Labour failed to build enough new homes says Byrne

He said that the party’s failure to construct affordable homes was partly to blame for rising rents in the capital.

“There were some things that if we were reliving that time again we would do differently,” Mr Byrne told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

“So we would have been a lot faster in reforming incapacity benefit, and we should have been building more homes too. Look at the levels of rent here in London they are going up and up and up. We should have been building more homes.”

Asked if Labour had overspent, he acknowledged that the pensions and tax credit budgets had increased under the party.

“Out of work benefits fell under the Labour Government by about £7.5bn. Some spending went up – pensions and tax credit.”

After Ed Miliband said the party would cap social spending, Mr Byrne would not be drawn on the areas that would face cuts.

“We have said we want to bring some spending levels down. Let’s take for example tax credits. At the moment we spend about £30bn on tax credits. What a lot of people say to Labour is why are we subsidising low pay at companies that are going very nicely, thank you.”

He stopped short of guaranteeing that the elderly would not lose their travel privileges or free TV access.

My Byrne told the BBC: “Every generation has got to reset the balance between universal credit benefits on the one hand and targeted benefits on the other.”