Starmer takes a pop at OBR over welfare forecast

To the Commons, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer is speaking to the Liaison Committee before the House rises for Easter recess. The PM has spent much of this afternoon fending off questions on growth, healthcare and British industry – but it was on his government’s recently proposed welfare cuts that the Labour leader went on the attack, hitting out for the first time at the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Defending Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall’s benefits reforms announced last month, Sir Keir took at pop at the OBR over the way it scores the impact of the Labour lot’s welfare cuts. Speaking to the committee, Starmer insisted:

It is significant to my mind that the ability of any policy to change behaviour is not priced in. The OBR have scored nothing against any change here. The assumption is not a single person changes their behaviour. I personally struggle with that way of looking at it.