00:00How will you vote tomorrow?
00:02We asked Labour to bring the welfare budget down and to get people into work.
00:06And if their bill did that, we would support them.
00:08The bill doesn't do that, so we are voting against.
00:11A big moment then.
00:13How many Labour MPs might be on your team if you do vote against?
00:17Who knows? This is a government in chaos.
00:19Labour cannot govern.
00:21They came into office thinking it was going to be very easy.
00:24But what's happened is that because of Covid,
00:26we now have a million extra people on benefits.
00:29We need to get those people back into work.
00:31The bill just before Covid for health and disability benefits was £40 billion.
00:35It's going to be up to £100 billion on Labour's current plans.
00:38So they're not cutting the budget.
00:40They're just cutting how much they would increase it by.
00:42That is not good enough.
00:44We need to have people working.
00:45There are a lot of people who are genuinely disabled,
00:48who have significant conditions that need looking after.
00:51But what we've seen is that in that one million extra that we've got
00:54of people claiming benefits,
00:55a lot of people with low-lying conditions like anxiety,
00:59those people need to be in work and need to be supported into work.
01:03That's what we want to see.
01:04Do you blame the increase in mental health issues being used
01:07as reasons not to work as part of this bill going up?
01:10No, actually, what I blame is the way that they do the assessments.
01:14During Covid, we allowed remote assessments to take place
01:17for understandable reasons.
01:18But what's happening now is that people are just ringing up and saying,
01:22I'm too anxious to come in for an assessment.
01:25And they immediately get a classification and benefits.
01:29There are even people on social media called sick fluencers
01:32who are telling people what to say so that they can claim benefits.
01:36And that is not fair because it's clogging up the system
01:38for those people who need proper assessments.
01:41We're needing to hire more staff to look after a larger cohort of people.
01:46We need to get people back into work.
01:47Are people being work shy here?
01:50I think that there is an element of that.
01:52I think that we need to make sure that we don't have
01:55a lopsided incentive system.
01:57Right now, there are 28 million people working
01:59to help 28 million people not working.
02:02The rider is now as big as the horse.
02:04We've got to fix that.
02:05So the people we're supporting are those people
02:07who get out there every day working hard,
02:11some on minimum wage, whether you're a nurse or a plumber,
02:13you've got a small business.
02:14Those are the people that the Conservatives are supporting.
02:17We don't want to see the benefits bill go up.
02:20Reform wants more benefits.
02:22That is where we are different from them.
02:24We believe in fiscal responsibility.
02:26And what we're seeing right now is that we're overspending.
02:28A hundred billion pounds extra.
02:30Who's going to pay for that?
02:31It's our kids.
02:32That's not fair.
02:33Someone's got to change something.
02:34You're working out your policy programme now,
02:36if you're the next Prime Minister.
02:37What would you do to cut benefits?
02:39So we would deal with the remote assessments.
02:42People need to be assessed in person,
02:44whether they're being assessed at a job centre or at home.
02:47We need to do that.
02:48We also need to support those people
02:50who have those low-level conditions back into work.
02:55So there should be some support for that as well.
02:57But we need to cut the bill.
02:59There's a lot that can be done.
03:00You know, organisations like the CSJ
03:02have put in reports showing how they can save $9 billion.
03:05Labour is talking about saving $1 billion to $2 billion
03:08off a £100 billion bill
03:09when it was $40 billion not that long ago.
03:11That's not enough.
03:13Just on a different issue.
03:14We're here in Parliament.
03:15We heard from Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary,
03:17about these dreadful remarks, hateful remarks,
03:20broadcast by the BBC from the Glastonbury Festival.
03:24Should the BBC rip up its deal with Glastonbury?
03:27I wouldn't mind that.
03:29If they cannot stop acts from preaching hate,
03:32I mean, talking about from the river to the sea,
03:34death to the idea, that's absolutely disgusting.
03:37And there were two bands who do this sort of thing.
03:40One was the, I think, Bob Villain.
03:42The other one was Kneecap, which, if you remember, Chris,
03:45I stopped them getting government money
03:46when I was business secretary.
03:47An election happened.
03:49Labour caved in.
03:50Let them have that money.
03:51We're actually paying some of these people.
03:53It's completely ridiculous.
03:54This is a band where one of its members
03:56is being charged, I believe, with terrorism.
03:58That cannot be right.
03:59And the BBC needs to do better.
04:00There were loads of acts
04:01that they could have filmed that day.
04:03Why did they film the one that was pushing messages
04:06that were incitement to hate?
04:07Both of those are live criminal cases.
04:09We'll stay away from that.
04:09But the BBC's involvement is interesting.
04:12Tim Davies is in charge.
04:13He's the director general.
04:15Should he resign?
04:16I think that Tim Davies has a lot of serious questions to answer.
04:19This is not the first time that the BBC
04:21has been accused of allowing material
04:24that is intimidating to Jews.
04:26And what I want to say to the Jewish people in our country
04:29is that we back you, we support you,
04:31we can see what is happening.
04:33It is quite wrong for any sort of intimidation
04:35to be taking place.
04:36And you only need to look at what happened with Lucy Connolly.
04:39What she did was not as significant
04:41as many of these more horrific cases.
04:44So it's quite clear that sometimes
04:45the state knows how to tackle this.
04:47So let's see them tackle these people
04:48who are pushing hateful messages
04:51and stop rushing out, you know,
04:53putting mums in prison for tweets
04:55when actually there are a lot of other people
04:57who deserve much stricter sanctions.
04:59Just finally, on Tim Davies' future,
05:01should he walk for this?
05:02It's not the first time there are issues with the BBC.
05:06Well, I think that there is supposed to be
05:08a review that's taking place.
05:09I think that's the right place for that.
05:11So, no, I don't think that it's got to that point.
05:14But there are very, very serious questions to answer.
05:16And just on Lucy Connolly there,
05:17you mentioned that does exercise
05:19a lot of TV News viewers and listeners.
05:21It exercises me as well.
05:24There was a lot of leeway
05:25that could have been looked at at many points.
05:28The charging, the sentencing.
05:29What she did was wrong.
05:31But what we're seeing is that a lot of other people
05:33do the same thing and do worse
05:35and they get away with it.
05:36And that's what I hate.
05:37It's that inequality before the law.
05:39Let's have one law for everybody.
05:41Is that two-tier justice then?
05:42I think that...
05:43Well, it looks like it.
05:44And I do think that we need to get to a place
05:46where we have equality under the law.
05:48The same justice for everybody.
05:49That's what the Conservative Party stands for.
05:51Kimmy Berman, thank you there.
05:52And there you have it for Michelle.
05:53Kimmy Berman up there
05:54with some tough words there for the government.
05:56But the big news is
05:57the Tories will vote against tomorrow's benefits bill.
06:00It'll be a big night in Parliament.
06:01I'll be there covering it for GB News.
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