Labour’s shock benefit cuts: Who loses out?

Thousands could see benefits cut as Labour pushes welfare reforms in an attempt to get millions back to work.

Transcript

00:00The government don't have to do anything in particular and quite clearly if they

00:06sort of didn't believe that they wanted to make these cuts they wouldn't have to

00:09and clearly you can sort of cut budgets elsewhere. The fact is though the sort of

00:13people on sort of disability it's, there is a lot, many stories we sort of

00:19see are people who are somehow sort of abused in the system so that that's kind

00:22of a narrative and you know taking money away from sort of those who sort of are

00:28unfit to work for whatever reason and of course there's a whole spectrum of

00:32sort of things that sort of cause people to be unable to work it seems pretty

00:36reprehensible. It's the sort of thing that let's face it was happening 12

00:39months ago under the Conservative Party, the Labour Party will be sort of

00:43really sort of castigating for this but this is a Labour Party and the fact this

00:47money is going to have to be used elsewhere for some defence which dare I

00:50say in the sort of extremists may result in some young men and indeed

00:54women going to sort of fight in sort of a war and being sort of maimed and

00:58eventually end up on disability benefits like the sort of people we're talking

01:03about you know that that's the logical consequence.

01:05Well the government argues that reform is needed to address a surge in benefit

01:11claims since the COVID-19 pandemic but charities have warned that cutting

01:16support for disabled people could increase hardship and lead to higher

01:20costs in the long run. A dozen organisations including Citizens Advice,

01:26Disability Rights UK and others have written to Chancellor Rachel Reeves

01:31arguing there is little evidence to suggest cutting benefits increases

01:36employment outcomes. But the fact is that sort of deprivation is is very high and

01:42of course when you've got sort of young people particularly young males you're

01:46employed crime goes up. These are also areas where of course it's often

01:50public housing where of course to sort of the there are issues to do with that

01:53and people who live in poor quality housing with sort of vastly reduced

01:57prospects you know there is a sort of an issue of sort of health so you get into

02:01this this this vortex and it's this this problem so there's such people down but

02:05of course undoubtedly the welfare bill overall it's a sort of major part of the

02:10expenditure by the government so there are so very good rationale or is a good

02:15rationale for sort of trying to reform it and trying to sort of inculcate

02:18people back into work but hey the sort of the barriers to so doing even for

02:22able-bodied people are sort of are immense at the moment so you know I do

02:25feel sort of for people who are going to sort of to be impacted by this.