Jeremy Corbyn says George Osborne must resign as the Budget 'simply doesn't add up'

The Labour leader accused the Chancellor's Budget of "unravelling" and said it "simply doesn't add up"

Jeremy Corbyn has called on George Osborne to resign, saying his Budget “simply doesn’t add up”. The Labour leader challenged the Chancellor to come to the House of Commons and explain how he will “reconfigure” the Budget which he says has been undermined by Iain Duncan Smith’s shock resignation.

Mr Duncan Smith resigned as Minister for Work and Pensions on Friday saying that cutting disability benefits at the same time as announcing tax cuts for high earners was “not defensible”.

Speaking on BBC’s Breakfast programme this morning, Mr Corbyn said: “The Budget doesn’t add up, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should come back to Parliament to explain that.

“Far from just Iain Duncan Smith resigning, if the Chancellor puts forward a Budget, which he did, knowing full well that he was taking this huge hit on the disabled then really it should be perhaps him who should be reconsidering his position as well as Iain Duncan Smith who has already gone.”

He added: “His Budget simply doesn’t add up. It unravelled within hours of him presenting it and this isn’t the first time that George Osborne’s Budget has unravelled so it seems to me that we need to look very much at the heart of this Government- at its incompetence, at the way it puts forward proposals that simply don’t add up.”

In the Budget which was announced on Wednesday, Mr Osborne revealed that capital gains tax would be cut and the income tax threshold will be increased. Last week, it was confirmed that the Government intended to cut Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a benefit for disabled people which campaigners have argued is essential for maintaining independence and basic living standards.

Mr Duncan Smith has been replaced by former Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb, who is expected to tell the House of Commons today that the cuts to PIP will be abandoned. A poll by YouGov found that 70 per cent of members of the British public believe that cuts to disability benefits are "the wrong priority" for the Government. Just 13 per cent of respondents said that the policy is "a good idea."