Corbyn unable to give cost of childcare pledge in interview
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Version 5 of 7. Jeremy Corbyn appeared to forget the cost of a key Labour childcare pledge during a tense interview on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. The Labour leader tried to look up the policy on an iPad and in a hard copy of the Labour manifesto, according to the presenter Emma Barnett, who also said Corbyn received a phone call in the studio while he struggled to remember the cost of universal provision of 30 hours of free childcare a week for all children aged two to four. Asked how much the free childcare provision would cost, Corbyn paused and then replied: “Er, it will obviously cost a lot to do so, we accept that.” “I assume you have the figures?” Barnett asked. “Yes I do,” Corbyn said. “The point I’m trying to make is we’re making it universal … to make sure every child gets it and those who get free places will continue to get them, those who have to pay won’t, and we’ll collect the money through taxation, mainly corporate taxation.” When Barnett asked again for the spending figure, Corbyn said he would “give the figure in a moment”. The presenter said: “[You are] logging into your iPad here, you’ve announced a major policy and you don’t know how much it will cost.” “Can I give you the exact figure in a moment?” Corbyn said again. Barnett then described the Labour leader flicking through the hard copy of his manifesto and said he had received a phone call. “Can we come back to that in a moment? I want to give you an accurate figure,” he said. Corbyn clarified the figures in a webchat with Mumsnet an hour after his Radio 4 interview. “At the moment, the high cost of childcare means that some parents send a huge proportion of their income on childcare and, as a result, are very poor,” he told the website. “Today we’ve announced a new childcare policy which is designed to give every child the opportunity of 30 hours’ free childcare per week. This will cost £5.3bn a year by the end of the next parliament to ensure that all children get the opportunity of an exciting pre-school environment.” On Mumsnet, the Labour leader took questions on free movement and on raising income tax for high earners, but some users expressed disappointment that the scheduled chat lasted only 20 minutes so that Corbyn could leave on time for another event. His struggle to answer questions about the flagship policy prompted comparisons with a previous interview by Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, in which she had trouble with the costings of hiring 10,000 more police officers. Alistair Carmichael, a Liberal Democrat spokesman and candidate, saying it seemed Corbyn had been “borrowing Diane Abbott’s calculator”. Corbyn later apologised for not knowing the figure as he spoke at a launch of the party’s race and faith manifesto in Watford and defended Barnett’s right to ask him questions, saying it was “unacceptable” that she received antisemitic abuse on Twitter following the interview. So abuse from @jeremycorbyn supporters begins.He didn't know his figures plain & simple.Catch up on my interview @BBCWomansHour #womanshour “I didn’t have the exact figure in front of me, so I was unable to answer that question, for which obviously I apologise. But I don’t apologise for what’s in the manifesto and I will explain exactly what the cost is,” he said. “It’s £4.8bn that it will cost by the end of the parliament, and it means that 1 million children will get childcare, free childcare, 30 hours per week, between the years of two and four.” Accounting for the difference between that figure and the £5.3bn he had quoted to Mumsnet, a Labour spokesman clarified the figure was £4.8bn for the universal childcare policy, with the additional £500m to reverse cuts to Sure Start. Corbyn later gave a more assured performance on the BBC’s One Show, where he talked about his background and said he was “giving it everything” to win the general election and felt “hope of what we can do and hope of the way we can change things in this country”. Asked about whether he is more of a campaigner than a potential prime minister, he said: “Is there a difference? I have been active in politics, human rights and many things all my life.” He added: “I think if you are to lead, you have to be prepared to listen as well, and I enjoy that. Did I ever set out in life to become prime minister? No. I set out in life to try and change things and bring about greater justice in our society. “And I was elected leader of our party, re-elected leader of our party, I’m honoured and proud to lead the party and I’m giving it everything I can to win this election.” He also spoke about the effect of his job on his family, saying those “nearest to me and those loved ones everywhere have a totally unreasonable amount of pressure put on them”. “Because intrusion in my life is not nice but I am there, I’m an elected politician, it kind of goes with the territory, you might say,” he said. “But widest family, children, it’s not right and not fair and I wish some of our media would just draw some boundaries.” Asked about his experience refereeing an under-10 football match, and whether it was easier to keep control of the children than the parliamentary Labour party, Corbyn responded: “Ten-year-olds.” The presenters showed photographs of Corbyn as a child and with his family growing up in Shropshire. Of his school record, which saw him gain two Es at A-level, he said: “I was a not academically successful student.” His mother suggested examiners may not have been able to read his writing, but Corbyn said it was more likely that he gave overly long answers on subjects that interested him and “forgot the rest of it”. Unlike Theresa May, he frowned on the idea that there are “girls jobs” and “boys jobs” at home, and handed over a jar of his homemade jam to the presenters. |