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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome. This is The Michelle Hussein Show. I'm Michelle Hussein. I speak with people like Elon Musk. I think I've done enough. And Shonda Rhimes. That's so cute. This will be a place where every weekend you can count on one essential conversation to help make sense of the world.
So please join me, listen and subscribe to The Michelle Hussein Show from Bloomberg Weekend, wherever you get your podcasts.
You certainly ask interesting questions.
Thanks for making time for Bloomberg TV and Radio, Chancellor. We've heard you say already that the public finances are in a pretty precarious position. So I want to ask you, many Labour MPs really want you to lift the two-child benefit cap, and we hear that includes the Prime Minister. Can we afford to do that?
Well, no one needs to tell me how important child poverty is. I came into the Labour Party because I wanted children from all backgrounds to have a good start in life. We've already made strides in reducing child poverty in this Parliament. We're rolling out free breakfast clubs at all primary schools, extending free school meals to an additional 500,000 children.
We've capped the cost of school uniform. We've increased the national living wage and national minimum wage. Would I like to do more? Yes. But, of course, we haven't always got to explain how policies will be paid for. We've got the report from the Child Poverty Task Force later this year and we'll respond to that. But it is important for all families that the numbers add up.
And that's always what I've done as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
And that's been a really strong message from you throughout. Does your party, though, understand how important it is to make the numbers add up, stand on the right side of the bond market?
We campaigned the election on economic stability, fiscal responsibility. And we did that for a reason, because it was ordinary working people and businesses who paid the price for the economic mismanagement in the last parliament, when interest rates went through the roof, when inflation got out of control, when pensions were put in peril.
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Chapter 2: Why has Chancellor Rachel Reeves ruled out a UK wealth tax?
So look, on winter fuel payments, on pay rises for doctors, on welfare reforms, you've seemed to give. But when are you going to take away? When are you going to choose the bond market over the left of your party?
Well, if you look today at my conference speech, I'll be setting out a youth guarantee. Because at the moment, we've got a million young people who are not in education, employment or training. That's one in eight young people. I'm not going to let that stand.
It is a waste of their talent and potential, but it's also a huge waste for business and a huge waste for taxpayers that we are subsidising young people to be out of work when we want them to be in training or in paid employment. And that's one example of how we're reforming the welfare state to get the costs down and at the same time bringing more people into work.
What would you do about it if someone said they don't want to work in the care home?
Well, that's not acceptable. Welfare is not an alternative to work. The welfare state is there if you need it. You can't say, oh, no, actually, I'd rather remain on benefits than take that job opportunity. And that's a really important part of what I'm setting out today.
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Chapter 3: What commitments has Rachel Reeves made regarding child poverty?
It builds on what the previous Labour government did under Tony Blair with the New Deal for young people that said there was not an option just to stay on benefits. And that's the same with me as Chancellor.
OK, look, I don't expect you to pre-empt your budget with me, Chancellor, but you did promise business that there'd be no more borrowing and no more tax rises. Is that still true?
Well, what I did last year at the budget was draw a line under the economic and fiscal mismanagement of the previous government. And that did require difficult decisions on taxes. So there won't be more of them? Well, I think all of your viewers can see that the last year has brought its fair share of global challenges. Yeah.
the global cost of borrowing, the tariffs from the United States, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, the disruptions to supply chains, Russia's intensifying aggression. I'm chancellor in the world as it is, not as the world as I might wish it to be. And I have to respond to those. But those fiscal rules that we set out in the election,
to pay for day-to-day spending through tax receipts, to get debt down as a share of GDP. To get the deficit down this year, those commitments stand. And I'm also determined to bring down inflation further because I recognize that inflation at 3.8% is still too high. That is a global challenge as well, but we get that down.
those commitments stand you say the manifesto stands in the manifesto you said will not increase national insurance the basic higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT yes or no does that still hold?
Yes it does and we also made that commitment around corporation tax as well and those commitments stand and they stand for a reason because working people paid a heavy price in the last parliament it was the worst parliament on record for living standards and It's still the biggest challenge for working people. So those commitments stand.
But what I want your viewers to know, that my commitments to economic stability, to fiscal responsibility and to those fiscal rules, they absolutely stand because they are the bedrock of stability and only with stability can we grow the economy.
So we need to know where you're going to find the money from. The French are in a similar fiscal bind. They're seemingly on the brink of a wealth tax. Is it time for a mansion tax here in the UK?
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