Government officials have admitted they made a mistake by making the financial case for cutting benefits as they steel themselves for as many as 50 Labour MPs rebelling against the welfare bill that is being published on Wednesday, writes Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot.
Sources told the Guardian that they now believed the party should have focused on the moral case for reforming the welfare system, arguing that it was letting down millions of people who could be supported into work.
Labour insiders believe they could have kept more MPs on side if they had not highlighted the £5bn savings the Treasury would make as a result of the cuts to health and disability benefits that have so angered the party.
At the time of the spring statement, ministers said there were two justifications for the move: one was to get people off benefits in the long term, but the justification for the immediate cut to incapacity benefit was to make sure the system remained financially sustainable.
Updated
British MPs have voted to decriminalise abortion, marking the biggest step forward in reproductive rights in almost 60 years.
In an amendment to the government’s crime and policing bill, parliament voted to change the criminal laws that govern abortion in England and Wales so that women procuring their own termination outside the legal framework cannot be prosecuted.
The framework of access to an abortion – including the need for two doctors’ signatures, and the time limits at which terminations can be carried out – will remain the same and doctors who act outside the law will still face the threat of prosecution.
But women who terminate their own pregnancy outside the rules, for example after the time limit or by buying pills online, will no longer face arrest or prison. The offence of inducing a miscarriage carries a maximum sentence of life.
The amendment, put forward by the Labour backbencher Tonia Antoniazzi, passed in a free vote of MPs after growing calls for a change in the law as the number of women investigated, arrested or prosecuted has increased in recent years.
