Chancellor toughens rules on benefits as he announces Civil Service freeze

Published

2 years ago

October 2, 2023

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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has reiterated the government’s commitments to make benefits sanctions harsher – while also committing to raising the national living wage above £11 an hour.

In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, the senior minister also revealed a plan to save £1bn by freezing the expansion of the Civil Service and reducing the level of staffing to pre-pandemic levels.

Mr Hunt‘s intervention comes around six weeks ahead of his autumn financial statement.

While not as tumultuous as his predecessor’s party conference speech last year – where Kwasi Kwarteng had to admit his party was U-turning on a key part of his mini-budget – Mr Hunt is still under pressure.

Tory conference live: Party chair makes admission about next election

Many voices within the Conservative Party want him to cut taxes, including cabinet ministers.

Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove said he would “like to see the tax burden reduced by the next election”.

Mr Hunt on Saturday said the government was “not in a position to talk about tax cuts at all” – but all bets are off when it comes to party conferences.

The government has been eyeing welfare changes as a way to cut down on spending, and also encouraging people back into work in a bid to grow the economy.

Mr Hunt told the party membership in Manchester: “Since the pandemic, things have been going in the wrong direction. Whilst companies struggle to find workers, around 100,000 people are leaving the labour force every year for a life on benefits.

“As part of that, we will look at the way the sanctions regime works. It is a fundamental matter of fairness. Those who won’t even look for work do not deserve the same benefits as people trying hard to do the right thing.”

The chancellor also announced that Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride would look again at the benefit sanctions regime to make it harder for people to claim benefits while refusing to take active steps to move into work.

And a spokesman confirmed the proposals would be set out in the upcoming autumn statement.

Speaking last month, Mr Stride said that he was consulting on changes to the Work Capability Assessment, the test aimed at establishing how much a disability or illness limits someone’s ability to work.

Mr Hunt also confirmed a new policy that could seek people looking for new jobs, with a freeze on the number of civil servants.

“We have the best civil servants in the world – and they saved many lives in the pandemic by working night and day,” said the chancellor. “But even after that pandemic is over, we still have 66,000 more civil servants than before.

“New policies should not always mean new people. So today I’m freezing the expansion of the civil service and putting in place a plan to reduce its numbers to pre-pandemic levels. This will save £1bn next year.

“And I won’t lift the freeze until we have a proper plan not just for the civil service but for all public sector productivity improvements.”

But the move was criticised by the Public and Commercial Services union general secretary, Mark Serwotka, who said: “Thirty seconds after praising civil servants for their work during the pandemic, Jeremy Hunt announced a freeze on recruitment.

“Shrinking an already-overstretched and under-resourced civil service will inevitably result in cuts to vital services that people depend on.”

He added: “As usual, a Conservative government is seeking to blame working people for the incompetence of their own ministers.”

Raising the living wage

On the national living wage, Mr Hunt said the government was going to accept the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation to raise the baseline to at least £11 an hour from April 2024.

Resisting sizeable pay increases in the public sector has been part of the government’s strategy to keep spending and inflation under control.

Mr Hunt said: “Since we introduced the national living wage, nearly two million people have been lifted from absolute poverty. That’s the Conservative way of improving the lives of working people. Boosting pay, cutting tax.”

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Ahead of the speech, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, said: “I’ve always made it clear that hard work should pay, and today we’re providing a well-earned pay rise to millions of people across the country.

“This means a full-time worker will receive an increase of over £1,000 to their annual earnings, putting more money in the pockets of the lowest paid.

“We’re sending a clear message to hard-working taxpayers across the country; our Conservative government is on your side”.

Hunt struggles to be heard above tax cut hollers

The chancellor’s speech usually sets the agenda at conference, but today, Jeremy Hut was playing catch up.

He’s been struggling to be heard among the clamour within his party for tax cuts.

Today he attempted to regain control of the narrative – chiefly that bringing down inflation is the “best tax cut” the government can give to the public.

“We’re getting there,” he said. “The plan is working and now we must see it through – just as Margaret Thatcher did many years ago.”

