Jeremy Corbyn has defended his party’s policy to compensate women who lost out on cash because of changes to the pensions age – despite admitting it would lead to more borrowing.
The Labour leader said the treatment of the WASPI women – who lost out on pensions cash because of changes to the pensions age – had created a “moral debt”
But under fire from the BBC’s Andrew Neil he struggled to explain the detail of how it would be funded.
Over the weekend the party announced that the 3.8m women affected will receive up to £31,300 each.
Labour says the policy would cost about £58bn, paid in instalments over five years.
But tonight when pushed for details, Mr Corbyn didn’t give an explanation of where the cash was going to come from beyond saying it would be from government reserves and borrowing “over some years”.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
When pushed the Labour leader said there were not sufficient funds in the government’s reserves to cover the bill.
But Mr Corby said Labour would stand up for the “short-changed” women.
“We will make sure they are compensated,” he said.
Yesterday the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has said that Labour’s pledge would “imminently break” its commitment to only borrow to invest and force it to further raise taxes.
Asked previously to explain how it would be funded Mr Corbyn agreed that it is a lot more money than normally comes from contingency money but said “it’s over a longer period is set it’s not only paid in one year.
The scheme costing £58bn would see the women given a basic payment of £100 for every week of pension they have lost out on, with the scheme tapering off for women born between April 1955 and April 1960.
During his BBC appearance on Friday, Johnson said that he could not commit to helping the women.
(Image: EPA-EFE/REX)
He said: “It is very expensive to come up with the solution that you want,” he said. “I cannot promise that I can magic up that money for you tonight.”
In a tough grilling with the BBC’s Andrew Neill, Mr Corbyn said he was “determined” that Britain would be safe for people of all faiths.
“I don’t want anyone to be feeling insecure in our society and our Government will protect every community,” he said.
The Labour leader explained his decision to remain neutral in any Brexit referendum.
“Let’s not set one community against the other. And so our party which represents people who voted both leave and remain has developed a policy,” he said.
“I will be the honest broker that will make sure that the referendum is fair and make sure that the leave deal is a credible one and the remain option is alongside it.”
Mr Corbyn justified his focus on taxing the rich in order to reverse almost a decade of Tory austerity – suggesting they would understand.
“I think they would also recognise that tax rates in general have gone down. That the levels of inequality have gone up,” he said.
“The levels of personal wealth for them have gone up enormously over the past 10 years, and they can see all around them the crumbling of public services and the terrible levels of child poverty that exist across Britain.”
He denied that a future Labour government would just borrow “willy nilly” -and would instead deal with the worst aspects of austerity.
