David Pinto-Duschinsky MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

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

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  The hon. Member is talking about fishing rights. Under his Government, the UK catch suddenly dropped by 80%. Will he now apologise for the damage that he and his party did to the UK fishing industry?

• 13 May 2025 · Mansion House Accord · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend and Treasury colleagues on helping to deliver such an important agreement. The accord will unlock up to £25 billion of additional capital. It is a huge vote of confidence in the Government’s demand-side reform agenda to get Britain building and in our economic strategy, providing stability. What steps will the Government take to help make sure that investment is ramped up as quickly as possible, and to ensure that regulators help encourage investment of pension funds directly in real economic assets, for instance by looking at changes to the matching adjustment?

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

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  A strong social security system is not just the cornerstone of a welfare state, but a hallmark of a decent society. However, it is exactly because the system is so essential that we must safeguard its future. It is our duty not just to help the most vulnerable today, but to ensure that the system is sustainable so that it can offer support tomorrow. That is the central challenge when we consider PIP. The number receiving it has more than doubled in the five years since the pandemic, and more than 1,000 new people join it every single day. Although health conditions have become more widespread in the years following covid, due mainly to the Conservatives’ terrible mismanagement of and under-investment in the NHS, the number of people on health-related benefits such as PIP has, on some metrics, increased at twice the rate that underlying health conditions have. Those of us who believe in the welfare state cannot simply ignore this issue, and neither can we posit speculative new revenue sources to wish the problem away. Some of my hon. Friends have mentioned a wealth tax as a possible solution. I say to them gently: if only it were that easy. Dr Allin-Khan, “no country in the world has ever successfully had a wealth tax”. Those are not my words, but those of Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. If we are to protect the system, we must not seek to freeze it in aspic or ignore the problems it faces. Instead, we must confront the problems head on and seek reforms that will allow the institutions of the welfare state and the values they encode to endure.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Irish Republican Alleged Incitement · Hansard source

