Politics latest: Tories bid to counter Farage with threat to strip migrants of right to claim benefits

EU nationals would still be able to get welfare payments under Tory plans to restrict them to British citizens, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride has said.

He was asked if he would have to redo the Brexit deal to exclude them from the restrictions under plans to cut spending if the Conservatives came back into government that he is due to set out today.

Sir Mel told Times Radio: “The figures that we’ve come forward today, and the policy we have today, excludes EU nationals, so that they are exempt from that situation by virtue of the very point that you’ve raised, that we have arrangements with the EU to that effect.”

Asked if he was looking to change that, he said: “We do not envisage doing that. This would be for those that are outside of that group, who are on indefinite leave to remain or limited leave to remain.”

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The Conservatives will be the “grown-up” party of fiscal responsibility, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride has said ahead of his speech to Tory conference.

He told Sky News: “For far too long, our country has been living beyond its means.

“We’ve got a huge amount of debt, huge servicing costs on that debt and a trajectory for our economy that, I’m afraid, is unsustainable.

“Whilst the other parties are either busy messing the economy up, which is what Labour is doing, or fantasy economics from Reform, we have to be that grown-up party that sets out its stall around fiscal responsibility.”

The shadow chancellor is set to unveil proposals to bar non-UK citizens from claiming benefits if the Conservative Party wins power.

Among the plans to be announced on Monday is a £23 billion cut to the welfare bill, replacing payments to people with “low level” mental health conditions with treatment and barring non-citizens from claiming support.

If implemented today, the policy would prevent around 470,000 people — about 6% of the UK’s eight million universal credit claimants — from receiving the benefit.

The same restrictions would apply to disability benefits and the carer’s allowance, though access to pensions and public services would remain unchanged.

EU citizens with settled status under the Brexit agreement with Brussels would be exempt.