And dodges the question about whether she would vote for them if she was a Westminster MP …
By Bill Heaney
Dumbarton’s Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has defended the UK Government’s £5 BILLION welfare cuts, saying the projected rise in the benefits bill is “not sustainable”.
The deputy leader of the party said it would be the “wrong approach” for the UK Government to pay more while not ensuring people get back into work.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced £5 billion worth of cuts earlier this month, mostly from a reduction in support for those on incapacity or disability benefits.
These were late compounded by further cuts in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s spring statement. Three million people are expected to be impacted.
Speaking on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show, Ms Baillie said it was important for the Government to encourage people into work.
Neil Gray, SNP government health secretary and Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Top of page Jackie Baillie Dumbarton MSP and Scottish Labour deputy leader.
She said: “If you look at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), they’re saying currently personal independence payment (Pip) accounts and disability benefits account for £50bn each year.
“They’re projecting, in the next five years that will grow to £75 billion. So if you were that’s not sustainable.”
Asked if she would vote for the measures if she was an MP, she said: “I would support getting people into work. I think that is the right objective.
“Spending an extra £75 billion, if we don’t do anything about getting people back into work, is the wrong approach. That’s not sustainable.
“Getting people back into work is key. None of these changes take place until November 2026. There is time to focus and an additional £1bn is going towards employment support, which frankly, the SNP have cut.”
But Jackie Baillie avoided answering the question put to her.
The OBR has predicted the welfare reforms could push another 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children.
But Dame Jackie told the programme those figures did not take into account whether those people would take up employment.
“The OBR modelled the impact of the changes,” she said. “What they didn’t model was the impact of people going into employment.
“And that needs to be seen as the counterbalance to what’s going on.”
Appearing earlier on the same programme, Scotland’s Health Secretary Neil Gray described the welfare cuts as a “big mistake” and an “error”.
Neil Gray accused Labour of conflating Pip with out-of-work benefits.
Pip is designed to help disabled people who face extra living costs due to their disability, regardless of their work status. In Scotland, this benefit is being replaced by the Adult Disability Payment.
Mr Gray said: “I think that was the big mistake the Chancellor made, to seek to settle and balance the books on the backs of disabled people who are more likely to be in poverty, are more likely to be furthest from the labour market.
“You’re better to provide that support to them to enter the labour market, rather than take it away.”
The reality is that Britain cannot afford welfare.
It is a country sliding down the economic league table. Hollowed out by years of neoliberal economic plundering and investment the UK now produces and manufactures very little. The money men have no interest in the economic wellbeing of the country.
Indeed, one only needs to look at Scotland to realise what an economic and manufacturing poorhouse the country it is. Doesn’t make steel. No coal industry, no car manufacturing, can barely make a few ships and when it does it is a disaster. Doesn’t make consumer goods like fridges freezer cookers etc, doesn’t in fact, make very much.
Moreover, in relation to its windfall of renewable energy it should come as no surprise that the huge jackets to support the offshore turbines are made in yards in Dubai and China; the turbines in Germany and other places, the huges wind turbine blades typically in Denmark and even the shipping that transports all of this kit into place typically it is by Dutch shipping companies.
And education. Our very own MSP was berating only a few weeks ago as to how there was a shortage of housing due to there being a shortage of trained tradesmen. She also complained that Scotland could do well in IT if we actually had a few thousand trained IT workers. But like construction tradesmen and much else we don’t. And at that one then thinks of the shortages of trained doctors and nurses.
No surprise then that if we are set to become a country of burger flippers and pizza delivery folks that social welfare and much else will not be for us because we will not be able to afford it.
But one dare not say such a thig. This is Britain’s golden era or so they told us. Sadly like so much else it is a fallacy, a lie and a once overly proud people now slide into the economic and social third league.
Jackie Baillie is right when she says we cannot afford welfare.
We haven’t heard what Douglas McAllister, the person elected to answer such questions as this in the House of Commons, would do. In fact, we haven’t heard from Mr McAllister since he became an MP at one of the most important times in our history. He has boycotted us since he was elected because we criticised the basket case West Dunbartonshire Council, of which he was Provost, for the disgraceful way they conducted public affairs here. We were ordered out of the council chamber for asking them to turn up the sound and let us see their faces so we – and members of the public could hear and see what was going on – in our little corner of Secret Scotland, where victimisation, bullying and incompetence are commonplace. The sooner this Council goes into special measures the better. The Gourlay judgment is a disgrace and these efforts by the Council to kill democracy and obfuscate through spin doctoring are completely unacceptable.