‘Many people’ are ‘fearful’ of trying work, PM tells Sky News, as he defends welfare cuts
Sir Keir Starmer has defended the government’s cuts to welfare, saying “many people” on benefits “find it very difficult” or are “fearful” of trying work.
Speaking to our political correspondent Ali Fortescue on a visit to West Yorkshire, the PM defended the cuts to disability benefits by talking about his own family’s experience.
“My own family’s been impacted by disability all my life,” he said.
“My late mother was extremely ill all of her life, and my late brother, who lived in Yorkshire, was very ill and disabled, particularly when he got cancer, which he died of. So I do understand that human level.”
“But we’re addressing something – which is a system that isn’t working.”
Many ‘fearful’ of trying work
More broadly, Starmer went on to say that one in eight young people are “neither learning nor earning”, and are “going effectively from school on to some sort of benefits”.
He acknowledged that some need to support to get into work, but added that “it can’t be right” that many are not in work.
Pushed by Ali on the forecast that 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, could be pushed into relative poverty as a result of the government’s changes to benefits, the PM insisted that they do not take into account the government’s investment in helping people find work.
Starmer said: “What we’ve done is put £1bn on the projects, and the work, and the support to get people into work.
“But also, we’ve introduced a ‘right to try’, because many people who aren’t in work, who want to work, find it very difficult to make that step. They’re slightly fearful of that step.
“So with the ‘right to try’, and the money behind them, we’re able to help them into work.”
‘If you can work, you should’
On the number of people forecast to be pushed into poverty, Starmer said: “They [the impact assessments] do not take account of the billion pounds we’re putting behind the support to get people into work.
“They don’t take account of the ‘right to try’ that we are introducing, which is hugely important, and will, in my view, be impactful.”
He added that his “clear” principles are that those who need support should get it, and “if you can work, you should be working”.