Trade Minister defends welfare reform

ODN

The trade minister said there would be time for discussions with potential rebels before Tuesday’s welfare bill vote. Douglas Alexander said there was “high levels of agreement” on the principles behind the reform. It comes as around 120 Labour MPs have put their names to an amendment which would block the bill.   Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00Well I think everyone is trying to get this bill right, whether that is the

00:03government or whether that's the 120 Labour colleagues, many of whom are my

00:07friends and colleagues. The fact is we need to get this legislation right.

00:11Everyone knows that we inherited a welfare system that was broken from our

00:14predecessors, but it's right and reasonable that we look at the issues. If

00:18you read the reasoned amendment, there's actually a high degree of commonality on

00:21the principles of this legislation. There are real concerns as to how it's being

00:26implemented. That's going to be the issues that we're going to be addressing,

00:28not just at the second reading, but at each stage of the passage of the bill.

00:32Everyone agrees the system is broken. Everyone agrees that reform is needed.

00:36Everyone agrees we need to move people from welfare and into work and everyone

00:40agrees we need to protect the most vulnerable. That's the foundation on

00:43which conversations will be happening over the coming days ahead of that vote

00:47on Tuesday.

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