Danny Kruger MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the hon. Member give way?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I offer my thanks and appreciation to the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) for her speech, and for securing the debate. She expressed very well the complexity of migration and the welfare system, which I will come to. It is important that we get our migration routes right, recognising the great difficulty of safe and legal routes in our system, and how much we could do better on that front. I recognise that, in previous years, we facilitated large-scale asylum and humanitarian visa routes through the Syria, Hong Kong and Ukraine schemes. Leaving aside the question of safe and legal routes for refugees, we have seen large-scale migration flows and visa awards in recent years. That has put significant pressure on different aspects of our society, from wages and housing to public services and welfare. The hon. Lady gave a compelling account of the challenges of hardship faced by migrant families. Other hon. Members also spoke eloquently of the impact of poverty, particularly on children, as illustrated by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). My concern with the general proposal made by the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam and others is that it does not refer to the likely dynamic effects of effectively abolishing no recourse to public funds status. It would induce a pull factor if we were to signal or enact instant or speedier eligibility for public funds to people claiming asylum or on a visa. We would inevitably and significantly increase the demand for places in the UK, and we need to acknowledge that. The hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam mentioned the sanctuary city of Sheffield, and the hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) did the same. I represent part of Swindon, which is also a sanctuary borough, thanks to the Labour council. I met social care providers this morning who talked about the immense pressure that the increase in migrant families is placing on public services in Swindon, including on social care and children’s services. Inviting many more people to come and live with us is not without consequence.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

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  I am sorry if I missed the hon. Ladies’ references to the pull factor, but I simply do not believe that the offer, or the lack of offer, of support has no effect on the demand for places in the UK. I think people will factor in those considerations when deciding whether to apply for a visa here. If we are offering additional public finances, that would make a more attractive offer. I recognise the hon. Lady’s point about the labour market and the availability of people working in social care, although that is perhaps a topic for another day. The point was also made by the care providers in Swindon I spoke to this morning. They also said that this country could do so much better in supporting and training care workers who were brought up here. Leaving aside the potential dynamic effect of ending the no recourse arrangements, I do not think the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam sufficiently acknowledges the pressures on the system that are a consequence of high rates of migration. Studies suggest that around 1 million people are likely to get indefinite leave to remain—estimates vary between 750,000 and 1.25 million— which is 1 million people coming down the pipeline, as it were, and likely to have recourse to public funds. Because of how the immigration system has worked in recent years, we are talking about people who are overwhelmingly on low wages and who come with dependants, notwithstanding the genuine contribution that many of them will make. Overall, on a pure analysis of the numbers, they and their families will represent a fiscal loss to the country over the time they are in the UK. Even based on the very optimistic assumptions about lifetime earnings that the OBR uses, the 1 million or so people who are expected to get indefinite leave to remain in the coming years will have a net fiscal lifetime cost to the country of £234 billion. That is what we are looking at with the current system.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that intervention, and I recognise the complexity of the subject we are discussing. The hon. Lady has cited evidence that contradicts mine. I need to look into the study she mentions, because my strong understanding is that, on the basis of the overall immigration we have welcomed in recent years—and, frankly, it is my party that is responsible for it—the net fiscal effect is negative. Of course, there are many migrants who contribute economically, and there are many migrants who contribute even if they are not contributing economically; not everything is counted in pounds and pence. But if we are talking about the fiscal effects, I am confident in saying that, based on the number of people expected to achieve indefinite leave to remain, who the hon. Lady presumably wants to have recourse to public funds earlier, we are looking at a significant increase in the financial burden. I want to acknowledge the point that the hon. Lady and other Members have made: the current system shunts costs around the system. The consequence of people living in poverty might be that the Department for Work and Pensions does not bear the cost, but other parts of the public system do—local authorities most of all. That is not an argument to say, “In that case, let the DWP provide the money,” because overall, we would be spending a lot more, and as I said, inviting more people to come if we did that. However, I acknowledge that it is not as if these costs are not borne at all; some of them are borne elsewhere. I want to end by making a very obvious point. Our welfare system remains one based on contribution in principle and, to a certain degree, in practice, in so far as the national insurance system still exists. In the public mind, there is rightly an expectation that, for the sake of fairness and trust in the system, we should maintain an arrangement whereby welfare is funded by and is for the benefit of citizens of this country. There are, of course, many exceptions to that—other people make contributions, and other people are eligible for support—but that is the basis on which our system depends. My strong view is that the proposal by the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam, echoed by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman)—and