内容摘要：He said it would be a matter of time before the drag from higher interest rates gave way to a boost from lower rates but he expected to see an improvement in the second half of next year.

He said it would be a matter of time before the drag from higher interest rates gave way to a boost from lower rates but he expected to see an improvement in the second half of next year.

The full scale of the cuts won't be set out until the Spring Statement, while Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will give a major speech next week and publish a "Green Paper".Despite the name, that's a blueprint for reform.

There are those on the Left of the party who don't believe any cuts should be made.At Prime Minister's Questions Richard Burgon – a frontbencher under Jeremy Corbyn – urged Sir Keir Starmer to consider a wealth tax rather than a welfare cut.Broadly speaking, though, the parliamentary party has accepted the argument that – without reform – the welfare bill is going to become unsustainable in years to come.

And Labour strategists believe that appearing to get a handle on welfare is an essential weapon in the anti-Reform UK armoury.The strongest argument the government can muster in favour of reform is that too many people who are regarded as long-term sick are in effect thrown on the unemployment scrapheap when, with the right help, they could engage in the world of work.

And it's understood that the Treasury won't swallow up all of the welfare savings.

Kendall will be able to redirect a significant sum – perhaps as much as £1bn – into the kind of intensive support which some claimants would need to get off benefits.Supporters of birthright citizenship point out that it has been the law of the land for well over a century and that

a "permanent subclass of people born in the US who are denied full rights as Americans."The concept of birthright citizenship, also known by the legal term "jus soli", is based in English common law and was generally accepted to apply to white men throughout early American history.

However, it did not become part of the Constitution until 1868, when the 14th Amendment was passed in the wake of the US Civil War in order to settle the question of the citizenship of freed, American-born former slaves.Previous Supreme Court cases, like Dred Scott v Sandford in 1857, had determined that African Americans could never be US citizens. The 14th Amendment overrode that.