Labour minister apologises for comparing disability benefit cuts to children’s pocket money

Labour minister apologies for comparing disability benefit cuts to children's pocket Peston/ ITV

Transcript

00:00You, and indeed the Chancellor also, have made an analogy between these vulnerable people who

00:06depend on the support for their livelihoods and your own children and pocket money and you know

00:12it just felt pretty tactless to say this was the equivalent of taking a bit of pocket money away

00:17from your children who might get a Saturday job. Do you want to sort of basically address

00:22those people who feel a bit hurt by that? Yeah I'm sorry about it, it was tactless and it wasn't

00:26well considered. What I was trying to explain in simple terms was what the impact assessment

00:31considers and what it doesn't consider. The impact assessment considers how much money you lose by

00:35coming off of the social security system but it doesn't consider how much money you gain by being

00:39back in work. I should have used a different set of words to explain it. I recognise that wasn't

00:43good enough and I apologise if I've offended people.