ANDY BURNHAM has called on MPs to vote against the entire welfare cuts Bill this week as he criticised the government’s half-hearted U-turn.

The Greater Manchester mayor spoke at a Disability Cuts: The Fight Back debate at Glastonbury festival’s Left Field stage today.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was forced to announce a U-turn on planned welfare cuts in the face of a major rebellion from more than 120 Labour MPs.

Under the changes, those already receiving personal independence payments (Pip) will keep receiving them.

But the cuts will still apply to future Pip claimants, raising fears of a two-tier system.

Mr Burnham argued that the legislation should never have been on the table in the first place.

He said: “I still hope that MPs will vote against the whole Bill when it comes before Parliament.

“It simply can’t be justified to make disabled people your target. It can’t be justified in any shape or form.

“And certainly not when you haven’t put out an impact assessment … it just has felt wrong to me from the start.”

He added that here is a way of saving £5 billion from the benefits system.

“It’s actually by building more council and social homes,” he said.

“If you build 150,000 council and social homes you could save £5 billion from the benefits system.

“That would be a more unifying proposal that everybody could get behind.

“But to go straight to targeting disabled people is simply wrong and I will never, ever support what’s currently being proposed.”

The debate came ahead of the second reading and vote on the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill on Tuesday.