WATCH: Mel Stride hits back at claims Tories are 'irrelevant' - 'We are opposition!' - video Dailymotion

GB News

Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride firmly rejected suggestions that the Conservative Party has become "irrelevant" during a tense exchange on GB News about Rachel Reeves' Spending Review.The heated moment came when GB News host Stephen Dixon put to Stride that experts were saying the Spending Review was designed to counter Reform UK's threat, with the Tories now being "an irrelevance".The Shadow Chancellor's emphatic denial came as he appeared on The Peoples Channel to discuss the Government's spending plans, which included a £39 billion boost for affordable housing and £15.6 billion for public transport projects.He told GB News: "We're the official opposition. We were in there. I was the person up at the despatch box, holding Rachel Reeves to account yesterday."READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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00:00A lot of experts are saying this morning that this whole spending review was designed to

00:07take on the threat of reform UK, the threat that they are posing to the government. Tories

00:14seem to be an irrelevance to her. Sorry, Tories seem to be... I missed the end of the question,

00:21Stephen. An irrelevance? An irrelevance. No, not at all. We are in the official opposition,

00:29we are in there. I was the person up at the dispatch box holding Rachel Reeves to

00:33account yesterday. Amongst other recent things, of course, we have forced a U-turn

00:38on the winter fuel payment means testing that the government brought in. But

00:42overall, with this spending review, the question that needs to be asked is where

00:47is the money coming from? It is all very well to say you are spending all this

00:51cash left, right and centre. The answer is it is coming by way of far higher

00:55taxes, particularly on businesses, and that is destroying growth. It has also

00:59come by way of huge levels of additional borrowing, which has been inflationary,

01:05which has been interest rates have been higher for longer, our national debt

01:08growing, and the servicing costs of that debt because of the higher interest

01:12rates now running at £100 billion per year. That is twice what we spend on

01:17defence. And that is leaving us overall in a very fragile position with a lot of

01:22challenges ahead. And a lot of people worried now that we are going to be looking at

01:26potentially very significant further tax rises in the autumn. Can I ask your

01:31reaction to the GDP figures out this morning from April of this year. The economy

01:36shrunk by 0.3%. Now, I am sure we are talking to Rachel Reeves just after 9

01:40o'clock this morning. I am sure she is going to say that in part this is down to

01:44the White House, to Liberation Day, to Donald Trump's tariffs and the shock that

01:48came from that. Do you think this is down to the White House or is this down to

01:51Downing Street? Well, look, things internationally, of course, have an

01:57impact. But that is more the reason or all the more reason why you build a

02:02strong economy. And that 0.3% shrinkage in GDP is pretty shocking, but it is not

02:08entirely surprising. In terms of the fragility of our economy, of course, what

02:13the Chancellor does is builds in some fiscal headroom against her fiscal targets. Now, the

02:20headroom that she had at the time of the autumn budget last year, all of that

02:25disappeared and more because of her mismanagement of the economy. She rebuilt it in the spring

02:30statement, but most economists are saying that that headroom would have evaporated again come the

02:35autumn. So, you know, she has got big challenges, not just tariffs, maybe pressure to spend more on

02:41defence in the near future. The winter fuel payment U-turn has not been funded. That is

02:46over £1 billion. It is quite possible that the bond markets may react badly to all of this, which

02:52would put our borrowing costs up, which could have a very detrimental impact on the economy. But all of

02:57that means that in that kind of world, you have to build a strong economy with a good amount of fiscal

03:03headroom that you can maintain. And she has failed to do that and has already given us the evidence that she

03:09can't do that because she has blown it all in the past. There is an argument to say, though,

03:14isn't there, that if you want to have a growing economy, which they have told us from day one, that is

03:20what they want to do, lay the foundations they said in the first year, now they are on phase two,

03:26according to the Prime Minister, and an increase in capital spending is a way to do that, isn't it?

03:32Well, provided you can afford to do it, Stephen. But if you are engaged in ruinous levels of taxation,

03:41borrowing and spending, then you just end up with a very, very fragile economy in a rather dangerous

03:47situation. Look, what the government should have done when they came in is not load up taxes on

03:53businesses and destroy job creation and growth. They shouldn't have talked down the economy in the way

03:58that they did that extinguished the animal spirits. They should have focused far more on productivity.

04:04Do you remember they gave 14% to train drivers, 22% to junior doctors, not one requirement for any

04:10productivity gains for those actual increases. And they should have gripped the welfare budget.

04:16Now, we had made huge progress when we were in office. We saved £5 billion from the welfare budget,

04:23and that was scored by the Office of Budget Responsibility, and that would have seen 450,000

04:29fewer people going on to long-term sickness benefits. One of the first things this government

04:33did was to scrap that. They have got no plans for getting on top of the welfare bill. Now, if you do

04:38those things, don't be surprised if we are running out of money, which is what we are seeing, I'm afraid,

04:43with the economy at the moment. The government has agreed a post-Brexit deal over Gibraltar. What do you

04:49make of that deal? So we need to look at it in closer detail. What is absolutely vital is that

04:58sovereignty is not put in question when it comes to Gibraltar. We are hearing, and I am only just

05:05literally picking it up this morning a little bit, that there will be Spanish officials now involved

05:10in at the airport and so on and so forth. We nearly need to unpack this and understand what it means,

05:16but we will need to really look at the detail a little more closely. But sovereignty has to be

05:21maintained. The only other thing I would say is, of course, we have seen with the Chagos Islands what

05:25this government does when it starts to negotiate with other countries and where that can lead,

05:30which in that case was an absurd surrender and paying for the privilege of doing so.

05:36Well...

05:37then we will need to update some of the time.

05:41More evidence about international nations that are out of and of the moment.

05:46And they will need to take to work there at the moment.

05:48So those issues take place with other countries and the edge of the nation.

05:49And this is the issue of the situation.

05:51We have to update the world's interest toując our passions into the future.

05:51The election of the country has made available at the moment.

05:54So those are the people who are going to arrive at the moment.

05:56And this is how they are going to continue on the end.

05:58The election of the building is not going to move on that season um.

06:01We have to make the idea of the period.

06:02So this is the most important part with the project.

06:03So this is how we have to keep doing a lot of the question.

WATCH: Mel Stride hits back at claims Tories are 'irrelevant' - 'We are opposition!'

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