Last week, Liz Kendall was sacked as secretary of state for work and pensions, and was replaced by Pat McFadden. But will a cabinet enforcer who talks tough on welfare, but has a strong liking for freebies and handouts for himself, be worse news than his predecessor for claimants?
Man of the shadows
Back in 2023, when he was second in command of the shadow treasury, the Guardian described Pat McFadden as “the most powerful Labour politician most people have never heard of”.
McFadden worked with Tony Blair on Labour’s landslide election victory and, along with Morgan McSweeney, was behind the current Labour government’s election campaign.
He has held a number of cabinet posts and one MP told the Guardian ““He may be softly spoken, but he’s as hard as they come. He’s been absolutely ruthlessly focused on fiscal discipline, but where’s the hope? Where’s the inspiration?”
And whilst McFadden may be focused on governmental fiscal discipline, he seems to give himself rather more leeway.
Handouts
In July 2012, just before MPs expenses rules were changed to stop them claiming mortgage interest, McFadden moved out of his own home in his constituency and rented the house next door.
He was able to claim the £625 rent he paid as allowable expenses whilst installing a tenant into the home he owned and charging them £700 a month rent to cover the mortgage.
In this way he was able to claim £40,000 in expenses over 5 years.
You can see McFadden being grilled on TV about this.
The Telegraph also reported that back in 2005, when McFadden bought the house he later rented out, he claimed amongst other things, £5,581 in legal fees, stamp duty and solicitors fees and £4,807.41 on new furniture.
This included, according to the Telgraph “a £995 large sofa, a £995 oak veneer bed frame, £250 oak veneer bedside chest and £395 walnut veneer dining table from Heal's, and £356 for four brown leather dining room chairs from Habitat.”
There was also a £584 mattress to go with the £995 bed frame.
This is the same man who told Sky News last September “It’s really important that if money is spent on benefits, it goes to those who are genuinely in need of it, and where there’s fraud in the system that we try to root that out.”
Freebies
McFadden is not shy about taking advantage of his position to obtain gifts, either.
Between March and July 2024, McFadden received presents to the value of £5,620. That’s more than most claimants get in benefits:
March 2024, the Premier League gifted him for tickets to the Brit Awards worth £3,000
April 2024, Wolverhampton Wanderers gifted him a directors box seat worth £372
May 2024, the Ivors Academy gifted him tickets to the Ivor Novello awards worth £1,920
July 2024, Sony Music gifted him tickets for Bruce Springsteen worth £328
It seems that, for some people, work doesn't just bring dignity. It also brings large amounts of unearned freebies.
Benefits cuts
McFadden, as a government minister, was very supportive of Labour’s plans to drastically cut benefits.
In March 2025 he told Times Radio, “If you take mental health and depression and anxiety that used to be two and a half thousand claims a month, it's now eight thousand claims a month.”
“So I think that we have to look at the types of conditions, ask ourselves the question whether these conditions are always permanent and ask ourselves the question of whether people who have these conditions are better off in work or out of work.
“I want them to be given support but not financial support. The question I put is whether that's a permanent condition that means you should never work and we don't believe that to be the case.”
In June, he told the Today programme “A thousand people a day go on to PIP – that’s a city the size of, for example, Leicester – year after year after year.
“Welfare reform is not an easy issue, and to govern is sometimes to have to grasp issues that aren’t easy.”
You can also watch McFadden defending planned PIP cuts on Good Morning Britain (at 6mins 25secs) in June 2025. When it is put to McFadden that the government’s own assessment says that because of PIP cuts a quarter of a million people could fall into poverty, including 50,000 children, and he is asked how he feels about this, he heartlessly replies:
“Well, it all depends on how people respond to changes . . .”
and goes on to talk about helping people into work. McFadden never explains how 50,000 children can earn enough to escape poverty, let alone all those adults who are unable to work.
Coldness and hypocrisy
If Labour were looking for a man who could occupy the moral high ground when it comes to “handouts”, they would undoubtedly have avoided McFadden like the plague.
If, on the other hand they were looking for an experienced and ruthless political operator likely to strike fear into the hearts of MPs intent on challenging the government’s welfare plans, then McFadden fits the bill in a way that Kendall never could.
But, there is a real possibility that Labour MPs are fed-up with being forced to defend legislation they don’t believe in and which is extremely unpopular with a large chunk of their own voters.
So it may be that what is needed to get benefits cuts enacted is not toughness but a veneer of feigned compassion and empathy, aimed at persuading MPs that cuts are in their constituents’ and the country’s best interest.
In which case the duo of McFadden and Timms, with their combined air of coldness and hypocrisy, may yet prove to be a disaster for Labour’s welfare plans.
