Stride defends Tory plan to slash overseas aid spending to 0.1% of national income – UK politics live

In his interview with GB News Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, was asked about claims that the Conservative party is “dying”. (See 9.01am.) Clearly, he could not say yes. Instead he replied:

No. I think this conference will be part of a turning point.

I think we had a superb speech from Kemi yesterday, the hall was packed. Standing ovations. Real buzz.

And I think what that is about is that a lot of people, for some time now, have been saying we don’t know what the Conservative Party stands for. We don’t hear enough about policies. Well, at this conference, that is a turning point, because we are talking about how we will control our borders … And I’m making big announcements about big, serious, grown-up spending cuts to the size of government in order that we can live within our means.

And in his interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Stride was asked about reports that Robert Jenrick’s supporters are actively preparing for a leadership challenge. In a report for the i, Kitty Donaldson wrote.

Allies of Robert Jenrick are collecting no-confidence letters from Conservative MPs calling for party leader Kemi Badenoch to quit, The i Paper has been told.

Up to a dozen supporters of the shadow justice secretary are said to have penned letters, being held back for deployment after 3 November to use in a “show of strength” to urge Badenoch to step down “when the time is right” …

Jenrick’s team denied he was involved or had any knowledge of the plans. “This is bollocks,” a spokesman said, adding no friend of the senior Tory would make these claims.

Asked if he had had a conversation with Jenrick about the leadership, Stride said: “Absolutely not.” He went on:

If anybody thinks that changing leaders, which is something that the Conservative party has done many times in the recent period, is the answer to the challenge of getting back into office, then they’re deeply deluded.

The last thing the public wants to see between now and the general election is yet another upheaval within the Conservative party, in which we search for another leader.

The things that are holding us back are that we ended up in a difficult position. We’ve got to show that through our principles, our policies and sticking and holding our nerve, that we can come through. And Kemi is leading us in that way.

Overseas nationals denied benefits under a Conservative plan to limit social security to UK citizens would have the option to return to their own countries, the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride has said in interviews this morning. Peter Walker has the story.

Related: Tories say people denied benefits in UK can return to home countries

Over the weekend at least two news organisations – the Financial Times, here, and the Independent, here – suggested the Conservatives are heading of “oblivion”. The FT hedged its bets a bit, but in the Independent John Rentoul described the Tories as “a Potemkin party that will cease to exist within four years”.

In his First Edition briefing for the Guardian, Archie Bland has done the same exercise, but he has managed to find an alternative word. He asks if Kemi Badenoch is leading the Tories toward extinction. And his answer is, very probably.

Here is an extract from Archie’s briefing, which includes an interview with the political commentator Sam Freedman.

The Conservatives are not alone among traditionally centre-right parties in Europe in being outstripped by their more radical rivals: versions of the same thing are happening in Italy, France, Germany and plenty of other countries besides. But that’s not much consolation for the self-styled “natural party of government” – and it doesn’t help with a solution to their basic bind: they are leaking voters on both sides of their coalition, with no obvious route to winning one set back without alienating the other.

“They’re still trapped in the same place – too vulgar for the home counties, not populist enough for Reform voters,” Sam Freedman said. “Kemi Badenoch is trying to hold the middle position. But that’s impossible, because it’s contradictory.”

And here is the full article.

Related: Monday briefing: Is Kemi Badenoch leading a Tory party on the brink of extinction?

Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has defended plans to slash spending on overseas aid to 0.1% of national income – the lowest level on record.

In an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the presenter Ed Balls (who himself was a Labour shadow chancellor more than 10 years ago) pointed out that the overseas aid cuts proposed today (see 7.59am) would take aid spending to 0.1% of overall national income. When David Cameron was Tory leader, he got it up to 0.7%, the UN target. Balls said this would be the lowest level for UK aid spending since records began in the 1960s, and the lowest level for any European country other than Cyprus. Russia would be the only developed country spending less, Balls claimed. He asked Stride what this said about the Tory party.

Stride replied:

What it speaks to is the position that we are in as an economy. We are living on borrowed time. And unless we have a government that recognises that, and takes these tough decisions … then we will end up in a very, very difficult position.

Stride said the debt to GDP ratio was “spiralling ever upwards and needs to be arrested”. He went on:

There is a point on that journey at which the wheels of this economy will completely come off. And that will not help anybody around the world if Britain becomes impoverished, bankrupt and unable to further its values across the globe.

So yes, these are tough decisions, I accept that. But they are the right ones.

