Rachel Reeves has been grilled by Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost over the thousands of children who could be impacted by the welfare cuts she announced in her spring statement on Wednesday.
The chancellor has denied suggestions that 3.2 million people will be worse off from the welfare changes including to personal independence payments (PIP) and Work Capability Assessments (WCA), despite the findings of the Government’s own impact assessment.
The assessment also suggested that 250,000 people will be pushed into relative poverty by the reforms.
Presenter Wilfred Frost said: “For those who will be affected directly, it’s not about what happens … to the majority of people in the country, it’s about what happens specifically to them. I understand some people might eventually find a job and end up getting a wage higher than their benefits, but they won’t immediately.
“If we use your Government’s 250,000 figure, 50,000 of them are children. They’re not going to get a job. I just come back to the point – there might be long-term success of the policy, but in the short term, does it not make you uncomfortable to be pushing at least some, probably tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands into poverty?”
