THE Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary said the Conservatives would slash £12 billion from the welfare bill if the party wins the next general election.

Speaking during the Camilla Tominey Show on GB News, Helen Whately also said she was “disgusted” by the anti-Israel comments made by Bob Vylan and the reactions of some in the crowd at Glastonbury.

She said: “What we said to Keir Starmer, when he was really struggling last week, and it was clear that he was going to be facing a defeat in the Commons next week, is that we would actually support welfare savings from Labour if they did three things.

“One is commit to actually bring the bill down properly. Two is to get more people into work, and three is to commit to use those savings to be able to avoid putting up taxes in the autumn, which looks at the moment highly likely as what they’re going to do.

“We made a commitment in our manifesto that, were we in government, we would be bringing the welfare bill down by £12 billion. I’m at the moment doing the hard work that you should do in opposition, which is work out if we get into government in the after next general election, what are the things that we would propose then to be able to bring down the welfare bill.

“If it goes up, as it looks like it’s going to, [it will be] nearly £100 billion under this government.”

Whately said she agreed that £9 billion could be cut by stopping payouts for mild health conditions: “There’s some work that the Centre for Social Justice published last week, and I was been talking about this, which is where, because we see that the fastest area of growth in claims for sickness benefits is to do with common mental disorders.

“Some of the things that you’ve referred to in behavioural conditions, actually that’s what we think the government really needs to control. And so examples of that, anxiety, mild depression and ADHD, for instance.

“The Centre for Social Justice reckons you could save up to £9 billion by doing that and actually then you could use some of those savings to invest in some treatment to support that people with some of those conditions may need to be in work.”

Asked about the controversial comments made by Bob Vylan at Glastonbury, she said: “I did watch the clips, and I was just disgusted by what I saw. I can’t believe that the BBC continued to show it.

“I think they’ve got questions to answer as to how did that happen…the footage of a crowd being encouraged to chant a death to Israeli soldiers, and particularly to see that at a music festival when it was what nearly two years ago at a music festival in Israel where we saw young festival goers raped and murdered.

“It was just disgusting to then see this chant happening at a music festival in the UK.”

Asked if the BBC’s Director General needs to consider his position, she said: “There are serious questions for the BBC to answer as to, how did this happen?”