It was a rebuke to members of his own party as much as it was to Labour, as just hours earlier, former prime minister Liz Truss was leading the charge on the issue.

Speaking at a packed fringe event, she said that tax cuts were the key to making the Tories “the party of business again” and “unlocking economic growth”.

And she urged the government to cut corporation tax to 19% at the autumn statement.

But during his appearance, the chancellor warned that while it was easy to support a high growth and low tax economy, it was “harder to make it happen”.

Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, said her party “believes in responsibility – that those who can work, should look for work and take jobs when they are offered”.

But she said the government also had “a responsibility to create real opportunities and not write people off”, adding: “This is something the Tories have utterly failed to deliver.

“We now have record numbers of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which is costing taxpayers an extra £15bn a year just since the pandemic.

“[Labour] will tackle the root causes of economic inactivity by driving down NHS waiting lists, reforming social security, making work pay, and supporting people into good jobs across every part of the country. Real opportunities matched by the responsibility to take them up – because that’s what fairness is all about.”

Politics

Shouts of ‘genocide’ in Commons as David Lammy denounces Israel’s ‘intolerable’ actions in Gaza

Published

41 mins ago

May 20, 2025

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Shouts of 'genocide' in Commons as David Lammy denounces Israel's 'intolerable' actions in Gaza

The foreign secretary has denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza as “intolerable” but stopped short of saying it had committed genocide.

MPs could be heard shouting “genocide” in the Commons chamber as David Lammy announced the government was suspending its trade negotiations with Israel and summoning Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, to the Foreign Office.

The UK has also sanctioned a number of individuals and groups in the West Bank which it says have been linked with acts of violence against Palestinians – including Daniella Weiss, a leading settler activist who was the subject of Louis Theroux’s recent documentary The Settlers.

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Israel immediately criticised the UK government actions as “regrettable” and said the free trade agreement talks, which ministers have now backed out of, were “not being advanced at all by the UK government”.

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign affairs ministry, said: “If, due to anti-Israel obsession and domestic political considerations, the British government is willing to harm the British economy – that is its own prerogative.”

Mr Lammy’s intervention came in response to Israel ramping up its latest military offensive in Gaza and its decision to limit the amount of aid into the enclave.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, accused Israel of “deliberately and unashamedly” imposing inhumane conditions on Palestinians by blocking aid from entering Gaza more than 10 weeks ago.

He also told the UN’s security council last week that it must “act now” to “prevent genocide” – a claim that Israel has vehemently denied.

Speaking in the Commons, the foreign secretary said the threat of starvation was “hanging over hundreds of thousands of civilians” and that the 11-week blockade stopping humanitarian aid reaching Gaza was “indefensible and cruel”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to allow a limited amount of aid into the besieged enclave in response to global concern at reports of famine.

Mr Lammy said Mr Netanyahu’s govenrment was “isolating Israel from its friends and partners around the world, undermining the interests of the Israeli people and damaging the image of the state of Israel in the eyes of the world”.

“We are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict,” Mr Lammy added.

“Netanyahu’s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.”

Referring to one of the far-right ministers in Mr Netanyahu’s government, he said Bezalel Smotrich “even spoke of Israeli forces cleansing Gaza, destroying what’s left of residents, Palestinians being relocated, he said, to third countries”.

MPs from across the house shouted “genocide” as Mr Lammy said: “We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

In the Commons, a number of Labour MPs urged the government to go further against Israel.

Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP for Bolton South and Walkden, said there needed to be a “full arms embargo” and said: “Can I ask the foreign secretary what additional steps he’s going to be taking in order to stave off this genocide?”

Another Labour MP told Sky News that while the statement was “better than previously…without a concrete timeline and a sanctioning of responsible ministers, it’s hard to know what tangible difference it will make.”

Israeli officials have said its plans to seize all of Gaza and hold it indefinitely. – which would move the civilian population southward – will help it achieve its aim of defeating Hamas.

