Next Conservative government will reverse welfare bill

ODN

Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith criticises Labour's welfare reform saying it will not ''change the number of people in work.'' It comes as ministers are discussing the prospect of further concessions to win over a growing list of Labour MPs poised to rebel against planned welfare reforms ahead of a crunch vote next week. Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00You don't better the lives of millions by putting people out of employment or

00:04we're talking about welfare reform at the moment. If there are no jobs for

00:07people to go into then you end up with ever-expanding welfare roles. So our

00:12focus is on boosting growth, boosting employment. There's been a long consensus

00:17nearly 30 years around the balance between the rights for workers which

00:22is quite right to have and the ability of employers to have flexibility to be

00:25able to give them those jobs in the first place and what we say is that

00:29don't overturn that balance. It's a careful balance. It's persisted for 30 years.

00:33It serves the UK well and at a time when people are worried about welfare and

00:37getting people into work this is the wrong measure to be taking. It's one

00:40reason why Kemi and I will be talking today about how the next Conservative

00:44government will be reversing most of those trade changes to that bill. We

00:49need welfare reform. The taxpayer, this country can't afford the ever-burgeoning

00:54roles and the best place for many people who are on welfare is in

00:59work. Now that requires there to be jobs for them to go to so it's very important

01:03that the government has a focus on doing everything possible to maximise

01:06firms ability to employ people. We've put out three tests. I mean this has to be

01:10fair to the taxpayer. The government has to repeat that they've got no plans to

01:14increase taxes this autumn and critically we actually got to see reforms

01:19that do get people back into work. The government's own independent assessment

01:22said that these reforms, the package that Labour have come up with, do not do that

01:26thing. They take money away from some people but they don't change the number

01:30of people in work.

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