Sweeping Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits cuts have moved a step closer as Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy backed Prime Minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham's calls to reduce welfare spending. Ms Nandy has supported Mr Burnham's proposal to cut benefits in order to fund a boost in defense spending. Shortly after Mr Burnham stated he would find the money by slashing the amount spent on benefits, Ms Nandy spoke out in favor of the plan.
Support for Welfare Reduction
On Friday, Mr Burnham insisted he was “not squeamish” about the need to reduce the DWP bill. Now, Ms Nandy has echoed his sentiments. She told Sky News: “Yes, I do, because I think we’ve got a situation now where far too many people who want to be in work, who are desperate to work, aren’t, and that particularly includes young people.”
She highlighted findings from Alan Milburn’s independent review on young people in the labour market, stating: “We’re only spending one pound in every 25 through the welfare budget in helping young people to actually find work. I mean, that is a disgraceful situation that we inherited, and we’ve got to change that. That’s the way to bring the welfare bill down.”
Defense and Resilience
Ms Nandy also commented on the resignation of defence minister Al Carns, saying: “I think Al Carns, though, who resigned as a defence minister this week, put it very well in his resignation letter – because the challenge is both to transform the way that we do defence, it’s to increase the levels of spending even further than this Government has already done in order to meet this moment, but it’s also to invest more broadly in the national resilience of the country.”
She added: “And that includes economic insecurity, as he pointed out in the letter, strong public services, strong communities. And we as a Government have to do all those three things at once. So I won’t pretend that this is easy, and I won’t pretend that these negotiations sometimes aren’t quite tense and quite difficult, but we are taking it seriously as a Government, and collectively we’re determined to rise to meet the moment.”
Burnham's Stance
Mr Burnham reiterated his position: “I am not squeamish about saying that the plan would be to reduce the welfare bill. Not at all. It is not the traditional Westminster way of just crude cuts, short-term cuts that then create a backlash and create more political turbulence. It is actually going to do things that will reduce the benefits bill, moving towards a more preventative state that makes the right investments to support people into work.”
He concluded: “The world has changed, it’s obvious to anybody who looks at it, and we are going to have to change the assumptions on which we’ve been working. I would say it’s defence and security but also resilience.”
