Labour's plans for cuts to disability benefits would not work, says Balls

The former shadow chancellor Ed Balls has criticised plans for cuts to disability benefits, saying on his podcast it was "not going to work".

- Jessica Elgot

George Osborne, the architect of welfare cuts under the coalition government, told the same podcast he had resisted freezing personal independence payments (Pip) - a move currently under consideration because he felt it was going too far.

Balls, an influential Labour figure who is married to the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, hinted that welfare changes would be hard for the party to stomach in the context of other cuts.

"It's one thing to say the economy is not doing well and we've got a fiscal challenge, but the context we're now in is that we are having to increase defence spending and, two weeks ago, it was announced we're going to cut international aid," he told the Political Currency podcast.

"But cutting the benefits of the most vulnerable in our society, who can't work, to pay for that - is not going to work. And it's not a Labour thing to do... it's not what they're for."