Susanna Challenges Rishi Sunak On Cuts To The Universal Credit Uplift | Good Morning Britain

the chancellor will address the conservative party conference in manchester today but it will be against the background of rising prices the 20 pound a week cut to universal credit and millions facing fuel poverty this winter and the chancellor rishi soon act joins us now from the party conference in manchester chancellor you're one of the i think the wealthiest member of the cabinet your wife is one of the wealthiest women in the world do you think you fully understand what this universal credit cut means to many many families who are about to be plunged into poverty on the day that your leader stands up on wednesday to tell us that everything is going so well well good morning alastair nice to be with you i i think no one can accuse me or the government of being dogmatic or not wanting to support people given the actions we've taken over the past year and a half and i think going forward we have a strong point of view that the best way to provide people with the help and support they need is to double down on our plan for jobs which we know is working and that's what today's announcements are about giving people the skills and the opportunities and support they need to find well-paid work a lot of the people on universal credit are already in work and they are going to suffer a huge loss of income and a hit on their living standards and you must i mean i feel sometimes like you're in a parallel universe there you've got the cut you telling each other how marvelous it's all going and you've got the fuel prices you've got the national insurance rise hitting the poorest hardest and you're now bringing this universal credit card which even right-wing think tanks are saying is going to plunge more than half a million people into poverty well you talked about parallel universe and these are the facts alistair a year ago people were forecasting unemployment to reach 12 millions and millions of people what's actually happened as a result of our plan for jobs the unemployment today is less than five percent it's been falling for six months in a row and it's lower here than america canada france italy and spain and we have record numbers of job vacancies so that actually is those are the facts uh that is not a parallel universe that shows me that the plan for jobs is working you ask about those who are in work if i could just stand if i just finished answering questions you asked about those who are in work that's absolutely right and what we want to see for those people is their wages going up that's why we increase the national living wage and you're seeing wages are going up in the economy more broadly but we also want to give them the opportunities to get new skills which will help them find even better paid work and that's exactly what some of the announcements today are about and some of the things we've done over the past few months about the people who can't get better skills and can't improve their work situation i mean the removal of this uplift counts adds up to more than a thousand pounds a year and we have been flooded this morning with comments from people who are going to be left in a really dire situation and hazel says my partner recently passed away i nursed him for three years i'm on universal credit now i won't be able to have a warm house this winter richard my wife was diagnosed this made with motor neurone disease i have had to cut my working hours and now claim universal credit the pressure i had to try and claim this benefit in the first place was unbelievable but now with the 20 pounds a week deducted it's just too much mary says i'm on universal credit it doesn't even cover your rent dave says i'm a carer for my 91 year old mum i get a carer's allowance but that is taken back in full by universal credit can't find work as i'm on call 24 hours a day mike i'm disabled and will lose the 20 pounds a week due to my health i can't work how can you stomach taking away more than a thousand pounds a year from these people well this was one of the many things that we did during the crisis susanna much like the furlough scheme these things are naturally coming to an end and that's not uncommon in lots of countries who have done something very similar and our way to help people now is evolving now you gave lots of examples of different people i can't go through all three of those but i'm probably more optimistic than you about people not being able to get the support they need to find new work or better skills we're actually fully funding for example 10 million adults to receive what is a level called a level 3 qualification which many don't have that's worth thousands of pounds and we know that will have a huge impact on their chances of getting a new job or getting a better paid job but for those who are suffering from 20 40. if i could just you ask cannot you asked a very long time you asked a very long question if i could answer it that would be great if i could just answer you did ask a very long question because unfortunately to give those people that's really really really avalanche of comments of people i know i'm trying to learn but you're continuing to talk so if i could to give those families some extra support over the christmas period just recently we announced half a billion pounds that will provide three to four million of our most vulnerable families through their local authorities with an extra 100 or 150 pounds to help them with some of the price rises that we have seen and that comes on top of all the existing support that already exists so you asked that one of your examples was about someone struggling with rent payments a year ago we announced a billion pound uplift to something called local housing allowance which helps people with their rental payments that's worth 650 pounds a year to about a million and a half of our vulnerable families another three million families are receiving a 150 pound discount on their council tax bills and you asked also some of your examples about fuel bills well for those on on benefits which you mentioned we have something called the cold weather pavement which is an extra 25 pounds a week if your price is dropped okay we have something called that well if i could just finish alistair because you had a lot of examples uh 