Diane Abbott MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism · Hansard source

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  The Minister will be aware that many of us in this Chamber think that Palestine Action is in a different category from the other two organisations that he is seeking to proscribe. Is he aware that several UN special rapporteurs, including those protecting human rights, say that they have told the UK Government that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism”?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Millions of disabled people will listen, view or read about this debate and its consequences, and feel fear. For some Members of the House, this is just an afternoon’s political cut and thrust, but for the disabled it is the rest of their lives. Members will have heard that we should be concerned about the rising trajectory of welfare spending in this country. Ministers say that all the time, but what about the rising trajectory of tax avoidance, or the rising trajectory of salaries in the City of London? Why must people on welfare bear all the opprobrium and have the money taken out of their pockets? We are the Labour party, and historically we have stood up against injustice. Why are we stepping away from that today? Anybody who has ever had anything to do with the welfare system knows that it needs reform. I deal month after month with dozens of people who are struggling with the welfare system. It is not that people do not accept that it needs reform. The problem is these reforms, which are unfair, ill thought out and, in the end, focused on saving money. On the question of the personal independence payment, too many Members talk about PIP as if it is too easy to claim, and that people are gaming the system or even engaged in some sort of scam. The truth is that PIP is generally not merely difficult to claim, but humiliating to claim. Any reform should deal with that. There are so many practical problems with the Bill. It is being rushed through in a week, which is ridiculous. There has been no formal consultation with the people whose lived experience it is concerned with. It is not a coincidence that a not a single organisation which speaks for the disabled supports the legislation. It will become law before two important reviews—one into PIP itself, the Timms review, and the “Keep Britain Working” review—will actually report. The reviews, and in particular the Timms review, will actually be a dead letter. And because it is too late to change the face of the Bill, Members are being asked to vote purely on the basis of verbal assurances from Ministers. None of us would come to an important arrangement with our council on the word of councillors, so, with all due respect, why are we expected to vote for a law that will affect millions of people’s lives and drive hundreds of thousands of people into poverty purely on the basis of what Ministers claim they are going to do? I, myself, continue to oppose the Bill on moral, legal and political grounds. Millions of disabled people will watch this debate on television, hear about it from their friends and family or read about it in a newspaper. They will not be able to believe that the Labour party—the Labour party—is putting legislation through like this. If this legislation means anything at all, it means money coming out of the pockets of the disabled, otherwise what is the point of it? If you are going to save money in this financial year, disabled people have to lose money. It will be shocking to so many people listening and hearing about this that Labour Ministers are standing up and putting this through to hit Treasury targets. Even at this late stage, I urge colleagues to think about the people who put us here and withdraw the Bill. It cannot be right that we have had concessions so late in the day, even in the course of the debate. If Ministers were proud of what they are doing, concessions would not be coming so late in the day. As I say, even at this late stage, we should withdraw the Bill.

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

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  There has been a lot of talk about there being no evidence of coercion, but within the family, the most powerful coercion is silence: it is the failure to answer when a question is put. If police cannot spot coercion in domestic violence, how can they be expected to spot coercion in assisted dying? The Royal College of Pathologists and the former chief coroner have pointed out that without a role for a coroner, the Bill raises the possibility of foul play. When an amendment was tabled in Committee to deal with that, however, it was opposed. The Bill would allow private for-profit contractors to run an assisted dying service with no profit cap and no transparency, but when an amendment was tabled in Committee to deal with that point, it was opposed. We have heard—and we will hear over and over again in this debate—about choice. This Bill may produce choice for those of us, like almost everybody in this House, who have for the entirety of their adult life been confident in dealing with authority and institutions, but even then, the Bill would need amendments. But what choice does the Bill hold for someone who, all their life, has lacked agency, particularly in a family context, which may be particularly the case in certain cultures and communities? And what choice does the Bill offer to those who lack access to good palliative care? As the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has put it, our law should not “focus on the few who wish for assisted dying and do too little to support the majority of those facing their final days who want—and deserve—access to the best of palliative care.” What choice is it for those who think that, because their doctor raises it with them at all, they are being guided in that direction? An amendment that might have addressed that issue was rejected in Committee. It is a possibility that proponents of the Bill do not take seriously at all, but anyone who knows how institutions work should be watchful of it. I came to this House to be a voice for the voiceless—that has not always been favoured by my own leadership, but that is why I came to the House. Who could be more voiceless than somebody who is in their sick bed and believes that they are dying? I ask Members in this debate to speak up for the voiceless one more time. There is no doubt that if the Bill is passed in its current form, there will be people among the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society who lose their lives unnecessarily. I therefore implore the House to reject this Bill—not because I am opposed to assisted dying in principle, but because my concern is for vulnerable and marginalised persons and communities.