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  It is good to hear that the House is united in its condemnation of the appalling comments by this band, inciting hatred and supporting terrorism, and our thoughts and prayers today are with the families of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess. Does the Minister agree that there can never be any excuse for inciting violence against MPs, or for supporting the vile, antisemitic terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah, and that a threat to MPs is a threat to democracy itself?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have limited time, so I will make progress. The powers the Bill provides are proportionate, measured and ringed with safeguards. It is a mark of this that, as we heard from the Secretary of State on Second Reading, the Information Commissioner has stated that the Bill as currently drafted has addressed their previously stated concerns. As well as being proportionate, the powers are necessary to fight the ever-more sophisticated frauds that we are facing. Over the past decade, financial institutions have extensively overhauled their use of technology and data and their approaches to the evolving fraud threat, yet the Government have not. It is illuminating, but perhaps not surprising, that while social security fraud has risen dramatically post covid, fraud volumes and losses in the financial services sector, including credit card fraud, have fallen according to UK Finance. The public sector has paid a steep price for not modernising its anti-fraud approach and failing to adopt industry best practices. It is a gap that this Bill seeks to address. Most of all, the measures in the Bill are crucial for protecting the vulnerable and safeguarding the legitimacy of the system itself. Our social security system rests on public consent and a belief that money is fairly spent. Fraud and error chips away at this social contract, and it takes money from those who need it most. The public in Hendon and across the country expect us to take action. There is nothing progressive whatsoever about permitting fraud. The only people who benefit are the criminals who exploit our system and those who wish to undermine its role as a cornerstone of a civilised and fair society. For the sake of the most vulnerable, the taxpayer, fairness and the system itself, I hope the House will join me in supporting the Bill and voting down those amendments.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak against amendments 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9, and new clauses 12 and 15. Fraud in the benefit system affects us all. It costs us as a country almost £1 million an hour. It takes money from the most vulnerable in society and undermines the legitimacy of and public support for our social security system. However, many of the amendments proposed simply do not recognise the vital need for this legislation. Some, such as amendments 2 and 9, would hamstring the Bill by preventing us gathering key information. Others, such as amendments 8, 5 and 6, would limit the effectiveness of the Bill and make its powers more difficult to use. Others, such as amendments 4 and new clauses 12 and 15, would seek to delay its effects. These amendments, however differently proposed, all suffer from the same pathology: they fail to take fraud seriously. We have heard a number of speeches today from opponents of the Bill, but we are yet to hear from them any serious practical suggestions about how we might tackle fraud. These opponents say that they are concerned to protect the vulnerable, but I say gently that they can offer no proposals on how to prevent the fraud that is stealing from the neediest in our society. Many Members are coming from a genuine place of concern about how to strike the right balance between protecting the public purse on the one hand and the privacy and rights of claimants on the other. I think the Bill gets the balance right. The powers it provides are proportionate.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in opposition to amendments 1, 3 and 4. Under the previous Government, the country was subjected to years of economic chaos. This Government have made restoring stability a cornerstone of our strategy to boost long-term growth. Ensuring macroprudential stability, underpinned by an effective recovery and resolution regime, is a key part of that. Changes undertaken in the UK and globally through the Basel III reforms have made our large banks safer and more resilient, and we should welcome that. The reforms have improved solvency and reduced risks for the taxpayer. However, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 has demonstrated the need for new tools to help minimise the risk to consumers, taxpayers and broader financial stability posed by small bank failures. We need an approach that goes beyond the bank insolvency procedure, and that is why the proposals in the Bill enjoy so much support across our financial services sector, as I know from my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial markets and services. But in designing this new approach, we must make sure that the proposals reflect the lessons of experience. In all candour, I am concerned that the amendments do not do that, and will impede the functioning of the new regime, rendering it less effective at moments of crisis. I was an adviser in the Treasury to Alistair Darling during the global financial crisis, when we had to resolve and recapitalise a number of major banks. The action that the Labour Government took then—often in the face of resistance from Conservative Members—helped to save our financial sector from catastrophe and stabilise not just the UK, but the global economy. There are many lessons to be learned from that period, but in relation to the Bill, one stands out. When we had to act to save our banking sector, we learned that successful resolution relies, among other things, on two key factors: speed and flexibility. It was the combination of those factors that was so important in 2008, and since then, I would argue, they have only become more important. In 2008, we watched banks’ liquidity and solvency deteriorate by the day, but now, as the collapse of Signature Bank in the US in 2023 shows, the combination of banking apps and social media mean that a full-scale banking run can develop in hours or even minutes. If we are to resolve banks successfully, regulators must be able to move as quickly. Speed has become more important than ever. So, too, has flexibility. As we see increasing financial innovation and diversification among banks, with new challengers, new forms of institutions and new types of markets and assets emerging, allowing regulators sufficient flexibility has become more essential, not less. The value of flexibility was demonstrated in the case