Badenoch claims UK changing into ‘welfare state with financial system connected’
Kemi Badenoch is delivering her speech on welfare now. There’s a stay feed on the high of the weblog.
Badenoch began
We have gotten a welfare state with an financial system connected – 28 million folks in Britain are actually working to pay the wages and advantages of 28 million others. The rider is as large because the horse.
This isn’t nearly welfare. It’s about politics too. We now have a Labour authorities beholden to their left wing.
MPs select to not repair this drawback, a Reform Celebration that can’t, it is a ticking time bomb, and aside from the Conservatives, the political class don’t see it or refuse to acknowledge it. Actually, numerous them wish to make it worse.
If we don’t clear up this drawback, our financial system will collapse. 1,000,000 younger individuals are at present not in training, employment or coaching, and we’re on track to spend one in each 4 kilos of earnings tax on illness advantages alone.
What started as a security internet for probably the most susceptible has moved into one thing utterly totally different. The system is unsustainable, and this threatens all the great it was designed to do.
Key occasions
Badenoch dismisses suggestion that defections to Reform UK mirror badly on her management
Q: You will have misplaced a second former cupboard minister to Reform UK inside every week. (Former Welsh secretary David Jones, and Jake Berry.) What does that say about your management?
Badenoch says she has set out her views right here. If folks need extra welfare spending and better taxes, they need to be a part of different events, she says.
Badenoch says Tories stay dedicated to triple lock for pensions
Q: Do you agree with the OBR that the triple lock is unsustainable?
Badenoch says the quick drawback is with working age advantages. That’s the place welfare reform wants to start out.
She says the triple lock is Conservative coverage. “Proper now” the occasion desires to deal with illness and incapacity advantages, she says.
Badenoch has completed her speech, and is now taking questions.
She says the Tories are the one occasion critical about getting welfare spending down.
Badenoch claims UK changing into ‘welfare state with financial system connected’
Kemi Badenoch is delivering her speech on welfare now. There’s a stay feed on the high of the weblog.
Badenoch began
We have gotten a welfare state with an financial system connected – 28 million folks in Britain are actually working to pay the wages and advantages of 28 million others. The rider is as large because the horse.
This isn’t nearly welfare. It’s about politics too. We now have a Labour authorities beholden to their left wing.
MPs select to not repair this drawback, a Reform Celebration that can’t, it is a ticking time bomb, and aside from the Conservatives, the political class don’t see it or refuse to acknowledge it. Actually, numerous them wish to make it worse.
If we don’t clear up this drawback, our financial system will collapse. 1,000,000 younger individuals are at present not in training, employment or coaching, and we’re on track to spend one in each 4 kilos of earnings tax on illness advantages alone.
What started as a security internet for probably the most susceptible has moved into one thing utterly totally different. The system is unsustainable, and this threatens all the great it was designed to do.
Streeting says resident medical doctors have misplaced help of public with newest strike risk
Within the Commons Wes Streeting, the well being secretary, has simply delivered an announcement concerning the announcement from resident medical doctors (hospital medics, previously generally known as junior medical doctors) that they may go on strike in England for 5 days.
Streeting argued that it was unprecedented for a union to go on strike after receiving nearly as good a pay deal as that provided to resident medical doctors. Elaborating on what he mentioned in his open letter to the BMA launched yesterday, Streeting mentioned that when resident medical doctors had been on strike when the Tories had been in energy, refusing to even meet them, they’d the help of the general public. However now they don’t, he mentioned. He urged them to take up his provide to fulfill them so the strike will be averted.
His assertion was theoretically addressed to MPs, however in observe it was directed on the BMA, and on the public at giant. He’s attempting to make use of public opinion as leverage in opposition to the union.
Badenoch claims Farage like ‘Corbyn with a pint’, saying Reform UK promising ‘unaffordable giveaways’ on welfare
Kemi Badenoch can also be going to explain Nigel Farage as like “Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette” in her speech, in response to the in a single day briefing. She is going to say:
Nigel Farage pretends to be a Thatcherite Conservative however actually, he’s simply Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette. On welfare he exhibits his true colors – promising unaffordable giveaways with no plan to repair the system.
Badenoch is referring to Farage asserting final month that Reform UK would lift the two-child benefit cap.
