THE SNP’s Westminster leader has hit out at Keir Starmer’s “priorities” following the Labour leader’s morning media round on Thursday.
Starmer spoke to a number of media outlets on a range of issues such as the two-child benefit cap, the House of Lords and tuition fees in England.
Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if he would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap, Starmer said: “In an ideal world, of course. But we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment.
“What I will do, because child poverty is something I am absolutely set against, the last Labour government had an anti-child poverty strategy and we managed to do a huge amount of good stuff on child poverty.
“We will do the same thing and have a child poverty strategy, but there are other elements to it.”
He was also grilled on the same programme if he is still committed to scrapping the House of Lords as Labour have previously signalled they want to do so.
“I do want to abolish the House of Lords. The question is what are the priorities straight away,” the Labour leader said.
It comes as he joins Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar for the launch of Scottish Labour’s General Election campaign (below).
Reacting to Starmer’s interviews this morning, Stephen Flynn said on Twitter/X: “Sounds like Starmer is ‘prioritising’ no change at all.”
Speaking to Sky News, Starmer said he also felt the current system on tuition fees in England was “unfair” having previously committed to ditching them.
He said he couldn’t abolish fees and that this was an example of “the practical reality of the damage that the Tories have done to the economy,” adding that he was prioritising the NHS over tuition fees.
Reacting on Twitter/X, the SNP’s John Nicolson said: “Sir Keir Starmer confirms on #r4Today that he will not honour his previous promise to scrap student tuition fees.
“By contrast in Scotland @theSNP Scottish Government has scrapped tuition fees for students.
“This is a huge gulf between the SNP and Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour.”