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

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  This may be the most fateful Bill that we discuss this Parliament. It is literally a matter of life and death. I have heard talk today of the injustices of the current situation. What could be more unjust than someone losing their life because of poorly drafted legislation? We hear about panels. The people talking about panels presumably have not had much to do with them. I would not put my life, or the life of anyone dear to me, in the hands of a panel of officials. I stress, right from the beginning, that it is perfectly possible to support assisted dying, as I do, but not be prepared to vote for this Bill. There is so much that is problematic about it. First, as I believe is widely understood, there has not been enough time to debate the Bill. Secondly, a Bill of this seriousness should be given more time.

• 22 May 2025 · Church Assets: Historical Link to Slavery · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will be aware that there is a lot of interest in the relationship between the Church and the slave trade. Is she able to say over what period the Church made profits from the slave trade? Is she able to specify the names of the companies that the Church invested in, or even the names of the slave plantations? Is she able to quantify exactly how much money the Church made over the period when it was involved in the slave trade? And is she able to say whether the Church’s profit from the slave trade is still part of its income today?

• 22 May 2025 · Church Assets: Historical Link to Slavery · Hansard source

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  10. Whether the commissioners have made an estimate of the proportion of the Church’s assets that may have a link to historical involvement with slavery.

• 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that far too many people do not have confidence in the face of authority, and that if a doctor raises assisted suicide with them—no matter how tactfully or professionally—they will feel that they are being steered in that direction?

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

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  Far from enabling the Government to put people into work, removing PIP will actually stop people working, because they depend on PIP for the extra cost of going to work. Perhaps the most preposterous argument for cutting disability payments is that it is the moral choice. This is obviously nonsense. In what universe is slashing benefits for the disabled moral? No one is taken in by that, not even those who think that all benefit claimants are scroungers.

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

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered Personal Independence Payment and disabled people. I am proud to have secured this debate today, and to be able to stand up for the disabled in the light of the catastrophic effects that the proposed cut to personal independence payments will have on them. This is the week after the council elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election proved disastrous for at least two major parties. The issue on everyone’s lips, and the cause of much of the disaffection, was welfare cuts, and specifically cuts to personal independence payments. I begin by thanking in advance all those who will take part in this debate, all those watching, all those in the outside world who are campaigning against the cuts and, above all, the disabled community itself, which, day by day, shows exemplary resilience and courage. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in her spring statement, raised the curtain on a series of welfare cuts: the health element of universal credit will be cut by 50% and frozen for new claimants, and the Office for Budget Responsibility has outlined that the planned cuts to disability benefits will reduce PIP for at least 800,000 claimants and cut health-related universal credit payments for 3 million families. And that is just the beginning.