I think the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine), made a similar point—effectively to scrap the no recourse to public funds arrangement would terminally undermine, weaken and eventually destroy the basis of our welfare system, which is that people pay in and receive. To conclude, I look forward to the child poverty strategy. If we are serious about reducing child poverty, including for those children living in migrant families who are here now, we need to reduce the flow of low-wage families into the system in the first place, whether from abroad or through our own failure to support families in this country. That means extending the qualification period for ILR, which my party has suggested, and it is good that the Government are now considering following suit. We should obviously be helping families with their finances through meaningful and effective reform of the welfare system. We should be supporting the community infrastructure that gives support to families and young people, and we should be creating well-paid jobs through an economic policy that stimulates growth—not taxing jobs out of existence, as the Government are sadly doing. Those are the best ways to support children in poverty.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes). That was an important speech and I concur entirely with his priority there. It is really important that we invest in the social infrastructure of play for the benefit of children, although not necessarily for the benefit of Ed Balls and Andy Burnham—an appalling image was conjured by the hon. Gentleman there—but I concur with his general point. I want to speak in support of my new clause 87, which would require the Government to designate more chalk streams as protected sites within six months of the Bill passing. We know that 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in this country. There are only 220 of them, so they are a rare and very special habitat. Most of those chalk streams are in southern England, and I am glad to say that most of the most important ones are in Wiltshire. Morgan’s Hill on the edge of my constituency is a hydrological dividing line where a drop of rain can end up in the River Kennet and then the Thames, flowing out to the North sea. Alternatively it can go down the Hampshire Avon into the English channel, or it can go out west along the Bristol Avon and end up in the Atlantic. This is a very significant place, with water from Wiltshire flowing through the whole of southern England. Those chalk streams are 60 million years old and they have flowed clear and clean all that time until very recently in the modern era. They are over-abstracted; too much water is being taken out because of overdevelopment and bad house building. They are contaminated with agricultural run-off and, of course, sewage spills. I pay tribute and give my sincere congratulations to all the campaigners in my constituency. We will all have similar organisations locally, but Action for the River Kennet in particular is doing great work to support that river and anglers, schools and farmers in our area. I also pay tribute to the Southern Streams initiative that supports farmers across Wiltshire to restore the health of the soil and the water in our area. The last Government introduced some important new measures to restore and preserve the health of our chalk streams. These included the water restoration fund, which ensured that the fines levied on water companies for sewage spills went to restore nature in the areas that had been harmed. We introduced a storm overflow discharge reduction plan, stewardship schemes that addressed the question of agricultural run-off and, in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, we ensured that chalk streams were considered as part of environmental assessments for new developments. We also introduced the chalk streams recovery plan, which was sadly halted by the Labour Government when they came into power last year. They kept some of our legacy, I am glad to say, but they have paused the sustainable farming incentive and I am afraid to say that we expect cuts to stewardship schemes in the spending review this week. Crucially, they scrapped the water restoration fund itself. Thames Water was fined over £100 million last month because of sewage spills in our area. That money should have gone to supporting natural restoration in the Thames Valley area, including in Wiltshire. It has been taken by the Treasury. We do not know where that money will go. The Government have also scrapped the chalk stream recovery plan. My concern about the Bill, and why I tabled the amendment, is that it will put additional pressure on our chalk streams. Yes, we need new building—absolutely, that priority is right and what we need—and building in our backyard, but the backyard of Wiltshire is Swindon. We need to see more intense development in urban areas where the real demand for housing is. That will be a great blessing to Swindon and Wiltshire if we can make that happen. The new clause in my name would protect more chalk streams as protected sites. I am glad to say that the Kennet and the Hampshire Avon are already SSSIs, but we need to see more streams designated in that way. It is not enough to protect only 11 of the 220 chalk streams in this country; the more designations, the better. That would create genuine momentum behind the preservation of chalk streams, so that when developments are being considered, we can be sure that these vital national natural assets are properly protected for the future.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Government Announcements · Hansard source

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  It is very helpful that in the last few minutes the Leader of the House has confirmed that the media were briefed directly, before the House, on the content of the review. I am grateful to her for being so honest, but I do not think that it is enough for her to promise not to do it again. Will she order an inquiry in Government about how the decision came to be made and who authorised the briefing of journalists? Whoever it was needs to apologise directly.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  The Defence Secretary has just thrown into doubt the future of the new medium helicopter. I am very concerned to hear that that programme clearly may not go ahead. Can he tell the House whether he plans to reduce the number of RAF Chinooks, which—as he knows—are very important both to our special forces and to our Army? Are there any plans to reduce the number of Chinooks?

