SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has reportedly backed Keir Starmer's plans to cut billions of pounds from the UK Government’s welfare budget.
The MSP's comments following the reports that Rachel Reeves plans to save £6bn by making austerity cuts to the welfare budget, with health-related benefits being targeted.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will reportedly unveil billions in cuts to welfare, primarily through making it harder for people to get disability benefits and cutting the rate of Universal Credit for those deemed unfit to work.
The Labour Government is also set to freeze PIP payments next year so that they do not rise with inflation.
The move has been widely criticised by opposition parties and charities, who have argued the cuts will have "catastrophic" consequences for people with disabilities and long-term health issues.
However, Sarwar told BBC Scotland he believes that the Prime Minister is taking the “right approach”.
“It's clear that we have to get more people into work and we have to make sure that we have our public finances on a sustainable footing,” he told BBC Scotland News.
The Scottish Labour leader told the broadcaster he would not be drawn on the “speculation” about specific welfare cuts.
However, he added that he supported the “broader principle” that people should be encouraged into work to tackle a “ballooning” welfare bill.
Sarwar added that ministers had to “get to the root causes of what's holding so many people back from getting the opportunities they deserve”.
His comments come after five Scottish Labour MPs signed a letter backing welfare reform, calling it “a truly progressive endeavour,” who were branded by SNP MP Pete Wishart as “frankly despicable”.
James Taylor, executive director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, said the proposed cuts would have “a devastating impact on disabled people and their families”.
Meanwhile, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) chief executive Alison Garnham said plans for the austerity measures “would be damaging to disabled people and risk undermining the government’s forthcoming child poverty strategy”.
Kirsty Blackman, the party’s spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions, previously said Labour have “restarted the austerity engines” and are “shamefully targeting disabled people”.
As she said: “Labour's cuts agenda will be devastating. It doesn’t matter how hard Labour try to shamelessly spin it – if it looks like austerity and sounds like austerity then it is austerity and it is unacceptable.
“People across Scotland deserve better.”
