Health secretary Wes Streeting was presented with a brutal graph putting Labour’s £22bn black hole claim into perspective this morning.
The new government has repeatedly said the Conservatives left behind a huge gap between they thought was coming in and how much is actually being spent.
Labour say this is why it is asking MPs to vote on restricting winter fuel payments in the Commons next week – a move which, if voted through, will leave around 10 million pensioners worse-off.
So a handful of Labour MPs are considering voting against the government – and PM Keir Starmer has refused to say whether or not that could result in their suspension from the party.
With this potential headache looming for the government, presenter Trevor Phillips presented Streeting with a large chart showing just how large the £22bn black hole in comparison to the rest of the government spending – which stands at a whopping £1,226bn.
The Sky News host said: “I mean, seriously, the £22bn black hole – it’s not the biggest thing in the world that you have to face, is it?”
“No, that is not what I said,” Streeting replied.
Phillips cut in: “You’re making £22bn sound like if you don’t fix it, the economy is going to crash.”
The leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, sparked concern after saying only last weekend that the economy was at risk of crashing unless the government fixed that £22bn black hole.
Streeting sarcastically hit back: “Oh, let’s just go on spending more than we’ve got, we’ll go on ratcheting up the debt, the deficit – who cares, right?
“That was basically where the last Conservative government got to.”
But Phillips cut off Streeting’s attempts to slam the Tories, saying: “I’d like to spend at least some of this interview talking about some of your decisions rather than the Conservative past.”
He added that the winter fuel allowance cut was still Labour’s choice, and that the House of Lords scrutiny committee had released a report this week saying the decision to cut back on winter fuel payments did not need to be rushed through.
Streeting said it was a “tough choice” with “political pain” and that he was not “remotely happy” about having to vote for it.
Throughout the interview, he reiterated that Labour are facing a major challenge with the government’s finances because of the mess the Tories left behind, saying: “It was an unprecedented degree of in-year recklessness.”
He added: “Whether it’s pensioners or anyone else in this country, they won’t forgive us if we duck the difficult decisions now and end up leaving the country with a bigger bill and a bigger price of failure for the future. That was the Conservative way and that’s not the approach we’re going to take.”