Shadow Paymaster General Richard Holden has criticised the government’s welfare reforms, accusing Sir Keir Starmer of “U-turns” and lacking clarity on funding. He warned the plans will fail to cut welfare costs and predicted tax rises in the autumn to cover the changes Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
00:00Well, we've had a very clear position that we wanted to see welfare changes, but they had to mean that there were going to be fewer people on welfare,
00:06there was going to have to be a reduction in the cost of the taxpayer, and it would mean no tax rises later this year.
00:12It's quite clear that the government was not going to do those things.
00:16We're still waiting for the full detail of what they're doing now, but I'm really concerned that this is going to mean tax rises later this year,
00:23because we've got a government that is all over the place and has got no leadership, and Keir Starmer has no authority at the top of this Labour government.
00:32Well, it's pretty clear that we don't know where the money is coming from from these proposed changes from the Labour government.
00:38I think we're all pretty clear what we're going to see later this year, which is more tax rises.
00:41We've already seen tax rises hammering our businesses on the high street, hammering family businesses with those extra taxes there,
00:48and also hammering workers across the country with their national insurance tax rises, which are costing jobs and costing wages right across our country.
00:56This is a hat-trick of U-turns in just a few weeks.
01:00We've seen all over the place on this welfare reform around PIP, where we've seen those big issues around winter fuel payments,
01:07with them saying, yes, we're going to cancel them, and now they're looking at bringing it back.
01:11And the third one is around those rape and grooming gangs, where they said, no, no, no, Keir Starmer was absolutely adamant there wouldn't be a national inquiry,
01:18and he's been dragged there, kicking and screaming by Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives.
01:22Look, I want to see sensible welfare reform, but this is not the way to go about it when you're trying to run through ill-conceived policies
01:31and then having to U-turn at the last minute, which means you don't get any of the welfare reform you're actually looking for.
