Helen Whately MP: speeches

Speeches

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

  More

  Every penny of taxpayers’ money lost to fraud or error is money wasted, so we Conservatives support many of the measures outlined in the Bill, not least those that continue the hard work done by my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions prior to the general election. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that every penny they raise in taxation is spent well. That is fair to taxpayers, who have worked hard to earn that money. When it comes to welfare, at the heart of our system must be the principle that Government support should go only to those for whom it is intended. Every penny that does not undermines the entire system. It erodes public trust and support. That has put support for some of the most vulnerable people in society at risk. That is why, in government, we did the groundwork for the clauses of the Bill that enable banks to help crack down on fraudsters, recognising that while the state should never be able to see what someone spends their money on, it should be able to check whether they are entitled to the money that they are claiming. The amendments we have tabled to the Bill are constructive, so I am disappointed that the Government have chosen not to support them. Videos from sickfluencers are hard to avoid when searching online about benefits, but rather than helping people to claim something that they may need and should rightly receive, the videos tell people how to game the system. We want taxpayers to get their money back, even if it has already been spent. Why should we tolerate people using social media platforms to help others commit fraud, and to help them cheat the tests that are there to ensure that support goes to those who need it? Why should someone who has committed fraud be able to keep their high-end television or luxury car, just because they spent their ill-gotten gains before the Department got to them? We are clear that both those things should be tackled, but sadly Labour has shown itself to be on the side of the fraudsters. As I said at the outset, we back the overall purpose of the Bill and much of its content, but I hope that the Secretary of State’s colleagues in the other place will take note of the constructive approach we have taken and the arguments made, particularly those made so articulately by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) today and in Committee. I look forward to seeing the Bill improved before it may become law.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to publish data on the number of eligible pensioners it estimates did not receive the Winter Fuel Payment in 2024–25; further calls on the Government to publish data showing the impact of changes to the Winter Fuel Payment on levels of pensioner poverty and the number of hospital admissions; also calls on the Government to set out how it intends to ensure that those eligible for Pension Credit receive it before winter 2025-26; and calls on the Government to apologise for the misery caused to vulnerable pensioners in winter 2024–25. Now that the sun has come out, I suspect that many of us will quickly forget the chill of the winter—the evenings when it was freezing outside and we reached for our jumpers, and perhaps the switch on our central heating too. However, for many pensioners turning up the heating was not an option, because one of the Chancellor’s first acts in her new job last year was to scrap the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners—something of which she gave no hint before the election, a time when voters rightly expect political parties to spell out their plans. As a result, millions of older people, many with fixed and far from substantial incomes and many living in draughty homes, missed out on £300 this winter. That money makes all the difference. In fact, for some it is literally a choice between heating and eating. At the same time, energy bills went up. Before the election, the Government did not say they would cut the winter fuel payment, but they did promise to bring our energy bills down—by £300, in fact. Instead, they are up by about £170. It was a promise so easily made and so carelessly broken. Labour Members may not like hearing this, but let us pause for a minute to think about what this means in human terms. I remember well my grandmother in her 90s in layers of jumpers, shawls and blankets in winter, even when she had the heating on. In fact, I remember well giving her a woollen shawl as a Christmas present, because she was always cold. I would describe myself as someone who feels the cold, but I know that what I feel on a winter’s day is not a patch on how someone in their 80s or 90s feels, especially if they have health problems, and I know from my time as a Health Minister about the connection between being cold and ending up in hospital. To help get the winter fuel payment cut past Labour Back Benchers, some of whom do have consciences, the Government claimed that they were going to protect the most vulnerable because those on pension credit would still get it, but let us look at what that really means in practice—at the facts. Pension credit tops up a pensioner’s weekly income to £218.15 if they are single or, if they have a partner, to £332.95 jointly. Someone with an annual income of £11,500 could be ineligible for pension credit. They may be just £1 or £2 over the threshold, but because of the cliff edge, they do not get pension credit and, as a result of the Government’s cut, they would not get the winter fuel payment either. So we are not talking about rich people.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for advance sight of her statement, and I thank the ombudsman and his team for their work on this important matter. In March this year, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman published its final report into the way that changes to the state pension age were communicated to women born in the 1950s. The report took over five years to produce and reflects the complexity of the issue. It spans a 30-year period across different Governments, dating back to Parliament’s decision in 1995 for the state pension age for men and women to be equalised, in a long-overdue move towards gender equality. As the chief executive of the ombudsman set out, the Department for Work and Pensions fully co-operated with the ombudsman through its investigation and provided thousands of pages of detailed evidence to support it. It is because we took the work of the ombudsman so seriously that it was right for the Government to fully and properly consider the findings, and we were committed to working with Parliament to provide an appropriate and swift response. However, as the House will know, the general election was called less than two months later. Given that it has taken Labour five months since the general election to provide its findings, I am sure the Secretary of State would agree that there was insufficient time to take a considered and fair decision between the publication of the report and the election. I am glad that the Secretary of State has picked this issue up since coming into office and has brought her statement to the House today. I will be considering it in more detail in the days and weeks to come, as well as the basis on which she has reached her conclusion. I am sure that the Government’s statement today will be a huge disappointment to WASPI women, and I recognise the strength of feeling about the issue. As a constituency MP, I have met WASPI women who live in Faversham and Mid Kent and heard their personal stories. No doubt campaigners will note the Government’s apology for the decisions made between 2005 and 2007 that led to a 28-month delay in sending out letters, which the ombudsman identified as “maladministration”. But let us be clear: the decision to provide no compensation is the Government’s decision, and they need to own it. I am not going to let them get away with saying that there is no compensation because of a fictional black hole in the public finances. The country’s financial position now is a result of their political choices. They should not try to dodge responsibility by suggesting to WASPI women that, if times were different, they might have come to a different conclusion. Government compensation should always be based on what is fair and just. That brings me to some questions. Given the announcement that they will not be providing financial compensation, will the Government put forward any other non-financial form of remedy for the women affected? Will the Secretary of State be involving the WASPI campaigners in the action plan she has referred to and what is the timeline for that? The Secretary of State claimed that pensioners are better off under Labour, but let us not forget that it was the Conservatives who introduced and protected the triple lock, which has seen the state pension increase by £3,700 since 2010, and there are now 200,000 fewer pensioners living in absolute poverty. Does the right hon. Lady know how many women affected by her decision are on pension credit? Labour’s own impact assessment shows that its decision to scrap the winter fuel payment will see 5.2 million women lose out. How many of those hit by those cuts to the winter fuel payment are also affected by today’s announcement? Finally, given that the Government have dismissed the recommendations of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, will the Secretary of State set out what implications she sees for the future of the ombudsman?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Budget 2024: Unemployment · Hansard source

