The MP Neil Duncan-Jordan hit out at leaked plans to slash around £6billion from the benefits bill. He warned: ‘Cuts to benefits don’t make jobs – they only make more poverty’
Neil Duncan-Jordan ‘worried’ about potential rerun of austerity
A Labour MPs has warned planned cuts to benefits “feels like a rerun of austerity” and will increase levels of poverty.
Neil Duncan-Jordan hit out at leaked plans to slash around £6billion from the benefits bill – with major cuts to disability support. The MP for Poole said: “Cuts to benefits don’t make jobs – they only make more poverty in our society and that’s why I’m very worried about some of the things I’m reading.” He added: “It feels like a rerun of austerity and I’m worried about that.”
The MP told BBC Newsnight: “If we’re going to make poor people poorer, then there’ll be a number of MPs who won’t be able to sign up to that.” Mr Duncan-Jordan also said the government could instead look at raising revenue from wealthy corporations and individuals.
His comments come amid increasing unease among Labour MPs over the scale of the cuts earmarked by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves. She is expected to slash spending by billions of pounds in the face of tighter economic headroom – due to her own self-imposed fiscal rules – at the Spring Statement on March 26.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is expected to outline some of the reforms to health and disability benefits in the coming days. But on Monday over a dozen charities wrote to the Chancellor urging her to change course.
Organisations warned slashing benefits will have a “catastrophic impact on disabled people up and down the country”. The charities, including Scope, Mind, and Trussell, said: “Life costs more for disabled people. Huge numbers already live in poverty as a result of these extra costs. The impact of any cuts to disability benefits would be devastating.”
Defending plans on Monday evening, Keir Starmer warned Labour MPs the government could not “shrug our shoulders and look away” from problems in the welfare system. The PM said he was “not afraid to take the big decisions” to “fix what is broken” as he addressed a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday evening.
He said: “We’ve found ourselves in a worst of all worlds situation – with the wrong incentives – discouraging people from working, the taxpayer funding a spiralling bill, £70 billion a year by 2030. A wasted generation, one in eight young people not in education, employment or training, and the people who really need that safety net still not always getting the dignity they deserve.”