Senior Tory Criticised Over Benefit Cut Proposal

A senior Tory was told “you don’t like poor people” as she was monstered over her party’s plans to slash welfare.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the long-term unemployed who haven’t contributed enough tax into the system will see their Universal Credit payments cut by nearly a third if she becomes prime minister.

The new “subsistence level” benefit they do receive would be loaded onto a pre-payment card, which would ban spending on cigarettes, alcohol and betting.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately defended the policy on BBC Question Time on Thursday.

She said: “Fundamentally, we have a problem that our welfare bill is out of control and we can’t afford it as a country.

“We also have a problem of people who are long-term unemployed, and I’m talking about people who should be working but aren’t.”

Whately insisted the policy was “about stopping people living a lifestyle on welfare”.

But she was condemned by business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, who accused the Tories of reheating the policies of some of their previous leaders.

He said: “You can tell how old you are by how many times you’ve heard Tory MPs announce this policy before.

“Iain Duncan Smith announced this, I’m pretty sure William Hague might have mentioned it. You can probably go back to Michael Howard.

“The reason you never do it is that frankly there is no evidence to suggest unemployed people spend all their money on fags and booze. It just isn’t there.”

To applause from the audience, he added: “It’ll never happen. It’s just a way of you saying you don’t like poor people.”

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