Minister defends welfare cuts, saying number receiving Pip rising by 1,000 a day

Pat McFadden said the government would ‘keep talking to people’ about the plans before the Commons vote. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

A senior cabinet minister has said the number of people receiving personal independent payments (Pip) is growing at the equivalent of a city the size of Leicester every year as he defended plans to cut the disability benefit in the face of a growing rebellion among Labour MPs.

Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the government would “keep talking to people” after more than 100 Labour MPs signed up to a Commons bid to stop reforms to Pip.