Andy Burnham DWP benefits cuts under his premiership, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): Andy Burnham has issued a fresh statement over Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cuts under his premiership. The Labour Party leader has suggested that cutting benefits would force people into crime.
Mr Burnham said ‘brutal cuts’ proposed by the Conservatives would put pressure on the police and the criminal justice system. Makerfield MP Mr Burnham attacked Conservative Party plans to cut £36bn from welfare spending.
Speaking to ITV, the Prime Minister said: “If [the Tories] were to do that, there’d be another big number over here for the utter chaos that they cause in people’s lives.”
“If you just go to brutal cuts, you will leave people in absolute crisis and then they will be going into other services in a chaotic way,” he said. “If you come at it from a numbers game, you’ll just make those cuts and you’ll throw people into crisis, so the £36bn won’t be a number that will hold because you’ll be spending money on people in A&E and the police, [the] criminal justice system.”
The Prime Minister said he wanted to cut welfare spending but refused to say by how much, insisting he would not put “a number before people”. He said savings would not be achieved through “a cuts agenda” but by putting in place more employment support to help people into work.
“If you come at it through that normal Westminster mindset of saying we must cut X amount from the system, it will fail again,” he added.
Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, responded: “Andy Burnham would rather defend a bloated benefits bill than tackle the spiralling cost of welfare. You cannot keep pouring taxpayers’ money into welfare and pretend that is a plan for fixing the country.”
She also said Labour’s work and pensions secretary had said that all Labour MPs want to do is tax people more to pay for more benefits. “Only the Conservatives have a plan to cut the welfare bill and deliver £36bn of savings per year to make sure the system works for the taxpayers who pay for it.”
