I would like to rejoin EU, says Burnham, but ‘British public are the bosses’ – UK politics live

PM says talking about changing the relationship with the bloc would not be divisive but ‘can start to bring people together’ Andy Burnham has claimed that the welfare changes he is planning to get more young people into work could over time save a “significant amount of money”. A

PM says talking about changing the relationship with the bloc would not be divisive but ‘can start to bring people together’ Andy Burnham has claimed that the welfare changes he is planning to get more young people into work could over time save a “significant amount of money”. Ahead of the budget, the Conservatives and Reform UK are both calling for massive cuts in welfare spending, which they say could be used in part to fund more defence investment. At their conference the Tories identified welfare cuts worth £36bn a year, and today Reform UK is saying it would cut welfare spending by £40bn a year.

I think a big change is needed here where we move to a situation where the spending is not to sustain people on benefits, but we give people the right support when they need it as they are growing up, coming through their teenage years. The opposition parties are out there today saying just make crude cuts to the welfare budget. I personally think that won’t work, and it isn’t right to do that anyway, because it just leads to more and more failure and crisis and spending that isn’t helpful for anybody.

Why has this problem arisen? It’s arisen because if you look back to the early 2020s, people call it the Boriswave, a huge number of people came in seeking permanent settlement on longer-term visas … And the home secretary is right, in my view, to bring forward changes that are based on the principle that settlement is a right to be earned, not just something that is granted automatically. Continue reading...