Planned Welfare Cuts Divide Labour Party
The Labour Party is currently disagreeing over whether they should support some of George Osborne’s planned welfare cuts.
The cuts were recently unveiled in Mr Osborne’s Budge speech, and acting labour leader Harriet Harman was subject to a backlash on Monday at a meeting of Labour MP’s as she urged the party to avoid the Welfare Reform Bill, and warned against “blanket opposition” to welfare reform.
While Ms Harman has made it clear that the next leader will be making any future decisions, the labour party has said it will be opposing the main Finance Bill. The bill enacts a number of Budget measure and includes reductions of the sickness benefits, student grants, and the amount of tax credits most workers receive.
The party is disagreeing over how to deal with the separate Welfare Bill, which includes other measures like the restriction of tax credits to two children.
Ms Harman warned her party that it cant afford to be on the opposite side of the public when it comes to cuts to welfare.
However Andy Burnham, Jeremy Corbyn, and Yvette Cooper criticised the change in policy on Monday. Liz Kendall is the other contender for leadership and supported Ms Harman, saying that parents on tax credits often make difficult decisions when it comes to how many children they can afford.
Mr Burnham maintains that the UK should not take money off of people who are working and trying to do the right thing. Ms Cooper said that by reducing tax credits, it will be affecting peoples incentives to work, which is the opposite of what should be happening. Mr Corbyn called Mr Osborne’s Budget “anti-young, brutal, and anti the poorest in Britain”.
The question is whether the Labour Party will support changes to welfare which would be forcing thousands of kids into poverty.