140 pounds for the warm homes discount that helps those people uh with discount on their rebate bills and for those pensioners i think that was one of your examples as well all received something called the winter fuel payment it's worth up to three okay 100 or even pounds as well so there's a lot of place support in place you're announcing another uh job scheme today and i would argue if you look back at your record your jobs your jobs retention scheme was cancelled you said it would be replaced it didn't happen your kickstart scheme you've admitted is way off target your green homes grant was cancelled before the money was spent your stamp duty holiday has helped landlords and hit first-time buyers and you'll eat out to help out i think you'd agree probably help keep kovid going longer now so how do we know that the scheme you're announcing today is going to be any more effective than those well you talked about the job retention scheme alistair i think that's actually been an enormous success and it's helped protect over 11 million jobs or i won't reprise all the stats i said but 11 the 12 unemployment is what was forecast we're now at less than five percent falling for six months so that is a plan and a set of schemes that has worked and i think actually that's been widely acknowledged as having worked and averted uh an unemployment crisis in this country so actually enormous tribute to all the people who helped put those schemes together you mentioned kickstart for example i'll just touch on that that's our landmark intervention to help young people and they've been particularly badly affected by the crisis they disproportionately work in hospitality uh by the way so that's actually why it out to help out was an important intervention to help protect their jobs uh as a matter of social justice but kickstart it is a similar scheme that was enacted by the previous labor government you might be particularly familiar with that it was called the future jobs fund and if you compare kickstart to the future jobs fund you'll see that from the time we announced kickstart to the fact that we've now got over 70 000 kickstarters having their lives compared to the future jobs fund which was a labor version kickstart is doing a much better job a much faster job and involving more private companies the reason it's not 250 000 alastair is the scheme was announced at a time when unemployment was forecast to get to 12 percent okay now obviously thankfully it hasn't reached that number so the number of people that need the help is lower but actually it's the scheme i'm incredibly proud of that's why we've extended it today wants to ask you about fuel because she's been struggling to find any yes um we're told that the situation is stabilizing getting better i just wonder if you know if you live in the south east or london if the government can advise us where we can get fuel because uh frankly i would suggest that the situation is not getting better for a lot of people um petrol supplies is still not getting to london and the south east more than a fifth of four courts still dry brian madison who's chair of the petrol retailers association says fuel is still not getting to the pumps that need it most you have the army out now uh delivering fuel to four cores how has this got to the point where we've got the military involved well so i i know this is frustrating for people and i appreciate that what i'd say is the situation is definitely improving uh there is no shortage of fuel at our refineries or at our terminals what we've seen is a very rapid demand spike which has caused some of the disruptions that we're all experiencing but factually the situation is as i said improving about a week ago we had two thirds of uh four courts that were out and as you said that's now down to a fifth now that's still not uh obviously perfect so we need to keep getting better but that shows you a picture that is improving and i think every single day of the last week we've had more fuel delivered than was taken out at petrol stations with more people getting fuel and uh more volume of fuel being delivered as well so those are all the stats the army drivers will obviously help with that i recognize there's some regional differences there but people should rest assured we're doing everything we can to try and mitigate it okay can i can i ask you okay can i ask you can i see one final question call me sad but i reread operation yellow hammer last night which was the preparations by the government in the event of no deal now you got a deal and you told it was a great deal this is what it warned of disruption to channel crossings delays for lorries entering the uk delays on immigration disruption to fuel supplies fueling fuel panic buying and possibly public disorder electricity price rises delay to medicine supplies reduction in supplies of fresh food supermarket price rises fishing wars breakdown in law enforcement and on data which of those has not happened and which of them has anything to do with brexit well i i know brexit is a particular uh um uh topic of interest for you alistair but i put it i think it's quite interesting yeah well no but hgv drivers is an issue that is not just we're grappling with here in the uk a country that's using the military i think namely your country this is in the military there are i think when i last saw the intelligence reports from uh a think tank there was something like hundreds of thousands of hev drivers actually i think i think i think it's it that is something that we are doing to help alleviate the situation if we weren't doing that you'd be criticizing us for not would you try to blame that on brexit i don't think it's reasonable it's got nothing to do with this that many many countries are grappling with at the same time and actually because of brexit we've been able to make some changes to our testing regime which will speed through more people through the testing regime actually okay thank you very much for joining us thank you very much have a nice conference you

Channel: Good Morning Britain

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Keywords: good morning britain, breakfast show, news, morning news, gmb, good morning britain interview, itv, susanna reid, Talk Shows - Topic

Id: pY0wz2-_Fh4

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021