of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK subsidiary. The creative use of powers to resolve that bank through a sale, rather than putting it into the bank insolvency procedure, protected consumers, minimised market turbulence and shielded the public purse. Contrast that with the US regulators’ approach to the parent company, SVB. There, rigidity and a mechanistic failure to apply major bank rules led to failures of regulatory oversight that contributed—as US regulators have acknowledged—to the bank’s failure. I raise this matter because I fear that amendments 1, 3 and 4 will militate against speed and flexibility, and will reduce the effectiveness of the Bill, especially in acute crisis situations. Let me start with proposed amendment 4. This would require the Bank of England to consider competitiveness and the growth impact on the market before directing resolution through the FSCS. However well-intentioned the amendment is, it could have a catastrophic effect. At a time of crisis—policymakers have sometimes just hours to act—it would place a duty on them to make a market assessment, which, by the way, could presumably be challenged. This is simply impractical and could fatally slow down action to restore financial stability. As someone who has sat in the room during a bail-out process, I have to tell the proposer of the amendment that spending time on this kind of exercise during a disorderly bank failure is simply a luxury that we do not have. I am also concerned that such a requirement would have a chilling effect, staying regulators’ hands when they have to act quickly. This could not only increase the risk of disorderly collapse, but raise the cost to the FSCS of a recapitalisation if it does proceed. Experience tells us that the longer we put off a resolution, the more expensive it becomes. This is a recipe for higher risk and higher cost. Moreover, leaving aside the practical difficulties, the underlying logic is flawed. First, in seeking to analyse the market before deciding on whether to resolve an institution or wind it up, we are putting the cart before the horse. Surely a much better course of action is to prevent the potentially disorderly collapse of the institution, and then to work out its long-term future and the role, if any, it should play in the market. Secondly, the amendment fails to take into account other objectives that the Prudential Regulation Authority should properly consider in deciding whether to act, including the protection of retail savers, the prevention of contagion and the safeguarding of macroprudential stability. As drafted, the amendment, however well-intentioned, could distort PRA decision making. Its intentions may be good, but its impact might not be. The same is unfortunately true of amendments 1 and 3. Both seek to circumscribe the use of the FSCS via statute, to prevent it being used to bail out larger institutions. The amendments would rob regulators of the flexibility to use the instrument in unusual or unforeseen circumstances, in the name of solving a problem that does not exist. The powers provided by the Bill are already aimed squarely at smaller banks, and there are various safeguards in the Bill to prevent the use of those powers for larger banks in most scenarios. For example, the Bill states that the FSCS-funded resolution may be used only for institutions that are placed in a bridge bank or transferred to a new institution, and this would not be applicable for larger bank in most scenarios, as they are expected to be resolved through an MREL bail-in. The Bill also provides for de facto Treasury sign off, requires the Chancellor to report to Parliament on the use of the powers and mandates the bank to inform the Chairs of the relevant parliamentary Committees whenever an FSCS-funded resolution is undertaken. As such, it is already well-policed and circumscribed. There is little danger of this approach being regularly or routinely used with large banks. Adding a statutory prohibition on using this approach with firms meeting their minimum MREL thresholds would add little, but it would create risk. My experience in the Treasury during the global financial crisis, and in my work across financial services since then, is that we cannot say that the highly improbable will never happen, and we cannot always predict what form the next crisis will take, or what will trigger it. Conservative Members should surely understand this lesson better than most. After all, it was Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget that sparked market chaos through a product—liability-driven investments—that most people had never even heard of, and were thought to be very stable and low risk. Given this, it would be exceptionally unwise to statutorily bar the Bank from being able to use all the tools at its disposal in exceptional circumstances. There are eventualities that, however unlikely, are possible, such as a well-capitalised bank suffering a very rapid deterioration of its position due to a mass redress event. We must allow the Bank flexibility to access the tools that the Bill provides in exceptional circumstances, in order to ensure stability and protect the taxpayer. We must not bind its hands in a crisis. The power of the Government’s proposals lie in their ability to be deployed rapidly and with flexibility. That is what will give them their traction and help safeguard our financial stability. It is critical that we preserve those facets of the Bill. For that reason, I urge the House to join me in rejecting the amendments.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Leaseholders in Hendon and across the UK are being ripped off by managing agents charging excessive fees while delivering poor service. That is why I, along with colleagues on the Labour Benches, have called many of those companies into Parliament to explain themselves. In the recent White Paper, the Government set out a strong plan to end the feudal leasehold system for good. May we have a debate in Government time on what can be done at constituency level to support the reforms, and specifically to help the Government hold managing agents to account while the reforms are enacted, lowering the unfair and unaffordable service charges that leaseholders are being forced to pay?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Fourteen years of neglect from the Conservative party left high streets, such as the one in Edgware, in a shocking state. One common complaint that my constituents have is that phone boxes on Edgware high street have become derelict and act as a magnet for graffiti, vandalism and litter. I am pleased to say that after lobbying BT, two of these unsightly phone boxes will be removed, but there is much more work to be done. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time to map out the Government’s comprehensive plan to revive Britain’s high streets?