And this is what the Conservative party says about how it would cut welfare spending by £23bn over the course of the next parliament. (See 7.59am.) In its news release on this it says:

We will deliver £23 billion in savings by reforming non-pensioner welfare through:

-Restricting welfare to UK citizens

-Reforming sickness and disability benefits by ending access for lower-level mental health conditions and making greater use of face-to-face assessment

-Reforming housing benefit

-Reviewing the rates and exemptions from the Household Benefit Cap

-Limiting the VAT subsidy for Motability

-Reforming job-seeking obligations

-Retaining the two-child benefit cap

Good morning. In May, when Reform UK took control of 10 councils in England after successful election results, Nigel Farage, the party leader, promised that the new Reform councillors would slash wasteful spending, not least by purging funding for anything “woke”. Those with more experience of local government finances were sceptical, and today the Financial Times has a good story that shows why they were right not to take the Reform claims at face value. In her story, Anna Gross says:

Kent’s local authority is likely to raise council tax rates next year as Reform UK has struggled to find big savings under an Elon Musk-inspired cost-cutting drive.

Kent was one of 10 English councils that Nigel Farage’s rightwing populist party seized in a swath of victories at local elections in May this year. He vowed to save “a lot of money” by abolishing “wasteful” spending.

But Diane Morton, Reform’s cabinet member for adult social care on Kent county council, told the Financial Times that services in Kent were already “down to the bare bones”.

“We’ve got more demand than ever before and it’s growing,” she said, stressing she did not believe access to those services should be limited. “We just want more money.”

Gross quotes Morton as saying Kent is likely to raise council tax by 5%, the maximum allowed.

Why is this relevant? Because at the Conservative party conference today Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, is also promising colossal savings – worth £47bn over the course of the next parliament. Half that money will come from welfare cuts.

In a news release, the party says:

On welfare we will replace the broken system of sickness benefits with one that properly targets help to those who need it most.

That will include stopping claims for people with low level mental health problems because what is really needed is treatment and support, not cash.

We will also ensure that only British citizens can access welfare – ensuring that citizenship of this country means something.

The Conservative party are also committing to reversing any lifting of the two-child benefit cap.

Our measures will bring the welfare bill down by £23bn.

We will also take significant steps to reform the Civil Service.

There were 384,000 civil servants in 2016, but today that number has risen to a staggering 517,000.

This is unsustainable, so the Conservative party will bring those numbers back down to 2016 level: a measure that will save one pound in every four spent.

This will represent a saving of £8bn.

The Conservatives will also deliver serious cuts to the overseas aid budget because we cannot justify taxing people in this country to pay for billions of spending abroad. This will save nearly £7bn.

Additionally, the Conservatives will deliver significant savings through its Borders plan, which will end the asylum hotel scandal by removing all those who arrive illegally and save at least £3.5bn. By ensuring that benefits and social housing are for UK nationals we will free up nearly £4bn of council housing subsidy.

Finally, the Conservatives will scrap the costly and ineffective green subsidies being pushed by Ed Miliband, freeing the taxpayer and the public finances from his eco-experimentation and Net Zero by 2050 zealotry.

The Tories are also announcing that they would use part of the savings to fund a £5,000 national insurance bonus for young people, to be used towards the cost of a first home.

Stride has been doing interviews this morning, ahead of his speech to the conference. I will post the highlights soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, opens the morning session of the conference. Other speakers on the platform are Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, at 10.30am; Julia Lopez, the shadow technology secretary, at 10.55am: and Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, at 11.30am.

10am: Andrew Mitchell, the former international development secreary, and Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor, take part in a fringe meeting on aid.

10.30am: Stride speaks at a fringe event organised by Next Gen Tories.

11.40am: James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, takes part in a Q&A at an Onward fringe.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

1pm: Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, speaks at a fringe meeting on winning back young voters. At the same time Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, is speaking at an event on lessons to be learned from Germany, and Katie Lam is speaking at a fringe meeting on crime.

1.30pm: Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, takes part in a Q&A at a Spectator fringe.

2pm: Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, opens the afternoon session of the conferences. Other speakers on the platform are Helen Whateley, the shadow work and pensions secretary, at 2.25pm; Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, at 2.50pm; Nigel Huddleston, the shadow culture secretary, at 3.15pm; and Cleverly at 3.40pm.

2.30pm: Patel takes part in a fringe Q&A organised by the Coalition for Global Prosperity.

3.15pm: Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, speaks at a fringe meeting on migration.

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