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

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  It is indeed a cruel and brutal system that needs reform. It does not need cuts. Elements of the Labour party seem to want to claim that the loss of the by-election in Runcorn and the fact that Labour lost two thirds of the council seats we were defending was all about immigrants. However, voter surveys show that, far from being all about immigrants, the single most important reason for vote-switching was anger at the Government for the winter fuel allowance and welfare cuts, such as the proposed cut to PIP. Immigration came well down the list. Labour people who went out knocking on doors said that two issues came up over and again: cuts to winter fuel payments; and cuts to personal independence payments. However, despite the catastrophic results last week, the Prime Minister has made it clear that nothing will deter him from pushing ahead with these cuts. So far, his only concession has been to say that he will go “further and faster.” In my Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency, well over 8,000 people are on either personal independence payment or disability living allowance, which translates nationwide to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men and women whose fury will only mount as they find that, month by month, their payments are shrinking or disappearing altogether. The Labour leadership have not helped their case for cutting PIP by putting forward a set of contradictory arguments. On the one hand, they insist that they are helping the disabled by putting them back to work, but on the other hand, they say this cut will save £9 billion. Well, they cannot do both. Putting disabled people into rewarding, sustained employment, which we would all support, means spending money on training, therapy and childcare. In the short run, putting disabled people into jobs will not save money; it will actually cost more. The only certain way that cutting PIP saves the billions of pounds that the Government want is by making PIP recipients live on less, and this is something that Ministers claim they do not want to do.

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

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  There is no question but that my hon. Friend is correct. These cuts will put even more pressure on local authorities, which are already in difficulties. There is all this talk about getting disabled people into jobs—what jobs? The areas of employment where there are labour shortages tend to be minimum wage, like social care, or seasonal, like agricultural work. The DWP’s own figures show around 102,000 registered vacancies. Of those, only 807 can be done completely remotely, of which 127 are with employers that the DWP describes as Disability Confident, and of those just 10 are part time. Where are these jobs that the Government want to coerce the disabled into, and with what employers? The PIP claimants that the Government want to force back to work may have physical disabilities, but they may also be severely depressed or have mental health problems. Most employers will not tolerate the intermittent patterns of employment and long periods out of the labour market that come with those types of health problems. Furthermore, there is very little evidence that cutting benefits boosts employment—a point made by a group of concerned charities recently—and, as the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) said earlier, Ministers seem to miss the point that PIP is paid to disabled people regardless of whether they are in work. That means that many of the women and men the Government are taking PIP off already have jobs. Supporters of the Government’s cuts claim that, all too often, men and women on welfare are “taking the mickey”—I am quoting a Minister there—or making a “lifestyle choice”. People who describe welfare as a lifestyle choice obviously do not actually know many people who live on welfare. The poor housing, the struggle to pay for the basics and the humiliation they often endure mean that it is not a lifestyle that anybody would choose.

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

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  I entirely agree, and I would add that if Ministers think that the recent local election results were bad, they should wait until next year’s council elections in Scotland, Wales, big city conurbations such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and every single London borough. There are people in No. 10 who believe that we did not go far enough. A nameless No. 10 adviser said: “We didn’t go big enough the first time round…It’s a fairness issue”. Another nameless Government source said: “We should’ve done it all in one hit—we didn’t go far enough.” I wonder how many poor or disabled people those people have ever met or known. The Government should drop the cuts to the winter fuel payment and review the personal independence payment. They should consult the disabled and organisations that work with them, and genuinely improve and reform it.

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

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  I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government insist that the rising disability benefits bill means that something must be done, but in a recent report, the New Economics Foundation revealed that the disability benefits bill has risen because there has been a rise in the number of disabled people and a rise in deprivation. But, as we learned from David Cameron’s round of austerity, cuts have consequences that severely limit, or even eliminate, their supposed savings.

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

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  It is indeed a political choice. I would prefer my Government to introduce a wealth tax or some taxation system that asks the very wealthy to pay a little more than take money away from the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. But the Government refuse to accept that there is anything wrong with cutting benefits for the disabled. Instead, they say that there has been a “communication problem”. Some of us have tried explaining to Downing Street that they could employ the best communicators in the world, but these welfare cuts will be impossible to sell to the public and will undermine Labour’s position in communities.