• 3 Apr 2025 · UK-US Trade and Tariffs · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—a joy as ever. I thank my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister for their tireless efforts, which have secured the best, most powerful position available for our country. Of course, there is deep disappointment that tariffs have been levied, but the fact that they have been levied at the lowest band is a vindication of the Government’s strategy, and businesses I have spoken to—in Hendon and nationally—have been unanimous in their support for the Government’s approach. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to stand up for Britain is through a cool, calm, collected and pragmatic approach, and that we must reject the knee- jerk response and calls for action on invented problems that some Opposition Members demand?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Royal British Legion · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. It is our sacred duty to make sure that we never forget the brave men and women who served and gave their lives for our freedom. For over 100 years, the Royal British Legion has done fantastic work not just to continue bearing the torch of remembrance, but to ensure that our veterans and their families are given the support they need. The RBL is the beating heart of the network that looks after our armed forces community. We all have contact with the Royal British Legion each year when we buy and proudly wear our poppies, but many people might not realise that this is just a fraction of the services it provides. It is the UK’s largest armed forces charity, with 180,000 members, 110,000 volunteers and a network of partners and charities. It provides recovery and rehabilitation services, and expert advice and guidance, to service personnel and their families, as well as campaigning day in, day out to improve the lives of everyone in the armed forces community and make sure that their voice is heard. In my community, I have repeatedly had the great honour of joining the volunteers from the Edgware branch of the Royal British Legion. All visitors to the Broadwalk shopping centre know about the hard work that such volunteers do when they give up their free time to support our servicemen and women. These volunteers represent the spirit of selflessness to which we should all aspire, and which the Royal British Legion embodies. We all share an obligation to members of our armed forces, who sacrifice so much for us. The work that the RBL does to support veterans and their families in my constituency cannot be underestimated. There are so many amazing local volunteers who deserve our recognition—unfortunately, too many to name today—but I want to recognise one person: our local branch chair, Maxine Webber, who does so much for our community. She is the living embodiment of the sense of duty, community spirit, energy and pride that the Royal British Legion stands for. It is right that we have taken time in our parliamentary schedule to give our thanks to the Royal British Legion and everyone who volunteers for it. In fact, it is especially fitting that we are doing so on a warm spring afternoon, when the prospect of buying our poppies in November and joining the Remembrance Day commemorations on a cold winter’s morning feel so far away, because the Royal British Legion works hard all year round. It represents all that is great about our armed forces and Britain. Its work neither stops nor ends on 11 November, so it is right that we should think about the RBL, pay our thanks and support it as best we can all year round.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak against new clauses 1 and 4 and amendment 6. The simple truth is that we cannot have any more dither and delay. Our starting point in this debate must be the fact that we are in a skills crisis, and one that lies at the feet of the Conservatives. Twenty-six years ago, I worked on the new deal taskforce for the Labour Government of the time, clearing up the mess that the Major Government had left in the skills system. Fast-forward over a quarter of a century, and once again we find the Labour Government having to clear up the mess in skills left by Conservatives.