Badenoch requires international nationals and folks with much less critical medical circumstances to lose proper to illness advantages
Kemi Badenoch is giving a speech on welfare later. In response to the briefing despatched out in a single day, she is going to declare that the welfare system quantities to a “ticking time bomb” due to the speed at which spending goes up and she is going to suggest vital cuts.
She is going to define a three-point plan to “repair welfare”. In response to CCHQ, this includes:
1) Restrict advantages – ending handouts to international nationals and limiting illness advantages to extra critical circumstances. Modelling by the Centre for Social Justice exhibits that tightening psychological health-related claims like anxiousness alone might save as much as £9bn.
2) Nose to nose assessments – restoring face-to-face checks and requiring correct medical proof to cease the system being gamed.
3) Get folks again to work – via retraining and early intervention. Underneath the final Conservative authorities, unemployment halved and 800 jobs had been created each single day. The Conservatives will get folks again to work once more.
Of those, level 1) is by far probably the most vital, as a result of the federal government is already planning a £1bn-plus funding in getting folks again to work, and Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, has mentioned she desires more face-to-face assessments for illness advantages.
Badenoch is anticipated to say:
It’s not honest to spend £1bn a month on advantages for international nationals and on handing out taxpayer-funded automobiles for circumstances like constipation.
We ought to be backing the makers – rewarding the folks getting up each morning, working arduous to construct our nation.
Our welfare system ought to take care of probably the most susceptible in society – not these dishonest the system.
Badenoch’s speech coincides with the publication of a brand new evaluation by the Centre for Social Justice thinktank saying that individuals on illness advantages can find yourself receiving greater than folks working full-time on the nationwide residing wage, and that the federal government might save as much as £9bn a yr by chopping advantages for folks with psychological well being conditons. The CSJ was arrange by Iain Duncan Smith, the previous Tory chief, and Badenoch appears to agree with the broad thrust of what it’s saying.
In its information launch the thinktank says:
In 2026/27, an economically inactive claimant on Common Credit score (UC) with the typical housing profit and Private Independence Fee (PIP) for in poor health well being would obtain an earnings of round £25,000 – rising to £27,500 for these awarded PIP’s highest charge.
For brand spanking new claimants, this falls to £22,550 as soon as the Welfare Invoice’s £47 per week lower to UC Well being is taken into consideration.
By comparability, a full-time employee on the Nationwide Residing Wage (NLW) is anticipated to earn £22,500 after paying earnings tax and nationwide insurance coverage – leaving a £2,500 hole between work and welfare for current claimants.
The Day by day Mail has splashed on this argument. The Day by day Telegraph has additionally put it on the front page.
Tom Pollard, head of social coverage on the New Economics Basis thinktank, has posted this remark on Bluesky.
It appears utterly affordable to me that somebody who has been assessed by DWP as being unable to work on account of disabilities/poor well being & as dealing with vital well being/incapacity associated additional prices ought to be supported by the federal government to have an earnings across the degree of a minimal wage wage 1/2
The ‘work disincentive’ argument implied right here is totally disingenuous as a result of folks would maintain PIP (& a good chunk of their UC) in the event that they moved into work The overwhelming majority of individuals on this place would relatively be working if their well being allowed 2/2
Nearly 1.7m youngsters residing in properties affected by two-child profit cap, figures present
Campaigners have renewed calls to scrap the two-child profit restrict after the newest figures confirmed the variety of youngsters in affected households is approaching 1.7 million throughout Nice Britain, PA Media experiences. PA says:
There have been 1,665,540 youngsters residing in households in England, Wales and Scotland affected by the two-child profit restrict in April, figures published by the Division for Work and Pensions confirmed.
This was an increase of 37,150 (2%) from April final yr.
There have been a complete of 469,780 households on common credit score affected by the coverage – a rise of 13,520 (3%) from the whole variety of households affected in April 2024.
Greater than half (59%) of households affected by the coverage are in work, the info confirmed.
A complete of 275,820 households affected are in work whereas 193,960 households are out of labor, the division mentioned.
The federal government is anticipated to publish a baby poverty technique in autumn, and a large number of marketing campaign teams have mentioned it should include a dedication to get rid of the two-child profit restrict.
The restrict restricts baby tax credit score and common credit score (UC) to the primary two youngsters in most households.
Organisations working within the sector argue that 109 youngsters throughout the UK are pulled into poverty by the coverage on daily basis and that an estimated 350,000 youngsters can be lifted out of poverty instantly if it was scrapped.
