – backbench MPs – a little bit under the cosh, a little bit like things weren’t going to plan. I think this year, we’ve obviously got a new prime minister, new team at the top. We’ve got a new sense of hope, new sense of optimism.”

But like his colleagues in parliament, Hurley thinks Burnham needs to move fast to deliver the change the Labour Party promised in its 2024 general election manifesto. “We’ve got two and a half years left, and in that two and a half years, we really need to put our shoulders to the wheel”, he said.

Later, he added: “He really does need to make sure that the promise of change in 2024 is implement and is implemented at speed. We can’t afford to do what the previous prime minister was doing and set up task force and set up commissions to investigate whether or not something might be a good idea in due course, some way down the tracks in years to come. We need action. We need action now.

“There is a cost to delay, and that cost might be born in the voting intentions of the public in the next general election. The last thing we want to see is the Labour government losing its majority because we haven’t implemented our promises to the electorate. We need to absolutely crack on and at speed and at pace”.

One of the big opportunities the government has to deliver that change is just around the corner. On 28 October, the chancellor John Healey will deliver his first budget as chancellor.

On the budget, Hurley said that “there’s no big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”, that “times are tight” and there are “fiscal constraints”. Nevertheless, he still wants to see Healey make some changes “incentivise economic growth”.

For Hurley, that includes changes to the tax system. He told LFF: “I want to see that there’s changes to the personal tax code – on income tax, on national insurance. There’s got to be changes to the taper on the thresholds, the impact of student loan repayments, the free childcare offer.”

He went on to say that at present there are elements of the tax system which have had a “deleterious drag effect on the economy”.

While we haven’t heard much from the government on any plans to make changes like this, we have heard a fair amount about welfare reform. Both Healey and the work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden used their conference speeches to make the case for changing the system.

What does Hurley make of this? “I’m really positive about the sort of things that are being talked about on welfare reform”, he told LFF.

He later added: “The previous prime minister tried welfare reform in the early summer of 2025, but it wasn’t fundamental welfare reform. It was just keeping the existing system in place but making it less generous. It’s not the sort of welfare reform that I was happy to get behind and I argued against it at the time.

“What we actually need to see is fundamental reform that puts people at the centre of the changes, incentivises them getting int work, incentivises them having this kind of dynamic approach to their lives so they’re not being left on the shelf.”

Hurley concluded by saying: “We need to put our shoulder to the wheel and make sure that the current generation who are looking for work – they’re talented, industrious young people – that we give them the work and training opportunities that they need to make the most out of their lives and get the most of the potential that they’ve got. The last thing I want to see is they waste their lives like previous generations did. That’s not the Labour way.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: UK Parliament – Creative Commons