• 27 Mar 2025 · PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Does my right hon. Friend agree that in order to safeguard the future of the welfare system, we must ensure that it is sustainable?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement and on her action to end austerity by investing £26 billion in the NHS and £3 billion in education, raising defence budgets, and unleashing over £100 billion of additional capital investment to build the foundations of our economy. On the day after this Government voted through a pay rise for 3 million working people by raising the minimum wage, does she agree that it is only by making the tough decisions to restore stability and push ahead with our bold plans for reform that the Government can repair the terrible damage done by the Conservative party, deliver strong public services and get more money in people’s pockets?

• 25 Mar 2025 · Terms and Conditions of Employment · Hansard source

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  I start by declaring an interest as a proud member of the GMB and Unison unions. This is a debate about four numbers: 3 million, £1,400, £2,500 and 10 million. Three million is the number of people who will benefit from the fantastic measures being announced today; £1,400 is how much they will benefit—a real life-changing amount—while £2,500 is how much someone aged 18 to 20 years old will benefit from these changes and 10 million is the number of people whose lives will see a transformative impact from our Employment Rights Bill. All of that is being achieved by a Labour Government, with our plan for change delivering security for working people, but so much of it is opposed by the Conservatives. On a day when we are debating giving a pay rise to 3 million people, it is striking and speaks volumes that the Opposition Benches are completely empty. That is the difference between the Government and the Conservatives. That pay rise is the difference that a Labour Government make. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) just tried slightly to rewrite history, but I am old enough to remember the pre-minimum wage era and who brought it to an end: a Labour Government. The introduction of the national minimum wage was a radical and transformative step, and it was opposed every step of the way by the Conservatives. When Labour included a policy for a minimum wage in our 1992 manifesto, Michael Howard claimed that it would destroy up to 2 million jobs. When we brought it to this place as legislation in 1998, the Conservatives fought it tooth and nail every single step of the way. The Conservatives’ concerns turned out to be totally unfounded. It was a pointless opposition to measures that increased the wages of more than a million workers immediately in the UK, as the evidence from my hon. Friend the Member for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang) pointed out. Indeed, the shadow Chancellor at the time, now better known for his railway journeys, eventually ended Tory opposition to the minimum wage, saying: “The minimum wage has caused less damage to employment than we feared.” How different the picture looks today. We have a Leader of the Opposition who recently said that the minimum wage was “overburdening” business and that maternity pay was “excessive”. In an article for ConservativeHome, the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) said that our measures to boost employment rights and make work pay would have a negative effect on business, “especially in lower-wage sectors like hospitality and retail”. Perhaps the shadow Chancellor does not realise that the entire point of these measures is to bring these workers—in particular, young workers—out of low pay, to improve retention, to keep people in work and to boost our economy. The low-wage, low-growth economy that the Conservatives presided over for 14 years brought with it stagnation and a growing number of people who either left employment or never entered it in the first place. Given that, we all know where we stand. I will wrap up by saying that this measure represents a choice. Our choice is to increase the minimum wage and put money back in the pockets of working people. It is a choice to put people first. It will help thousands of people in Hendon and millions of people across this country, and it is a choice I am proud to support.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Given that the right hon. Member’s belief is so strong, will she enlighten me on whether she voted to strip child benefit from certain families, as was Conservative policy? That was a universal benefit.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for raising this deeply important issue. I know that I speak for everyone here in finding his words about his father-in-law, and the story of Kira, very moving. I join him in welcoming Kira’s family. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) for her campaigning on this issue—her sister would be very proud of her. I also pay tribute to everyone who has spoken, for both their bravery and the immense bravery of their constituents and their family members. I particularly want to recognise the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) and the story of Dan, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for her powerful speech about her father, and my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) for his speech about his grandparents. I give a special mention to my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn); I am so sorry that I did not get a chance to meet his brother Alex. He sounds like a phenomenal human being. I am so sorry for my hon. Friend’s loss, but I know that his brother would be very proud of him. My heart goes out to those who have shared their stories. I thank them for their bravery. As so many stories show, the term “rare cancers” is misleading. The cancers we class as rare in total account for almost half of all cancer diagnoses each year, and as has been mentioned, tragically they account for over half—55%—of all cancer deaths. Given that, on average, one in two of us develops some form of cancer in our lifetimes, the chances of experiencing one of these so-called rare or less common cancers, or seeing them diagnosed in a loved one, are far higher than the term suggests. In the coming year, 182,000 people will be diagnosed with these types of cancers—equivalent to the population of a city the size of Swindon. Sadly, 92,000 people will lose their lives as a result—the population of a city the size of Chester. Behind each one of those tragic statistics lies a story of families bereaved; of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children lost, and of lives torn apart. That was brought home to me when I visited Chai Cancer Care in my constituency to hear the stories of many people battling to live with cancer. Their bravery is inspiring and they need our help now. I commend the Government’s work to improve cancer outcomes for all. Last month they launched the call for evidence to inform the development of a national cancer plan, and I hope that we can pass the Bill to support those efforts. Illnesses classified as rare or less common are among some of the very cruellest. The Bill seeks to address some of the fundamental reasons why diagnosis of a comparatively rare form of cancer can leave patients with a disproportionately lower chance of making a full recovery. For a start, rare cancers are harder to diagnose. There are many reasons for that. Some of the more common cancers have screening programmes, which means that many people are diagnosed before they have symptoms. Sadly, that is much less common in the case of rare cancers. Additionally, doctors see the symptoms of common cancers more frequently, and so are more likely to spot them. Also, currently, 82% of patients with a rare or less common form of cancer are not offered a clinical trial. The Bill will seek to reduce the knowledge gap on rare cancers, proposing a national specialty lead for rare cancers to advise on research design and facilitate collaboration in rare cancer research, and a specific rare cancer registry to share information to improve the recruitment of participants for rare cancer clinical trials. However, although we need to incentivise research, it is not the only barrier that we face to improving rare cancer outcomes. The comparatively lower occurrence of many rare cancers mean that, although drugs to combat them often exist, for economic reasons they are not developed by the pharma industry, despite the pressing and urgent need for them. These orphan drugs have the potential not only to save thousands of lives but to provide hundreds and thousands of families with that most valuable thing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley referred: more time with their loved ones. Under normal market conditions, pharma companies may be unwilling to invest in the research and development of new treatments for diseases that affect fewer people than the most common forms of cancer. The figures are stark: five of the six less survivable cancers received only 17% of the research funding for more survivable cancers. By proposing that the Secretary of State will be required to review the current laws on marketing authorisations for these orphan drugs, and by placing a duty on Government to support research and innovation further, the Bill would go a long way to achieving something that many of us would view as common sense: incentivising the production of these medical products and putting them to use where they are so badly needed in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West and his team for the work they have done to improve the power of collaboration among Members of Parliament, the charity sector and patient advocates. Drawing on medical expertise and lived experience, their diligence in bringing about the Bill is borne out by the widespread support it has gathered across the House. According to Pancreatic Cancer UK, the Bill has the potential to transform survival for rare cancers by encouraging a greater focus and drive to research, and the Brain Tumour Charity has also praised it. I know from my own experience, talking to constituents in Hendon and visiting hospitals such as the Royal Free, just how crucial one word can be: hope. Cancer is one of the defining health issues of our time, causing the death of 460 people in this country every single day. We know there is no silver bullet. We must fight cancer on all fronts, from research to prevention to diagnosis to treatment, and I know the Government are wholly committed to doing that. Thanks to huge oncological steps forward in recent years, outlooks for cancer patients have improved dramatically. We have reached the milestone of more than 50% of people diagnosed with cancer in England and Wales now surviving their disease for 10 years or more, yet this number falls sharply for many of the rarer cancers we have talked about today. We must recognise—as this Bill does—where the shortfalls are in our shared knowledge and the resources we put into the rarer forms of this disease. We have a duty to put this right. We must ensure that those suffering from rare and less common forms of cancer, and those yet to be diagnosed, have as much cause for hope as possible. I support this Bill.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 14 Mar 2025 · Arm’s-Length Bodies (Review) Bill · Hansard source

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  Could the hon. Gentleman enlighten me on a slight confusion I have with the wording of his Bill? The Government are talking about bringing more of these agencies back under Executive control so that the Executive, elected by the British people, can drive their performance. His Bill would provide direct parliamentary control, which in many cases—such as with the Prison Service, which is overseen by the Ministry of Justice—would move control and oversight from the Executive to Parliament. I may be confused, but would the Bill not make some of that harder not easier?

• 24 Feb 2025 · Consumer Protection: Fraud · Hansard source

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  Online scams are a cause of particular concern in Hendon. A number of my constituents have been targeted, and one lost £40,000 to an online scam. Many of the scams originate overseas. What discussions has the Minister had with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology about tackling online scams and working with other countries to crack down on scams originating abroad?