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the Members who secured the debate: the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) and for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice). It is a case of singing the greatest hits of the past—singing the old songs—in a beautiful duet, presaging some appalling coalition. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Lady; I recognise her expertise and her interest in this topic. Speaking of greatest hits, she invoked Elsa in “Frozen”, and I recognise the self-identification. Of all people, her soul is spiralling in frozen fractals, but she has a warm heart underneath. Of course we do know that, at the end of that film, Elsa returned to the castle. That is the ultimate purpose of some Members speaking in this debate; they want to return to the embrace of the EU. I honour that, and I accept that some people were not happy with the result of the referendum. I would not have been happy if it had gone the other way, and I would not have given up campaigning to leave. Nevertheless, I wish there was more honesty from the Government Benches in recognising that what is being debated here is the first step to rejoining. That is the underlying purpose, because all the arguments that have been made against the previous deal were really arguments against Brexit, and all the arguments that are being made in support of this arrangement are arguments for rejoining. As it was eloquently put by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), the case for co-operation in Europe is really a case for rejoining.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  And dependants.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. I will cite a very good article in The Spectator last week by Oliver Lewis, who was the deputy negotiator for the Brexit deal and the trade agreement. He wrote rather wearily about recognising the terms that had been agreed by the Government, because they were the terms that the previous Government continually resisted in negotiations. His point, which echoes that of my hon. Friend, was that the way the EU works is to force agreement on headline principles, which, over time, are translated into concrete policy. Where a thin end of the wedge can be driven in, as it can be with this agreement, more and more follows. That is what we should anticipate. It is worth pointing out how thin the terms of the agreement are and how much detail remains to be worked out. We have conceded a set of principles that will allow ever closer alignment and submission to the regime that we painfully left some years ago. We see coming submission to the European Court of Justice, an agreement on rule-taking, a return to the single market in agribusiness, as my hon. Friend mentioned, and paying money into the EU budget. Those were the explicit things that all parties in this House committed to ending when we agreed the outcome of the referendum. In 2019, both main parties agreed to abide by them, and in 2024, they agreed to abide by them and explicitly ruled out submission to the European Court of Justice, paying money and returning to the single market, all of which has now been agreed in principle by the Government. It is only a set of principles, but they are bad principles; they represent the betrayal of Brexit and of our manifestos. I will not go through the specifics, because other Members have done so very well, but I will quickly point out how thin these agreements are. On e-gates, there will be some benefit for the Dordogne-visiting community that some of us have in our constituencies, but it is not a great achievement. Indeed, it is not even an achievement for this summer, so although I hope the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is enjoying his holiday in France, I do not think he will have benefited from the deal. He will probably have gone through an e-gate anyway, however, because there are already many e-gates that British citizens can use when going to and fro. That arrangement will still need to be negotiated, with each member state operating its own independent policy. We have discussed food, and I will not go on about that other than to say that we have agreed to take the EU’s laws but we do not have any detail yet. Because we export so little, any benefit from a reciprocal arrangement will greatly benefit the EU at the expense of our exporters.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. I am afraid that the argument against EU membership, which was the trade imbalance, remains and has only grown with time. I will not talk about our unhappy fish; we hear enough about those poor creatures. On defence, there has been no detail in the plan other than an expectation of that new procurement arrangement and that we will be financially contributing to that. There is also no detail on the carbon trading arrangement other than a clear expectation of higher taxes and rule-taking through the emissions scheme. On free movement, we are still unclear. The statement talks about terms to be mutually agreed. What those terms might be—how many people will be coming, what commitments of support there are for them on housing, public services and benefits, and what happens if they refuse to leave—all remains unclear. I am very worried about the direction of travel. The good news, to conclude, is that none of that is real. Those are all headline principles. Although the expectation is that the EU, having forced our famously legalistic Prime Minister to sign up to a set of agreements, will then induce him to believe that they are binding commitments and that he will have to honour them in practice, I implore him not to. I also implore the Minister to consider that we do not have to fulfil those terrible terms. Lastly, on the economy, although people talk about the decline of trade since Brexit, trade was declining substantially long before. The EU is a declining corner of the world’s economy and the direction of travel has not changed much. The fundamental point is that Brexit has economically been largely a non-event. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, the underlying realities have remained largely untouched by it. Obviously, our economy was badly hit by covid, the Ukraine war and subsequently by the very bad Budget, and I admit, by some economic mistakes made by the last Government—let us be honest—but fundamentally the problems have not been related to Brexit. To invoke some heroes of the last Parliament—particularly John Redwood, the great economic prophet of recent times—John Redwood shrugs at Brexit but Bill Cash rejoices because, fundamentally, it was not an economic decision that the British people made: it was about the restoration of sovereignty. It restored the possibility of good government to our country. I am afraid we did not get good government immediately after Brexit, and we certainly do not have it now. Many mistakes have been made and continue to be made, particularly by this new Government, but we now have the opportunity to govern ourselves in a way that will bring about the prosperity of the British people. To quickly acknowledge the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), we still have not fixed the ongoing saga of Northern Ireland, and I deeply regret that the arrangements there persist in that most unsatisfactory way. The new agreement is clearly a declaration of intent to move back within the orbit of the EU and ultimately to rejoin. I end by echoing the call from many hon. Members on both sides, and I honour the hon. Member for Walthamstow for her support. It is very important that we restore the European Scrutiny Committee and I hope that the Minister will agree.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Lady share my regret that the Minister did not recommit the Government to introducing the Scrutiny Committee? Does she agree that we should continue to work to that end?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I will therefore end just by saying that the amendment tabled by Reform, which I appreciate was not selected, demonstrates that we are on the same page and I deeply regret their opposition to what we are trying to do.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I will start with a few words about the context of the debate. Clearly, the accusation—as though it were a negative—is that the campaign for Brexit had a sort of nostalgic, backward-looking spirit, and that those of us who supported it did so in that spirit. There is something in that, because we were talking about restoring British sovereignty; there was a sense that something good had been lost and needed to be brought back. All good revolutions are in a sense backward-looking; the bad revolutions are the progressive ones, while good revolutions restore what was lost. That is what Brexit was about. Nevertheless, despite that point, which I do concede, fundamentally the case for Brexit was forward-looking. It was about putting this country in the best possible position to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This century demands agility, and the independence that sovereignty can allow. Obviously, there must be co-operation and close working in partnership—Britain has always been an outward-looking country—but nimbleness and agility will be needed in the highly contested new world that we are in. That is what Brexit was about, and on a number of hugely significant occasions since Brexit, we have already seen why our independence was so necessary. We saw it in our covid response, and in the context of Ukraine and our defence policy, and we see it now in our trade. Indeed, we have done since Brexit. We have seen it in the UK’s negotiations with the US, which we can compare with those undertaken by the EU in recent months. On trade, as I said in an intervention, the challenge is often made that Brexit has harmed our GDP because it brought about a loss in productivity. The reverse is true. Trade with the EU has grown since Brexit, and it is not the case that we have suffered detriment because of that. Trade is growing between the UK and the whole world, including the EU, but it is growing more with non-EU countries, which makes the point about why it was so necessary to reclaim sovereignty over our trade policy. I echo the concerns raised by Conservative colleagues about what is being planned for next week, in terms of dynamic alignment on trade, and I call on the Minister to rule out a back-door alignment arrangement with the EU. We have seen worrying hints of that. I look forward to his response. The case for Brexit was not primarily about trade. Of course, that is a very important matter, but let us acknowledge, as I think we all do, that really people were voting to take back control of our borders and our laws. Those two vital issues remain contested because this Government never believed in Brexit and do not understand the call of the people for independence and sovereignty in those two key respects. On borders and immigration, I recognise the case for a youth mobility scheme. In principle, the abstract case for a reciprocal arrangement in which young people can spend a few months or a year working in another country is a good thing. The hon. Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) said that it was a nice thing to do. Nevertheless, we see the value of such schemes only when there is a reciprocal arrangement and comparable numbers are coming and going. The same argument applies to the Indian trade deal and its reciprocal arrangement on national insurance. The fact is, many more people will take advantage of the so-called reciprocal arrangements by coming to the UK than will go either to India or to the EU, so we would not have a level playing field. As with free movement, this youth scheme would be another way for many more people to come to this country, undercutting British workers and continuing the stagnation of wages that we have suffered from for so many decades. On laws and taking back control, I am concerned about the threat of European Court of Justice oversight of the trade arrangements, and potentially of the new veterinary agreement and deals on meat and dairy. I very much hope that the Minister will definitively rule out any extension of ECJ oversight. The fact is—we see this in the Government’s rather mealy-mouthed amendment to the motion—that Labour does not believe in Brexit. I really honour the Green party for its amendment, because in that we hear the true voice of the pro-European movement. It is almost a parody. It suggests that free movement and rejoining the EU are what the country needs and would be in the national interest. Indeed, it suggests that it would be a way to counter the hard right. Have Green Members seen what is going on in Europe? The extension of the principles of ever closer union, deeper alignment and concentration of power at the European level is stoking the far right across Europe. The fundamental reason why the Conservative party has always been so successful, historically, is that we have spoken for those people who otherwise would be outraged. Reform has been doing well—by the way, I do not associate Reform with the far right—because it speaks for those outraged members of the public, many of whom used to vote for us and for the Labour party, who feel that their Parliament has let them down and politics has left them behind. That has happened across Europe in a much more dangerous way, so if we are serious about countering the danger of the right, we should be absolutely clear about there being no suggestion of any return to the EU. Let me finish on Reform. Its Members are not here any more, but there we go. They have a rather amusing amendment to the motion, which simply replaces the words “Conservative party” with the words “Reform”. They are piggybacking somewhat on our good work, in a desperate search to be relevant and to catch up with the Conservative party, which is leading the way on this agenda. It is a bit of a problem, and two things occur to me: first, that they cannot even write an amendment of their own and they have to rely on us—

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady mentioned Churchill, so I cannot let her sit down yet. She talked about conflict within the Conservative party. Winston Churchill had a few battles in his own party, as she might recall—he was not averse to that. Sometimes one has to stand up for what is right, which is what Conservative Brexiteers did. Does she really think that Winston Churchill would have supported the EU in its current form? Does she really think that he would have supported what the ECHR has become? How can she possibly claim Winston Churchill for the politics that she stands for? Go on!

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  All sorts of things go wrong when we mention Reform, so we had best leave that topic. I pay tribute to the Conservative Front-Bench Members, who have put forward an important and principled statement of the declaration that our party will stand for. We support the decision of the British people to leave the European Union, repeated in multiple general elections. It is a great shame that we cannot hear the Labour party make the same pledge.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  It is not the first time that the 4% figure has been referenced. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it was based on the assumption that UK-EU trade would fall and there would therefore be a hit to our productivity? In fact, EU-UK trade has risen since Brexit, so the whole basis of that assumption is wrong. Will he please acknowledge that?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  There are two things. First, we could do better on Northern Ireland, but let us leave that whole topic for another day. Secondly, the Brexit agreement that we negotiated was absolutely right, but the problem is the EU and the fact that it is a protectionist bloc. We decided to leave because we believe in sovereignty and leaving a declining quarter of the world’s economy. The problem is the trade barriers that the EU erected unnecessarily and which are harmful to both parties. I will leave it there.

