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the press an update on how the doge style savings are going which his his party would plan to
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implement from local government upwards and i'm joined by richard tice uh so richard firstly i
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mean we're all talking about these immigration reforms of course our viewers have just been listening to mark white talk about what they would entail gb news viewers on the whole quite like the
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sound of them would a reform would reform in the commons vote for those proposals tabled by shabana
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the loot? Well, I think the Home Secretary is now sort of adopting the language and ideas that we've
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essentially given her. But the question is that, you know, what proposals actually will come
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forwards? She might actually need our votes because I'm not sure she's going to get the support of her
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own backbenches behind her, starting to call her all sorts of strange names. Look, at the end of
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the day, people want illegal immigration stopped. They want legal immigration essentially frozen so
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that we can catch up and look after British citizens and we wish her well
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whether or not she can actually get anything done we doubt because you have
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to leave the European Convention on Human Rights you have to repeal the
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Human Rights Act otherwise you just subject to the human rights lawyers making off like bandits and preventing deportations and the introduction of a proper immigration policy You say the Home Secretary is speaking the language of reform
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You've had a lot of defections to reform recently. If Shibana Mahmood wanted to join reform
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would you have her? Well, obviously, she'd have to go through the usual vetting process, but
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people have got to believe in our principles and our values. That's the key thing. And I think
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that's why people are coming over to us. They're furious about what's happening to our country
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And look at the number of council by-elections we're winning. In fact, just in my constituency
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last Thursday, we had a record ever reform winner, almost 66% of the vote. So people want more reform
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not less reform. Sounds like an invitation to Shabana Mahmood, to me. Now, you talked today
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about the doge-style savings you're making across government. The bottom line is, though
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that your voters want you to cut council tax. Are you going to do that? Well, the first thing
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we've announced today is we've saved both current and future well over £300 million
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of savings with a lot more to come and we've talked also about the potential savings by
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managing the local government pension scheme better to reduce the costs of that and that could help enormously And then also I talked at length about SEND and special educational needs and disabilities which we all want to be done really well for the most needy children needing the greatest provision
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But the truth is that I've been asked by experts to highlight the failings of SEND
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the over-diagnosis of children with supposed neurodiverse needs, over-medication. You don't need annual educational health and care plans
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Billions of pounds are being misspent, badly spent. And we can do this so much better
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And do you know who's suffering the most from it? Children who are getting the worst outcomes, poorer outcomes
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And so we're saying, likewise, the rip-off of the taxi firms, taking EHCP children to schools, all of this stuff is wrong
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and the children are receiving worse outcomes as a result. You suggest as well that parents are gaming the system, trying to get money out of the system by diagnosing their children with disabilities
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That's a pretty big claim. Can you quickly explain what you mean by that? Yes, look, the reality is that, for example, there's lots of middle class parents now using solicitors to fill out EHCP application forms
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Because if you in an independent school and you got an EHCP guess what you get no VAT What the government should do is scrap their ridiculous VAT on independent school fees
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so that more people go to independent schools to ease pressure off the state system
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Likewise, elsewhere, if you get an EHCP, then the parents can qualify for a PIP
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which means they can qualify for a motability car. And we've got situations where parents
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they've got a motability car, but they're still demanding a taxi to take the child to school
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This is wrong. And do you know what? Children are better off being taken to school either by parents or friends and with other school friends
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That's how you get better outcomes and also how we save hundreds of millions, if not billions, for council taxpayers
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That requires a change in legislation. We said what the government should do is don't kick the can down the road
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try some changes on a cross-party basis from next April, and then we can start to work out the best ways to
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you know, essentially to help those genuinely in need, the most in need, but also not to wrongly label children
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who don't need labelling, who then think, there's something wrong with me, when there isn't
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They're just great children with different thoughts and excitements, and that's all part of being a child
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Thank you very much, Richard Tice. That's Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform
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No clear promise there to cut the council tax