• 24 Feb 2025 · Consumer Protection: Fraud · Hansard source

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  1. What steps her Department is taking to help protect consumers against fraud.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  We have heard lots of statistics and detailed policy questions, but I want to start by sharing two stories. The first is of Antonia Foods in Wood Green, north London. From the outside, it looked like a normal neighbourhood corner shop selling fruit, veg and groceries, but from its back room Galina Nikolova and Gyunesh Ali ran a vast fraud operation, making use of transnational networks to file hundreds of illegal UC claims. By the time they were caught, they had defrauded the DWP of over £50 million. When the police finally raided their addresses, they found cases stuffed with cash. Nikolova and Ali received prison sentences, as did many of their associates, but the reality is that most of the money they claimed had long since disappeared, likely spirited out of the country. They had successfully stolen from us all. The second story is of Yvonne, a disabled woman who was paid thousands of pounds more in benefits than she was entitled to over a number of years as a result of an innocent mistake and is now struggling to make ends meet as the DWP deducts overpayments from her current entitlement. Both those stories illustrate why we so desperately need the Bill. The extent to which fraud against the public purse spread under the last Government is breathtaking. The proportions are simply staggering. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, public sector losses amounted to £55 billion last year—as much as the defence budget, and three times what we spend on police in England and Wales. That loss costs every man, woman and child £800 a year and is the equivalent of a third of the entire national VAT take. This is not a victimless crime or some technical infringement. It robs every family in Britain, erodes our public services and takes money that could be used to help those most in need, depriving the most vulnerable of support. My constituents in Hendon and people across the country rightly expect it to be tackled. This is a crime that feeds on the most disadvantaged and weakens not only public services but the public’s faith in those services and their fairness. I say gently to those who have criticised the Bill that there is nothing progressive and nothing compassionate about allowing fraud to fester. It is a scourge that must be tackled. It is a scourge that grew out of control and was professionalised under the last Government. Perhaps no area illustrates the challenge that we face, how it evolved and the last Government’s catastrophic failure to kerb fraud better than benefits. The DWP’s net bill for fraud and error, even after deducting underpayments, is £8.6 billion. That is £272 a second, £16,300 a minute and almost £1 million an hour. In the time that it will take for us to have the debate, the DWP will have lost more than £3 million. The bill for fraud and error is roughly the same as the Department’s entire programme budget. The DWP loses as much to fraud and error as it spends on every active programme it has to help the unemployed, the long term-sick, those with disabilities and the elderly. The picture is shocking, and it got much worse under the Conservative party. The headline figures for fraud and error excluding underpayment tripled in cash terms between 2010 and 2024 from £3.3 billion to £9.7 billion. As bad as those figures are, they actually understate how badly things deteriorated under the Conservatives. Claimant error rose only slightly in cash terms, while official error remained flat. In contrast, fraud rose a stunning sevenfold in cash terms and more than fourfold as a proportion of the total benefits budget. That was not some act of God; it was the result of serial failures by the Conservatives, who failed to understand that fraud was evolving and failed to modernise the DWP’s powers to allow it to keep up in the arms race with the fraudsters. They also made truly terrible policy and design choices that actively fuelled the fraud crisis. That can be seen nowhere better than in how the Conservatives set up universal credit. Because of their failures in properly establishing and policing its gateway, it became a magnet for fraud. Universal credit accounts for just 22% of benefit spending but contributes over 76% of all benefits fraud. Almost £1 in every £9 claimed through UC in the Conservatives’ last year in power was claimed fraudulently, compared with just £1 in £25 for housing benefit, £1 in £300 for PIP and just £1 in £1,000 for pensions. The reality is that the Conservatives failed to take the threat of fraud seriously and failed to understand how it was being professionalised and industrialised, as my earlier story showed. They left us all to pick up the bill. They say that they acted, but the truth is they did nothing for years. Even when they finally got their act together at the end of their term in office, it was too little, too late. Once again, we are having to step in to clear up their mess. They owe everyone in the House and everyone in the country an apology. It is striking that in all their bluster during the debate, we have not heard the only word that they should be uttering: sorry. Fraud exploded on the Conservatives’ watch because of their failings, but the pattern of fraud also tells us much about why the powers outlined in the Bill are so desperately needed. The DWP’s own statistics show that of the £7.4 billion lost to fraud last year, about £1 billion was lost to people who held too much capital to be eligible, £1.3 billion was lost to those who had failed to report their self-employment earnings, and a further £1.3 billion was lost to those who had failed to provide sufficient evidence. A further £250 million was lost to those who were abroad. Those frauds could have been caught with better data and better investigatory powers. It would have been possible for banks to spot people with too much capital to claim, or those with considerable earnings, yet today, because of the last Government’s failure to update their legislation, the DWP cannot compel information digitally. Virtually all banking is now done online, and yet while fraud is propagated through digital channels and moving at lightning speed, the DWP is still forced to rely on analogue tools. In other fields, we already