Diane Abbott rejects Starmer’s proposal to cut disability benefits: ‘It’s not a Labour thing to do’

Watch Diane Abbott rejects Starmer’s proposal to cut disability benefits: ‘It’s not a Labour thing to do’ - The Independent on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Do you have any time for the argument that actually being on welfare is what traps people in poverty?

00:05I think being on welfare is very depressing, it's very humiliating, it sort of brings you down,

00:16but I have no sympathy with the idea that the way to get people out of welfare is to cut the money

00:25they have to live on. I have no sympathy with the idea that it's a lifestyle choice.

00:30What about the national economic picture? The fact is we've got a very sharply rising

00:34welfare bill, we went through some of the statistics earlier, at a time where money

00:38for public finances is tight. So what would you do to get that bill down?

00:43I would introduce a wealth tax. If you brought in a wealth tax of just 2% on people with assets

00:51over £10 million, that would raise £24 billion a year. That's what I would do.