Lord Freud interview by Jeff Randall

Full transcript of Jeff Randall’s interview with Lord Freud.

JR: On that point, if we turned the clock back to the early nineties, and I know that you’re old enough to remember this, I certainly am, it was then the Tories who started this process wasn’t it? They started to slip people off unemployment onto Incapacity Benefit, to massage down the unemployment numbers. So is this finally the Tory Party coming clean?

DF: I think that there was a process there when it was still kind, to be where there weren’t jobs it was kinder to people to say look, don’t go on move over, and actually it was a very easy process to move over to incapacity benefit. That’s how the, that’s how the numbers swelled in the first place and the trouble was that when we got in back, in a good economy, they forgot to close the door. The door was left wide open with these, with these inadequate tests.

JR: This is about closing the door.

DF: And now we’re closing the door.

JR: OK, Lord Freud, David Freud, many thanks for coming in, we appreciate it