integrate information and get institutions to work together to prevent fraud. Banks regularly scan patterns that indicate fraud; benefits should be no different. We need digital tools and access to digital data to fight fraud. As with tax, investigators should have the powers they need to recover funds from those who are no longer on benefits. That is why the powers that the Secretary of State is proposing to take are so important as they will allow us to better identify those committing fraud and take more effective recovery action to get taxpayers’ money back. That brings me back to my second story. Along with the measures that the Chancellor brought forward in the Budget, these measures will help us protect legitimate claimants by helping to pick up overpayments earlier. Last year, 480,000 people had deductions averaging £500 taken from their universal credit payments because of overpayments. Underpayments can be a source of huge anxiety and hardship. Preventing them and catching them earlier will help protect the most vulnerable claimants. That will be possible only because of the better data and the better processes that the Bill will help support. As we heard from the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick), some have voiced concerns about whether the powers proposed in the Bill will impinge on people’s rights. I am strongly reassured by the powerful raft of safeguards that the Secretary of State has included in the Bill. Those safeguards mean that new debt recovery powers will be focused not on those on benefits, but rather on those who are neither on benefits or PAYE, and the DWP will not have access to people’s bank accounts, contrary to what some have implied during the debate. Those safeguards will include independent oversight and options for appeal. I am pleased to hear that, on top of that, the ICO believes that the safeguards address the concerns that it had with the Conservative party’s proposals. This is a fair and balanced package, which modernises our approach and gives us the digital tools to fight a digital scourge, and the enforcement powers to take on organised crime while protecting the vulnerable. This Government and this ministerial team are modernising our system to protect public money, help the vulnerable and, critically, get Britain working. I am proud to support the Bill.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  As my right hon. Friend mentioned, the Conservatives did not do much on this issue except tagging on a Bill at the very end of their tenure. The Information Commissioner’s Office was very critical of the approach taken in that fraud Bill. Can she reassure the House that she has addressed those concerns?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Welfare Cap · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that under the last Conservative Government inactivity rates among the young were the highest in the OECD, and that they were working on it, but it was not working?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Welfare Cap · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for her opening speech, on a timely subject as the Government have just laid out their bold and striking ambitions to grow our economy and take the tough decisions needed, after years of dither and delay by the Conservative party. Today more than on other days, we have seen laid out in stark relief the choice before us of either doubling down on the failures—more of the same—or picking a new route. That is what this debate is about. I want to talk about the root causes of some of the growth issues that we face. But first I want to focus on a number: £8.6 billion. That is how much the welfare cap was breached by, because of the Conservatives’ failures time and again. That is not a small amount. To put it in some context, it is as much as the entire programme budget of the Department for Work and Pensions. To give another comparison, it is half the entire police grant for all policing in England and Wales. It is a phenomenal failure on the part of the Conservatives that we face this issue today, and it is not their only failure in the DWP. My hon. Friend the Minister laid out fantastically well the litany of failures. Let me pick up one in particular: the Conservatives breached the welfare cap, but we have not had much time to talk about their failures on fraud and error. Because of failures on their watch, the numbers more than doubled, and are now stuck at an elevated post-covid rate. They left us with an entrenched fraud and error problem. We could go on. The litany of catastrophic mismanagement is almost endless. The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said that she could make savings. The Conservatives had 14 years —where were they? Instead, we got lots of “dog ate my homework” excuses. They should be hanging their heads in shame. As hon. Friends have pointed out, it is telling that, behind the shadow Minister, the Opposition Benches are empty. They know how badly they let the country down. It is not just about the £8.6 billion; the Conservatives’ failures shine a spotlight on two deeper failures that are the root causes of today’s motions: a failure to grow the economy, and a failure to get people into work and to help those with health conditions move on in the labour market. Let me turn to growth first. We have heard a lot today about the economy, but it is worth pausing to remember how bad things were under the Conservatives. From 2019, on their watch, the economy grew slower than any other G7 economy, bar one. In the last decade of their rule, GDP rose in real terms by only 6%. If it had grown at the same rate as comparable countries, on average we would each be more than £8,000 better off. I welcome the fact that after years of this country being held back by previous incompetent Governments, this Government are finally taking the decisions to realise our country’s potential. That is what we heard today: £78 billion being released through supporting the Ox-Cam arc; £160 billion through the Chancellor’s excellent announcements over the weekend to allow investment of pension surpluses; £7.9 billion of infrastructure to give us nine new reservoirs. The Conservatives had 14 years in government—do you know how many reservoirs they built, Madam Deputy Speaker? Zero. That is the difference. I am proud of our Chancellor, who has made the tough decisions that have given us the foundation of stability and