Joseph Howes, chair of the Finish Baby Poverty Coalition, mentioned the federal government’s “‘ethical mission’ to finish baby poverty will fail if the two-child profit cap stays, arguing that “no baby poverty technique will achieve lifting youngsters out of poverty, if this coverage stays”.
He added: “We now have heard the federal government say that they’re all ‘the obtainable levers’ to cut back baby poverty. Everyone knows that that is the lever that wants pulling first – backed up by the federal government’s personal knowledge launched at this time. It’s time for the federal government to behave.”
This chart, from at this time’s DWP report, exhibits how the variety of households on tax credit or common credit score affected by the two-child profit cap has risen because it was launched.
And this desk exhibits the variety of households affected by the coverage, the variety of youngsters residing in these households, and the variety of youngsters straight affected (as a result of they weren’t the primary or second-born baby). In observe, in fact, all youngsters residing in these households are prone to be affected by a discount in advantages paid to oldsters.
The federal government’s welfare invoice handed its third studying within the Commons final evening. Aletha Adu and Peter Walker have the story right here.
Right here is the list of MPs who voted in opposition to the invoice at third studying, together with 47 from Labour. Most, however not all, of them had been backbenchers seen as leftwingers.
That is what Emmanuel Macron mentioned concerning the settlement on defence cooperation. (See 9.29am.)
Our two armed forces collectively represent what is basically the bedrock of this European Nato pillar, to have the ability to be framework nations, to mission ourselves on a number of theatres of operation, to defend European soil, on the web site of our allies, is paramount.
I welcome the truth that this [summit] can seal to begin with breakthroughs when it comes to strategic functionality and customary efforts, however actually take it to the subsequent degree when it comes to capabilities on extra delicate points equivalent to nuclear deterrence.
On Ukraine, he says there’s a shared resolve to help the nation. There’s a “Coalition of the Keen” assembly going down this afternoon, with Keir Starmer and Macron taking part.
President Zelenskyy is in Rome, the place a Ukraine Recovery Conference is going down, however a digital “Coalition of the Keen” assembly can also be going down, for the nations led by the UK and France which are keen to help Ukraine militarily, and Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron might be contributing from a army HQ in north London.
Jakub Krupa is protecting the Ukraine developments on his Europe stay weblog.
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That is what Emmanuel Macron mentioned in his public remarks in the beginning of the summit about small boats.
We share the identical resolve to combat in opposition to unlawful felony gangs with robust coordination with different EU states.
As we’ve mentioned, ministers have labored on that. France is the ultimate level earlier than getting into into the UK, however these women and men clearly, roots of poverty, who’re exploited by these smugglers. We should work with entry level nations into Europe to stem these entry factors. We now have widespread resolve in preventing this site visitors and defending our folks and the women and men from these smugglers, and have interaction all nations which have a co-responsibility on our facet.
That is one thing the EU needs to take ahead and begins with a bilateral dialogue that should be broadened. I feel that’s the momentum underway via this summit, and in keeping with what was achieved through the Calais group.
Keir Starmer is attending the UK-France summit alongside Rachel Reeves, chancellor, Yvette Cooper, house secretary, John Healey, defence secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Cupboard Workplace minister in control of post-Brexit relations with the EU, and Ed Miliband, vitality secretary.
Macron suggests EU must be concerned to find options to unlawful migration
Emmanuel Macron is talking now. After opening in English, he switches to French, for the advantage of the French media.
He says the UK and France are opening a brand new chapter of their relationship.
The 2 nations are working collectively on financial challenges, he says. That can contain having extra built-in capital markets, he says.
They’re working collectively on safety points, he says.
On small boats, he says poverty is a root trigger. The migrants are exploited by smugglers, he says. He says there’s a must sort out this with “widespread resolve”, and to limit the entry factors into Europe.
We now have widespread resolve in preventing this site visitors and defending our folks and the women and men from these smugglers, and have interaction all nations which have a co-responsibility on our facet.
Macron says the EU additionally desires to sort out unlawful migration. He says this may begin with a “bilateral dialogue” (between the UK and France, he implies), however he says that should be “broadened” (implying that in the end the EU should be concerned in an answer).
UPDATE: See 10.45am for a fuller model of what Macron mentioned.
