RACHEL Reeves has been accused of “punching down” on some of the poorest in society after she signalled her plans to cut the social security budget.
The chancellor told Sky's political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast there needs to be welfare reform because the system is “letting down taxpayers because it's costing too much”.
Reeves spoke about the cuts in terms of giving people “support to get back to work” but didn’t rule out making it harder for sick and disabled people to claim personal independence payments, which are not linked to people’s work status.
Her comments on the podcast come ahead of the spring statement, due March 26, in which Reeves is expected to make billions of pounds of cuts including to the benefits bill in order to meet her own imposed fiscal rules.
The chancellor told Rigby: “It's letting down our economy because there's too many people trapped on out-of-work benefits, and it's letting down the people who are recipients of benefits because they are trapped on benefits rather than actively supported back into work.”
She added there are a million young people not in education, employment or training and “the majority of those people should be working”.
However, SNP Westminster Social Justice spokesperson Kirsty Blackman (below) MP said that faced with the “straitjacket” of their own fiscal rules Labour’s planned cuts to social security will be “deeply damaging” to Scotland.
“It is clearer by the day that the Labour Party and the Chancellor are preparing to take an axe to public services, and impose billions of pounds of austerity cuts, which would be deeply damaging for Scotland and it will break yet another election promise,” Blackman said.
“Faced with their own failure after a disastrous first budget and the straitjacket of the fiscal rules they copied from the Tories, the Labour party are planning to punch down on some of the poorest in our society with massive cuts to social security.”
According to the BBC, Reeves plans to save several billion pounds by making austerity cuts to the welfare budget with health-related benefits being targeted.
Last year in the run up to the General Election, Scottish Labour leader Sarwar said his party would not bring in austerity measures if they were to gain power during a BBC debate.
Blackman said Reeves proposed cuts to social security would be another “total betrayal” to voters.
“Voters were promised an end to Westminster austerity and cuts but instead this Labour government has stripped the winter fuel payment from Scottish pensioners, blocked WASPI women from getting compensation, and pushed thousands of Scottish children into poverty by continuing punitive welfare cuts like the two-child benefit cap. The social security budget is clearly their next target for massive cuts,” she said.
“A return to austerity under Labour is a total betrayal of what voters were told at the election - and it shows that neither Keir Starmer or Anas Sarwar can be trusted to keep their promises.”
The UK Government have been approached for comment.