allowed us to make these announcements today. It is because of the stability created by the Budget and her other decisions that we now have inflation of 2.5%, that interest rates have been cut twice, because the Bank has confidence in the Government’s fiscal management, that investment is at a 19-year high, and that wages are growing at their fastest rate in three years—I could go on. It is only because of the tough decisions that we have made that we are in that position. Beyond the Conservatives’ failure on growth, the breaches of the welfare cap also shine a spotlight on their terrible failure to get people into work and to combat poverty. The figures are extraordinarily stark; I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher) for sharing some of them. Today, one in five adults is economically inactive because of the Conservatives’ legacy. We are the only G7 country where employment rates remain below the pre-covid level. I note that the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent, when asked, acknowledged the fact, but she could not tell us why that is. Well, I have a clue for her. It is because of the incompetence and the failures of her party. What is more, we know that these problems are driven overwhelmingly by ill health, with 85% of those who have dropped out of the labour market having done so due to ill health. This disproportionately hits those over 50, but, scandalously, also affects the youngest in our society. The number of NEETs—those not in employment, education or training—went up by a third in the last three years of the previous Government. It goes deeper than that. Beneath the shocking rise in 16 to 24-year-olds who are out of work and inactive, a stunning 79% are also low skilled, with skill levels lower than GCSEs. Because of Conservative failures, so many of our young people have been caught in a downward spiral of low skills, poor opportunity, low self-esteem and poor mental health. This failure by the Conservatives is a moral disgrace, but it is also a massive economic problem. If not addressed, the sickness bill they bequeathed the country could exceed £100 billion by the end of this Parliament. I would like to say that this is the first time they Conservatives have done something like this, but that would not be true. Those of us old enough to remember will know that in 1997, the outgoing Conservative Government bequeathed more than 5.1 million inactive people to the incoming Labour Government. It is just what Conservative Governments do. My hon. Friend the Minister also mentioned the fact that many of the technical changes the previous Government made to universal credit and other benefits actually dragged people further away from the labour market, putting up barriers and making it harder to get work. This is an absolute scandal, especially because we know that DWP staff—the people who work on this—want to make a difference. I worked for the new deal taskforce 26 years ago, working on the previous Labour Government’s strong efforts to get people back into work. I know that DWP staff want to make a difference, but, because of the previous Government’s terrible policy design and incompetence, they are often prevented from doing so. This is a massive human tragedy. We know from survey work that at least half of the people who are inactive—4.5 million people—say that they want to work if they can have the right support. We also know that work is the best tonic for many of the issues faced by those who are inactive. We know from a University of Cambridge study, for instance, that just eight hours a week of paid work can reduce mental health issues in a large portion of the population by up to 30%. What is more, the Conservative party did far too little to tackle the underlying dynamics of low work and no work faced by so many people in poverty. We know that the average family in poverty goes through up to seven separate spells in poverty. All too often, it is like “Hotel California”: they can check out, but they can never leave. Rather than trying to deal with that problem, all we got from the Conservative party were sticking plasters and political slogans. I am incredibly proud to sit on the Labour Benches and support a Government who will take a different approach and are absolutely determined to make an actual difference and tackle the root causes. We heard from the Minister the action that will be taken to give our young people a choice, through the youth guarantee, between earning and learning—a real, proper stable start in life. We heard about the changes we will make to the DWP to actually get it working. We heard about the changes that will actually tackle the barriers to work—real, practical steps rather than the slogans of the Conservative party. We heard about the work on fraud and error, so that our public money is spent on helping people to get back to work, rather than leaking out of the system. We heard about the efforts that will be made to get people not just into jobs, but into good jobs. It is worth pausing on that point for a second. The labour market has changed a lot in the past 30 years. It is no longer a given that all jobs provide a ladder to good, fulfilling, family-supporting work. For too long, the Conservative party, when it was in government, ignored that. It is such good news that through the good work laid out by the Minister on the industrial strategy, and through bringing the careers service together with Jobcentre Plus so that we have a system that focuses not just on getting people into work but on helping them get on, we finally have a Government who are taking the problem seriously. Our ambition is no less than to give people proper power over their own lives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough pointed out, the Conservative Government so often just sought to demonise and sloganise. We are trying to put power back into people’s hands and give them the real power over their own lives that only fulfilling and decent work can offer. As I said, I started work in the new deal taskforce in the DWP’s predecessor Department. I was lucky enough, later on, to work on similar issues in the Prime Minister’s strategy unit. What characterised the Administration then was a real passion to change lives and a real passion to make things better. That has been so lacking for the past 14 years, and it is so refreshing to hear that it is back. I am absolutely proud to stand here and support the motion.