Don’t cut benefits to fund defence spending, PCS general secretary tells Andy Burnham in interview at Labour conference
Fran Heathcote told LFF that the government shouldn't 'increase military spending at the expense of people on Universal Credit benefits'
The general secretary of the PCS union – Fran Heathcote – has warned that the prime minister Andy Burnham should not make cuts to the welfare budget in order to fund defence spending. She made the comments in an interview with Left Foot Forward at the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool.
Heathcote – whose union represents civil servants – told LFF that her union was at the conference to raise the issues of the cost of living and “people being able to pay the bills and make ends meet”. She went on to say: “We have a lot of members on minimum wage. We have people who are claiming the very benefits they administer – so they may work for the DWP processing Universal Credit, but receive Universal Credit because they don’t earn enough to make ends meet.”
The government’s approach to welfare has been a major theme of this conference. While no frontbencher has fleshed out what Burnham plans to do on benefits, it has become abundantly clear that major reform to the system is round the corner.
In his speech to the conference, work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden said reforming the welfare system was a “moral crusade”. The chancellor John Healey struck a similar tone when he addressed delegates, telling the conference hall that a growing welfare bill was “not progressive”.
LFF put the comments from frontbenchers to Heathcote, who said that her union has “big campaigns ahead” to protect the welfare system from cuts.
She told LFF: “We would be opposed to anything that seeks to cut [benefits] and to increase military spending at the expense of people on Universal Credit benefits. As I say, that includes our own members”.
Heathcote would go on to argue that the welfare state can be funded by “taxing people properly”, and ensuring that “those that can afford to pay their taxes should pay their taxes”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Heathcote gave her views on the shifting government policy on Palestine, given PCS’ longstanding steadfast support for justice for the Palestine people. That shift has seen the government introduce sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Heathcote told LFF: “You have to acknowledge that it is a welcome shift, but it doesn’t go far enough and we think more needs to be done.”
She went on to say that her union wanted to see the government work to “allow the Palestinian people to determine” their future and called for the introduction of more extensive sanctions. “When Russia attacked Ukraine, we imposed sanctions on Russia – rightly so – so what’s the difference with Israel?, Heathcote added.
She would later conclude: “I think now we want the genocide to stop. We’re still seeing women and children and thousands of Palestinians being killed and that situation has to end.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: Steve Eason – Creative Commons
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