Israel also believes the offensive will prevent Hamas from looting and distributing humanitarian aid, which it says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu has defended Israel’s actions in Gaza and reacted angrily to a joint statement penned by the leaders of the UK, France and Canada, in which they urged Israel to end its military offensive in Gaza and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid allowed into the enclave.

The Israeli prime minister said: “By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottawa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.

“No nation can be expected to accept anything less and Israel certainly won’t. This is a war of civilisation over barbarism. Israel will continue to defend itself by just means until total victory is achieved.”

Politics

SEC crypto task force to release first report ‘in the next few months’

Published

2 hours ago

May 20, 2025

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<div>SEC crypto task force to release first report 'in the next few months'</div>

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Paul Atkins appeared before lawmakers in one of his first hearings since becoming chair of the financial regulator, addressing questions about his plans for the cryptocurrency industry.

In a May 20 hearing discussing oversight of the SEC, Atkins reiterated his pledge to make regulating digital assets a “key priority” while chair. In response to questions from North Carolina Representative Chuck Edwards, the SEC chair did not directly answer how much of the regulator’s funds were used to support the crypto task force headed by Commissioner Hester Peirce, and said its findings were “still under development.”

“We should be having something here in the next few months with proposed steps forward,” said Atkins in response to the task force’s first report.

Cryptocurrencies, Government, SEC, United States — *Paul Atkins at a May 20 SEC oversight hearing. Source:* *House Appropriations Committee*

The SEC chair’s appearance at the oversight hearing was one of his first since being sworn into office in April. Nominated by Donald Trump, Atkins, also a former commissioner, was seen by many lawmakers and those in the digital asset industry as someone who could radically change the SEC’s approach to crypto.

Looking to Congress for help with regulatory clarity

Atkins’ remarks came less than 24 hours after US Senators voted to move forward on consideration of a bill to regulate stablecoins, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, or GENIUS Act. The bill is one of many related to aspects of digital assets that could affect how the SEC regulates the industry alongside agencies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

“Whatever happens in Congress […] that will help undergird what we do,” said Atkins.

Since being sworn into office in April, the SEC chair has given opening remarks and overseen the commission’s roundtable events on digital assets. The next event, scheduled for June 9, will have SEC commissioners and industry leaders discuss issues related to decentralized finance.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

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Suspension of trade talks a political signal that Israeli leadership is increasingly isolated

Published

2 hours ago

May 20, 2025

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Suspension of trade talks a political signal that Israeli leadership is increasingly isolated

The UK has suspended trade talks with Israel, in protest at what David Lammy called the “intolerable” conditions in Gaza, which he said would leave the population at risk of starvation.

This is, the foreign office confirms, a UK first, in suspending trade talks for a political or humanitarian reason. The Israeli ambassador in London, Tzipi Hotovely, will be summoned to the Foreign Office to deliver the message.

Politics live: PM apologises for being ‘overly rude’ at PMQs

This suspension, with immediate effect, is a political signal that the Israeli leadership is increasingly isolated even among its allies; and intended to ratchet up the pressure to let aid in.

It comes with a step change in the UK’s language on the humanitarian situation.

Keir Starmer on Monday night, in his joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said there would be “concrete steps” if food and medicine continued to be held up at borders; and this is one of the levers available.

David Lammy, announcing the move and targeted sanctions against West Bank settlers linked to violence, called it a “dark phase” in the conflict and said: “[Benjamin] Netanyahu’s actions have made this necessary.”

Trade talks were launched under Rishi Sunak’s government, and a 2030 Roadmap was agreed for boosting trade.

Gaza live: UK halts trade talks with Israel

But although the Labour government committed to continuing with it, the last round of talks was held more than a year ago.

Israel has, the UN say, not allowed trucks in for 11 weeks, after saying Hamas steal the aid intended for civilians. Some trucks entered on Tuesday, but aid agencies say it is nowhere near enough.

With the collapse of the latest talks between the two sides in Qatar last week, the ceasefire the UK is calling for looks far off.

Using economic measures to force the aid issue is likely to be a signal to other allies, including the European Union, to take similar steps.