Slashing billions from the benefit bill and cutting the size of the civil service does not mark a return to austerity, Sir Keir Starmer has insisted, vowing that “we are not going down that route”.
There is mounting unease at the prime minister’s plans to cut welfare spending by up to £6bn but Sir Keir said “part of the problem we’ve got with our public services is what was done to them a decade or so ago” by David Cameron and George Osborne.
