Well, here representing the government this morning, as I just mentioned, is Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary. A very good morning to you, Mr. Stride. Thanks so much for joining us. I wanted to start big picture question. There was a poll in the Times this morning from you gov that saw your party opinion approval rating raise from 21% to 25%. A four point decent jump, albeit still low readings over rule. Do you think this is all down to the Autumn Statement?

I think the Autumn Statement was extremely important because I think it's a pivot point in our economic journey. We've come from a very difficult situation with the war in Ukraine, the inflationary pressures that that brought, of course, that followed on from COVID where we had to lay out hundreds of billions of pounds to support both the economy and people up and down the country through furlough and things like that. And that's had the consequence of putting pressure on taxes. But what we were able to do now, because we have got inflation down very substantially and we've already hit our target of halving it by the end of this year, is to now come forward with some targeted tax cuts. And I think what the Chancellor did was exactly the right thing because he put those tax cuts into the supply side of the economy. So that's a huge tax break for businesses to encourage them to invest going forward. That's the 100% deductions that they can have against their investments, but also a tax cut for 27 million people who are working by reducing their national insurance, in fact the biggest tax break since the 1980s.

So I think those are very important things. So they're not going to change things incredibly overnight like that, but they are the decisions that will lead to the long term improvements that will allow us to do all the things that we want to do as a government, including improving the living standards of people and supporting our public services.

You mentioned the supply side of the economy. Most critical factor, of course, is workers on the supply side of the economy. Your brief, a very key part of your brief. Let's talk about the overall number of people. First of all, the legal migration numbers, which we just mentioned dominated the front pages of a lot of the newspapers this morning. It's very high, certainly relative to history and even more so relative to the 2019 Tory Manifesto pledges. So my question to you first of all is are these numbers too high? And if so, is that on your government for making the changes that allowed more people to come in? This is legal migration.

So we accept that these figures are too high. They are definitely too high. We have brought forward a number of measures, actually, that according to the OBR, are beginning or will see those figures come down. For example, what if I can will just very because I think it's you.

Said they're too high.

Yes.

Have we got to this point based on errors of your own government since 2019?

Well, one of the reasons why we've had high levels of immigration is actually to support the labor market, which is why in that autumn statement there were some really important measures, including in my area, for making sure we increase labor supply. Now, one of those things, for example, is we have two and a half million long term sick and disabled people in our country. We know that one in five of those people want to work, but half of them are fearful of working because they think it might lead to them losing their benefits. So what we're doing actually is coming forward with something called the chance to Work guarantee, which means we won't remove those benefits. We won't even reassess those people for those benefits in the event that they go and work. And I think that could be a real game changer, along with two and a half billion pounds that the Chancellor has brought forward in terms of health support, talking therapies in the NHS, 400,000 more of those and so on to encourage people to go in and work. And it is beginning to work. Economic inactivity is down 300,000 people since its peak in the Pandemic, for example.

I'm interested, though, that last year 745,000 people came in relative to your 2019 pledge of getting it down from 226,000. What portion of that is totally legitimate? You mentioned there was a demand for labor. Maybe you'll offset that in future with domestic people coming back into the labor force. What portion of that was legitimate needed workers versus people abusing the system? And do you embrace some of the measures, Robert generic has been?

Well, we recognize that there are different types of immigration. There is immigration, for example, 150,000 students bringing in dependents is an area where we have started to restrict that and that will make a big difference, as indeed the OBR and others recognize. But the immigration or migration that is not acceptable and is completely wrong is clearly the small boats coming across the short Dover Straits. And there we have adopted a series of approaches greater cooperation with the French, a deal with Albania that's seen those numbers drop by 90% such that we're actually a third down year on year in terms of the numbers coming across now, that's at the same time, Wilf, that across Europe, those numbers are going in exactly the opposite direction. In fact, on average across Europe they're about a third up. We are a third down. But there's more to do, and that's why things like the Rwanda policy and other approaches are so important.

Two more very quick topics if we can. The first is Amazon workers are striking today at a fulfillment center in Coventry in a dispute over pay. The national living wage this week was increased to eleven pounds 44 /hour. These workers, some of them have been offered an increase to eleven pounds 80 /hour this is Amazon, a company worth 1.5 trillion to offer 36 p more per hour than the living wages. Is that a bit tight of Amazon?

Well, I'm not going to start sort of having a rounding commentary on different employees and what they're referring to, their staff. Those are matters for them.

There is a company in the world.

What matters is what we're doing at a government level. And I'd make two points. One is we have really reduced the level of national insurance, which is a tax cut for 27 million people working, and we've also done a similar thing for the self employed as well. And the second point is this national living wage point. So come April, the national living wage will be going up by around 10%, so well above where inflation will be at that point. And of course, that comes on top of the near 10% increase in the national living wage that happened last April. So we are taking millions of workers, lowest paid workers pay up. But as for individual companies, that is a matter for them. But as a government, we are on the side of those that are the lowest paid.

Presumably you'd like to see it quite a lot higher than that, though, if.

They can afford it, well, but these are matters for these individual companies, given the markets they're in and the conditions and so on and so forth. But what I'm saying is the government is absolutely on the side of those that are the lowest paid. The national insurance changes, the national living wage changes. We're the government that doubled the personal allowance. Now, on the tax front, that's the amount of money that you can earn without having to pay any tax at all. We doubled that amount since 2010. So we are really on the side of those that are earning the least.

And then just to round things off Mr Stride, touching on the hopeful continuation of this pause in fighting in the Middle East, which has begun over the last couple of hours, are you optimistic as a government that this might go on not just through today, but for more than the initial four days?

I think it's very difficult to speculate on that other than to say that I really welcome the progress that all parties have made. And I know that our Prime Minister, who's been out to the region and met many of the leaders there, that Lord Cameron and the work that we've done, particularly with the Qataris actually as an intermediary, has led to the point where we now have this ceasefire for this temporary period. And hopefully that is now going to lead very quickly to the release of at least some of the hostages. Very important also to be getting fuel in that's very important and humanitarian aid. And we've announced just today that actually we'll be doubling the amount of terry and aid that we're going to be providing as a country. That's another 30 million pounds. So we are fully engaged in doing all that we can in what is a very, very difficult situation.