• 12 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Eligibility Criteria · Hansard source

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  It is six weeks since the Government cobbled together an emergency plan for welfare cuts to rescue the Chancellor from the consequences of her job-destroying, economy-shrinking Budget, but we are still waiting for some information. Can the Minister tell the House how many more people will be in work as a result of these measures?

• 12 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Eligibility Criteria · Hansard source

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  I look forward to the OBR’s report, and also to its assessment of the impact of the Employment Rights Bill. We know that many tens of thousands of jobs are going to be lost because of the national insurance rise, and we know from the OBR that because of the changes that the Government have introduced and the scrapping of the measures we were introducing, 16,000 fewer people will be in work and almost half a million more will be on long-term sickness benefits. However, let me ask the Minister about disability benefits. Is he aware that half the number of people who receive PIP who have multiple sclerosis will no longer be eligible for that benefit under the plans that the Government are bringing forward? A quarter of people with cerebral palsy and three quarters of people with arthritis will also be ineligible. Is the Minister happy with that, and if not, what hope can he give the hundreds of thousands of people who are being abandoned that the Government will look after them?

• 7 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will be gratified to know that we are not in government, so it is not for us to come forward with precise plans. At the end of the previous Parliament, we had a manifesto commitment to reduce benefit spending and reform disability benefits and UC. We are now in a position of policy formulation, so I am afraid I am not able to tell him exactly what we would do. My role is to challenge the Government on why they have taken so long to come forward with an absence of meaningful reform plans. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I want to see benefit spending reduced. I think we spend too much on welfare in this country, but that is because we have social breakdown and poverty. The answer to that is not simply to cut benefits without reforming the system, but to reduce the drivers of poverty. I recognise many of the problems with PIP, and I understand the imperative for change. Members have powerfully made the case that the system is currently inadequate, particularly for people with fluctuating conditions. We have heard powerful testimony about that in the Work and Pensions Committee—the Chairman and many other members are here. In fact, just this morning we heard powerful evidence from people talking about mental health. People who have a set of very complex, interconnected needs might not reach four points on any one measure, so could lose PIP under the Government’s proposal. I have read evidence from the MS Society that makes the same point: 48% of PIP recipients with MS do not reach four points in any one of the measures, so would be at risk. I am very concerned on behalf of those individuals. I am also concerned that we do not even know how many such people there are. Members made the point that it took a freedom of information request to get the figure of 1.3 million out of the Government. That is not the figure that was officially released. As the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) said, we are also unclear about the effect on passported benefits, which is a significant question for the Government to answer. Most of all, we do not know what the Government’s announced assessment review will come forward with, yet we are making the cuts before we understand how the method of assessing eligibility will be reformed. I implore the Minister to pause the measures set out in the Green Paper. We need a proper review not just of the assessment but of the way the whole system works. We absolutely need to bring down the benefits bill, but we do that by reducing demand for welfare, and many of the levers for that are of course outside the DWP. Nevertheless, we should redesign the system itself because of the many problems I have identified. As Members said, we should do that with claimants, not to them. People voted for change in 2024, but they are not getting it. The Prime Minister promises more of the same—to go “further and faster” on the course he is already on. I deeply regret what he is doing. I have very great respect for the Minister. Few people have spoken in Parliament with greater authority, conviction and expertise on the subject of welfare in recent times. I have great sympathy with him for having to defend this policy position, which I do not think he would have defended in opposition. I echo the points made by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and the right hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. They said that Labour should be better than this, and I agree: we should all be better than this. My party will stand with Members who oppose the changes.