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

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  The Minister has again repeated the line that the number of people claiming PIP has shot up and that there must be something dubious about that. I ask him to look at the New Economics Foundation report that came out today, which says that the reasons why the number of people claiming has gone up are a rise in the number of disabled people, a rise in deprivation, long covid and the pressures on the NHS. The Minister said we were asking the Government to put their head in the sand; no—we are just asking the Government to talk to the disabled and their supporters and not ram through legislation without giving us sufficient information. This cruel and misconceived legislation will not end well politically. Meanwhile, millions of the disabled will live in fear. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Personal Independence Payment and disabled people.

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

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  I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We need an equality impact assessment now, and I cannot understand why the Government are introducing these random welfare benefit cuts without allowing MPs to understand fully what the consequences will be. The fact that the proposed welfare cuts come on top of the cut to the winter fuel allowance and the failure to raise the child benefit ceiling makes everything worse. The furious response to their proposed welfare cuts, particularly the cuts to personal independence payments, seems to have come as a surprise to the Government. PIP is a benefit intended to help people who have a health condition or disability with the extra costs of living. Unfortunately, some people, including some Ministers, talk about it as if it were a handout.

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

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  We undoubtedly need more information before we can meaningfully vote on these proposals. Some of us are old enough to remember Mrs Thatcher and her poll tax, which was her undoing. It is not too late to drop the winter fuel tax and the cuts to PIP. I plead with my Government to do so.

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

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  PIP is certainly not an income, and I imagine that the Minister will be in contact with Leicester city council to try to understand what it thinks it is doing. The new points system that the Government are suggesting for people to qualify for the maximum level of PIP is particularly concerning. For instance, it will mean that people who cannot wash below their waist could lose points and lose benefits, and be expected to find a job. Focus groups are revolted when they hear that. The country’s anger at these cuts boiled over last week in spectacular fashion with the by-election in Runcorn, where Labour lost its 16th safest seat.

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

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  I entirely agree. Furthermore, it seems to me that Ministers have not really looked into the costs that PIP is covering, otherwise they would not be talking about slashing it in this way. I wonder whether it ever occurs to the Government that voters will begin to notice that whenever they want money, they take it from the most vulnerable—old people, poor children and now the disabled. When we suggest a wealth tax, they recoil in horror, yet a 2% levy on men and women whose assets are worth more than £10 million would affect only 0.4% of the UK population and raise £24 billion a year. Politics is the language of choices, and sadly, this Government are making a conscious choice to balance their books on the back of people on welfare in general and the disabled in particular.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  Just to respond to the point that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) has just raised, the guidelines did not pick out race and ethnicity. In fact, they listed a number of circumstances in which a pre-sentence report might be considered appropriate, such as someone facing their first custodial sentence, someone who is under 25, someone who is a woman, pregnant, a primary carer or a dependent relative, someone who has said they are transgender or someone who may have addiction issues. Far from the Sentencing Council picking out race and ethnicity, that was only one in a long list of circumstances in which it suggested a pre-sentence report might be appropriate.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend refers to blockages. How can he describe Members of this House, and people in the community who are trying to stand up for a fair and just criminal justice system, as blockages?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Sentencing Council has at no point suggested treating defendants differently according to their ethnicity or religion. All it has tried to do is ensure that judges and magistrates have the maximum information.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree with Members who are making the case that we should all be equal before the law. The problem is that the figures show that that is not the case, and it has not been the case for decades. If we look at the statistics for the numbers of people in prison, black people make up 12% of the prison population, yet we only make up 4% of the general population. That tends to raise the concern that we are not equal before the law across the whole custodial and criminal justice system. I remember that years ago, before some Members were in the House, you could not say anything about institutional racism in the police force and how black people were treated by the police. It took Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson inquiry to get politicians and people who speak for the state to even acknowledge that there was such an issue as institutional racism in the police force.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  Nobody is trying to stop judges sentencing in individual cases. All the Sentencing Council was seeking to do was ensure that judges and magistrates had the maximum amount of information before coming to a decision on the sentence.