BENEFITS CUTS SHOWS THAT CHANCELLOR HAS ‘MESSED UP THE ECONOMY’ SAYS MEL STRIDE

THE government has been forced to trim welfare spending because Rachel Reeves has “messed up the economy”, according to Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride.

He told GB News: “I think this has been terribly rushed, actually. For example, on Personal Independence Payment changes, which is a big part of what she announced yesterday, there was nothing about that in the Labour Party manifesto at all. They’ve come to this very late.

“The reason why they fought shy of welfare reform has been, as you’ve seen, [that it] is deeply divisive within their own party.

“The consequences are that they will not be making the kind of savings in the welfare budget, which will continue to be rising very rapidly, as they otherwise would.

“You need to have a measured and detailed approach to this, not be bounced into it all at the last minute, because the Chancellor is scrambling around for a few billion pounds here and there because she’s messed up the economy.”

He added: “I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for 18 months and the reforms that I brought in actually saved £5 billion across the forecast period.

“The OBR said they will result in 450,000, almost half a million fewer people going on to long term disability and sickness benefits as a result.

“But the way that I did that was to take a measured and detailed look at the issue, not to be bounced into things very quickly, which I’m afraid is what’s happened here, which is why I think it is too little, rather too late.

“And I think we have to be clear why it’s happened. It’s because Rachel Reeves is going to have to stand up next week, on Wednesday, and explain herself in terms of what’s happened to this economy, which is that growth has been killed stone dead as a consequence of the decisions and choices that she made in that first Budget back in October.”