Sir Keir Starmer has responded to the farmer's protest after being forced to cut short a visit to a housing development on Thursday morning. The prime minister said: "In order to balance the books, we had to take tough but right decisions on national insurance contributions and ending the tax break for farmers."
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00:00I was there, obviously, to look at a new development, a very exciting development,
00:03just outside Milton Keynes, which is going to be homes for very many people. And yes,
00:08there was a protest there. And to some extent, that draws out quite an important discussion
00:14that we have to have as a country. Because we passed a budget in the autumn of last year that
00:21had to do two things. The first was to stabilize and balance the books, the economy. And the second
00:29was to invest in things like our NHS and in housing. And we're seeing some early figures
00:37that are welcome. Obviously, interest rates were cut for the third time since we've been in
00:42government last week. We've had growth figures today coming out showing growth in the economy,
00:49small but important steps. And of course, that means that mortgages will go down. And also,
00:55NHS figures that show that waiting lists are now down for the lowest level for two years
01:01in the six or seven months that we've had to work on that. That is a really welcome first
01:06set of steps. We need to go much further. But in order to balance the books, we have to take
01:13tough but right decisions on natural insurance contributions and ending the tax break for
01:19farmers.