Labour row over benefit cuts as Rachel Reeves ‘plots to reduce spending by £5billion but resist calls to spend it on defence or back-to-work schemes’_Nhy
Senior Labour ministers are embroiled in a row over how to spend £5billion expected to be trimmed from benefit spending next month.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reported to want to cut the figure from state handouts for the disabled in her spring statement in March.
She is aiming to bank the money to reduce the need for tax rises and other spending cuts in government later this year.
But Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is fighting to be allowed to use the money to fund schemes to reduce the UK’s long-term sickness epidemic and get those people back into work, the Times reported.
And at the same time there are increasingly loud demands for the UK to up spending on defence, in the wake of US weakness on Russia and demands Nato members chip in more.
MPs and service chiefs have warned that without hiking it to at least 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) within days, the Prime Minister risks failing to meet his promise that the UK will play a ‘leading’ role in keeping the peace in Ukraine.
Additionally, any attempt to cut benefits are also likely to go down very badly among Labour backbenchers who are already being asked to support the two-child benefit cap.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reported to want to cut the figure from state handouts for the disabled in her spring statement in March.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is fighting to be allowed to use the money to fund schemes to reduce the UK’s long-term sickness epidemic and get those people back into work, the Times reported.
And at the same time there are increasingly loud demands for the UK to up spending on defence, in the wake of US weakness on Russia and demands Nato members chip in more.
Last month it was revealed that higher spending on Universal Credit and disability benefits has contributed to an expected £8.6 billion breach of the welfare cap.
Ms Kendall confirmed the forecast overspend in a written statement to MPs, adding ‘no action’ was taken by the previous Tory administration to prevent it.
A review led by a former John Lewis boss was launched last month to see how Government and businesses can work together to get the disabled and long-term sick into jobs.
The Keep Britain Working Review, headed up by Sir Charlie Mayfield, was announced back in November and will look at what have been branded ‘spiralling levels of inactivity’.
The review is due to be complete by autumn but the Government said a first phase, involving Sir Charlie meeting businesses and health and disability organisations across the country, will be finished by spring – when significant reforms to health and disability benefits are also expected.
Long-term sickness has been a major driver in joblessness since the pandemic and one of Labour’s pre-election promises was to increase the employment rate to 80 per cent from around 75 pert cent, which would mean around two million more people in work.
Voters are becoming increasingly unhappy at how easy it is for people to claim benefits, with a majority saying that the rules should be tightened for the first time.
Some 53 per cent of those polled by YouGov this month said the current system is not strict enough, up from just 41 per cent in 2019.
Over the same time period the proportion of those who say the system is already too strict has fallen 14 points to 25 per cent.
The poll also shows that even Labour voters believe criteria for receiving money need to be made more strict.
But defence voices calling for more cash are also growing louder.
The Army is currently at its smallest size since Napoleonic times.
Former head of the Army Lord Dannatt this week said the UK would struggle to deploy more than 10,000 troops to the frontline in Ukraine at any one time in the event of a peace deal.
Britain today reaffirmed its support for Volodymyr Zelensky after Donald Trump doubled down on his madcap claim that Ukraine’s president was a ‘dictator’.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the UK continues to stand firm alongside the government in Kyiv in the wake of the US president’s astonishing comments.
Trump repeated yesterday’s attack on the US ally at an appearance at a conference in Miami overnight, criticising Zelensky for being upset at being left out of US-Russia peace talks that would carve up his country.
Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative Forum, an organisation run by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Trump repeated debunked claims that the Ukrainian president had low poll ratings.
‘He refuses to have elections, he’s slow,’ Trump said to an audience including Elon Musk.
‘Somebody said, ‘oh no, his polls are good’. Give me a break. Every city is being demolished. They look like a demolition site. Every single one of them… in the meantime, we’re successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia.’
Overnight the Russians did not try to hide their joy, with former president and Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev tweeting: ‘If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud.’
Last night Sir Keir Starmer telephoned president Zelensky to reiterate the UK’s support and likened him to Winston Churchill – who also did not face elections during wartime.
And this morning Ms Nandy told the BBC: ‘It was only last night that he (Starmer spoke to president Zelensky to affirm our support for Ukraine, to make clear there can be no negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine and to be clear that that we support the president who was elected by the people of Ukraine and hasn’t been re-elected because of Russian aggression.’
