Politics latest: Tories bid to counter Farage with threat to strip migrants of right to claim benefits – UK Times

The shadow chancellor has suggested that foreigners who could not claim welfare under Tory plans to restrict benefits to UK citizens could instead go home or “work longer”.

“Well, they’ve come from other parts of the world and they would have an option to return to those other parts of the world,” Sir Mel Stride told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme when asked what those people would be expected to do.

He added: “I can’t speak to everybody’s individual circumstances. There are some that it wouldn’t necessarily impact them, this change.

“There are some that it would impact them.

“It’s some that will be able to adjust their working arrangements, or perhaps work longer, or whatever it may be as a response to this.

“The point that I think is important is that UK citizenship should mean something.

“I think when it comes to the benefits system, I think most people in this country feel that it’s right and proper that it is there for UK citizens.”

Kemi Badenoch used her opening speech of the Conservative Party conference to try to shake off Liz Truss’ legacy of economic disaster.

In her speech on Manchester on Monday, Mrs Badenoch stressed her party’s commitment to economic responsibility, saying it had “learnt” from Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

She said: “Economic responsibility is the hallmark of the Conservative approach and today it is right back at the heart of everything we stand for.

“We may be in Manchester, but the theme of economic responsibility will run through this conference like the words in a stick of Blackpool rock.”

It is the second day of the Conservative Party conference, with a day full of speeches from the shadow cabinet scheduled.

Here is who we are expecting to speak on the main stage and when:

10am: Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride

10:30am: Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho

10:55am: Shadow technology secretary Julia Lopez

11:30: Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins

2pm: Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith

2:25pm: Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately

2:50pm: Shadow transport secretary Richard Holden

3:15pm: Shadow culture secretary Nigel Huddleston

3:40pm: Shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly

EU nationals would still be able to get welfare payments under Tory plans to restrict them to British citizens, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride has said.

He was asked if he would have to redo the Brexit deal to exclude them from the restrictions under plans to cut spending if the Conservatives came back into government that he is due to set out today.

Sir Mel told Times Radio: “The figures that we’ve come forward today, and the policy we have today, excludes EU nationals, so that they are exempt from that situation by virtue of the very point that you’ve raised, that we have arrangements with the EU to that effect.”

Asked if he was looking to change that, he said: “We do not envisage doing that. This would be for those that are outside of that group, who are on indefinite leave to remain or limited leave to remain.”

It really is over for the Tories, says John Rentoul, which leaves Kemi Badenoch going through the motions at the party’s annual conference in Manchester.

But the demise of the party of Margaret Thatcher is part of a seismic wider realignment – in which the left, not the right, will be the political home of the better-off.

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The Conservatives will be the “grown-up” party of fiscal responsibility, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride has said ahead of his speech to Tory conference.

He told Sky News: “For far too long, our country has been living beyond its means.

“We’ve got a huge amount of debt, huge servicing costs on that debt and a trajectory for our economy that, I’m afraid, is unsustainable.

“Whilst the other parties are either busy messing the economy up, which is what Labour is doing, or fantasy economics from Reform, we have to be that grown-up party that sets out its stall around fiscal responsibility.”

The shadow chancellor is set to unveil proposals to bar non-UK citizens from claiming benefits if the Conservative Party wins power.

Among the plans to be announced on Monday is a £23 billion cut to the welfare bill, replacing payments to people with “low level” mental health conditions with treatment and barring non-citizens from claiming support.

If implemented today, the policy would prevent around 470,000 people — about 6% of the UK’s eight million universal credit claimants — from receiving the benefit.

The same restrictions would apply to disability benefits and the carer’s allowance, though access to pensions and public services would remain unchanged.

EU citizens with settled status under the Brexit agreement with Brussels would be exempt.