Healey hinted at welfare reform in Liverpool on Monday (Alamy)
2 min read28 September
The Chancellor has pledged “fiscal discipline” and hinted at future welfare reform, arguing it is “not progressive to allow a bigger and bigger benefits bill”.
Speaking from Liverpool on the second day of Labour Party conference, Healey said that the “core” of the budget he will deliver next month will be “fiscal discipline”.
It comes after Healey inherited a difficult economic landscape from his predecessor, with growing concerns around the costs of government borrowing and an enduring war in Iran.
Healey told conference that the “hope” that Labour wants to bring to the country would be “earned through fiscal discipline, through good work, and through strong industries,” and he said he and the Prime Minister are “in lockstep that we will meet the fiscal rules, that we will maintain control of Britain’s finances”.
Elsewhere in the speech, Healey said: “I will bring fresh hope to build from the rock of fiscal discipline, built on a growing economy with good work and jobs in more places, built on a new age of industrialisation.”
While Healey was positive about the country’s outlook and the return to a Labour government, he said that “the money New Labour had in the 90s is simply not there now.”
Pointing to the Tories’ years in power, Healey said: “We had 14 years of flatlining Tory growth and living standards when Cameron’s austerity gutted our public services, when Johnson’s Brexit hammered our exports and Truss’s mini budget crashed the economy and collapsed confidence in Britain’s fiscal strength.”
Healey also used his speech on Monday to argue for the need for welfare reform, arguing that while the social security system “must always be there for those who can never work”, it is “not progressive to allow bigger and bigger benefits bill, and a system which offers an income but doesn’t offer a future.”
Pointing to the one million young people who are not in education, employment or training, Healey said that tackling this is “more than just an economic must. This is a moral duty.”
“I refuse to write off a million young people like the Tories have done.”
During his speech on Monday, Healey paid tribute to the former chancellor Rachel Reeves, pointing to her work on “financial discipline” and lifting the two-child benefit cap.
Healey also announced a new “local apprenticeship service” to help connect companies with young people, and said that the government would commit to £6bn of contracts for British shipyards.