We were joined by Mel Stride, who was the Work and Pensions Secretary until the election and is now running to be Conservative leader.

Cathy Newman: Mel Stride – Sir Keir Starmer says you guys left the country in a complete mess, this budget is going to be painful and it’s your fault.

Mel Stride: It’s a smokescreen. We challenged Labour during the run-up to the general election because we knew they planned very large tax increases. They denied that at the time and in fact ruled out a lot of the bigger taxes. But what we now know is that they may say ‘it was all far worse than we ever expected,’ that’s just not simply the case. They all along were planning to raise taxes – and that’s what you’re going to see on October 30th. The winter fuel allowance is gone – pensioners are paying the price.

Cathy Newman: I want to pick you up on what you just said because you have advocated a credible, persuasive economic plan. Saying that you wouldn’t have to put up taxes or cut public spending is neither credible nor persuasive, is it?

Mel Stride: So the big thing that Keir Starmer is ducking are some of the big choices around. For example, the area that I was responsible for – welfare. We went into the last election with a very clear, credible plan to cut the welfare budget, get more people into work, raising about £12 billion. That and fraud and error changes would have been about 18 billion, which we were going to put in cuts to National Insurance, which would have driven growth and been good for jobs. The Labour Party have done nothing on welfare. They’ve said nothing about it. They’re prepared to let those bills skyrocket up into the stratosphere.

Cathy Newman: Yes but that’s one aspect we’re talking about. This £22 billion black hole that they say they’ve discovered is largely because you hadn’t set aside the money for public sector pay rises of more than 2%. Inflation peaked at 11%. That wasn’t credible or persuasive either, was it?

Mel Stride: Cathy, the IFS made it very clear that before the election the books were “wide open” for the Labour Party to see. They always knew there were going to be public sector pay increases that had to be met. They are the people that chose to give their union paymasters, Aslef and so on, way above inflationary increases.

Cathy Newman: But 2% was not credible nor persuasive. That’s what you’d pencilled in. It was ridiculous. That was a smokescreen.

Mel Stride: They did not have to give the junior doctors 22%. They did not have to give the Aslef train union 14. They just keeled over.

Cathy Newman: But you would’ve had to have given more than 2%, right?

Mel Stride: The point is these are about choices. They took the choice to pay out 9.4 billion, which is included in their figure of 20 billion, a so-called black hole. They knew that amount was coming in. That’s almost 50% of the so-called black hole that they’re citing. So that is not credible.

Cathy Newman: You would have had to have coughed up more than 2% and you know that to be the case. Is that a yes or a no?

Mel Stride: Well, the public pay review bodies make their recommendations.

Cathy Newman: Yes, and you were sitting on them.

Mel Stride: And governments take a decision based on those recommendations.

Cathy Newman: Yeah but you didn’t take a decision, you shelved it, you kicked it into the long grass.

Mel Stride: Many of them hadn’t even come forward at the time of the general election, actually. But we were not going to be saying to the train drivers and others, here’s your money – and we don’t expect any productivity improvements whatsoever. No strings attached. At the same time as paying for that on the backs of pensioners, many of whom are now going to go into the cold and dark this winter because the winter fuel payment has been withdrawn. That is not the right way for it to be done and they weren’t honest with the British people about it.

Cathy Newman: Well, you’re not being honest now, because actually, it was your party’s obsession with tax cuts that meant you… Well, you’re the most moderate leadership contender, right? Your colleagues were so obsessed with cutting taxes. One of your colleagues, Liz Truss, even looked at scrapping NHS cancer treatment to fund her tax cutting budget. That was crazy wasn’t it?

Mel Stride: The most important thing with tax cuts is they have to be fiscally responsible. That means they have to be funded. So there were things that happened in the past that were unfunded and we saw what happened.

Cathy Newman: Yeah but you carried on that obsession under Rishi Sunak, didn’t you?

Mel Stride: Well no because we went into the general election with a clear plan for funding the scrapping of National Insurance over this coming parliament, and that was to be substantially paid for by the reforms that I drove through the Department of Work and Pensions. So, in other words, we were taking the tough choices, Cathy, that would have allowed us to cut taxes. The Labour Party just went into denial during the run-up to the general election, told everybody it would be absolutely fine, even on the winter fuel payment, for example – said ‘we have no plans to do anything on that’. Well, that wasn’t straight.

Cathy Newman: 2% of Tory members, according to a YouGov poll, back you for the leadership. Are you too leftie for your party or are they too right-wing for you?

Mel Stride: No, no, this is a long contest. The first round, actually, is what the Conservative MPs think, because they’re going to go and vote in about a week – and in two weeks time – to take the six down to four. I’m very confident that I have strong support in the parliamentary party. It will then go out to hustings, televised debates, all sorts of things that will then move the dial. I think that I have a really strong chance in this contest. David Cameron was 25 to 1 at the bookies to be leader of the Conservative Party just one week before that conference, which turned everything around.

Cathy Newman: You’re the heir to Cameron?

Mel Stride: He went on to lead the party and he went on to become prime minister.