  More

  In the run-up to the election, Labour clearly committed to an employment rate target of 80%, but in the past few weeks I have noticed a shift in language from “target” to “ambition”. Will the Minister clear this up for us: are the Government still committed to the 80% employment target, or will that be another broken Labour promise?

• 26 Nov 2024 · “Get Britain Working” White Paper · Hansard source

  More

  In the decade after we took over from Labour, we drove down unemployment and economic inactivity year after year, including youth unemployment, which went down by 400,000 after the mess we inherited from the last Labour Government. During the pandemic, we took unprecedented action to protect jobs and livelihoods, but since the pandemic we have faced a new and difficult challenge in this country: rising economic inactivity, particularly among young people. In government, we were tackling that. I know that, because as a Health Minister I was working on it. I am delighted that the right hon. Lady and the Health Secretary visited one of our WorkWell pilots just the other day. I was working on our fit note reforms, our youth offer, which helped a million young people, and our universal support scheme, which I now hear the Secretary of State has quietly rebranded as her own Connect to Work scheme. Far from being cross that the Government are pinching our ideas, I welcome the right hon. Lady taking our work forward. She is making the right noises about how important it is to fix this area. Economic inactivity is a big problem for our economy and for each and every individual who risks being written off to a life on benefits. Knowing that, I am disappointed by the substance of what she is announcing today, because far from matching her rhetoric, it appears to be little more than a pot of money for local councils, some disparaging language about the work of jobcentres and a consultation that will be launched in the spring. Given that the Government have had 14 years to prepare for this moment, is that it? Where are the reforms to benefits that will make material savings to the taxpayer, such as the £12 billion we committed to save in our manifesto? Where are the reforms to fit notes, which we had handed over, ready to go? Where is the Secretary of State’s plan for reforming the work capability assessments? She has banked the £3 billion of savings from our plan, but has failed to set out her own. Her big announcement is making benefits for young people conditional. Did she forget that they already are? The fact is that the Secretary of State has dodged the tough decisions. Every day that she kicks the can down the road costs the taxpayer millions of pounds. At this rate, spending on sickness benefits will rise to £100 billion by the end of this Parliament. They are taking that money from farmers, from pensioners and from businesses. To get people off benefits, we need jobs for them to go into. Those are the very jobs that businesses are saying, since the Budget, they will no longer be hiring for. While the right hon. Lady tries to get people into work, her Chancellor is busy destroying jobs—50,000 jobs lost from her first Budget alone. If the Secretary of State wants to get more 18-year-olds into work, she should have a word with her Chancellor, who has made it so that from April it will cost £5,000 more for a business to employ them. She should have a word with her Business Secretary, whose Employment Rights Bill will, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, make it less likely for employers to take on young people. The Government cannot solve this problem on their own. Businesses are the engine of our economy that create jobs for people to do. It is telling that I cannot see a single business representative on the new Labour Market Advisory Board. I did hear the right hon. Lady talk about some new partnerships, but this announcement is such a song and dance about so little that I feel sure she will qualify for one of her own Royal Shakespeare Company apprenticeships. She has kicked the can so far down the road that her new partner, the Premier League, is sure to be on the phone by the end of the day. May I for a moment cut through the word soup of the announcement? It is time for the right hon. Lady to tell the House some facts. How many people will it help into work, and by when? What is the total she is saving the taxpayer? When will she reach her 80% employment target? What return on investment is she expecting from these plans? How will she measure her success or failure? This is so far from the bold grasping of the nettle that she is making it out to be and that this country needs for our economy, for taxpayers and for the millions of people missing out on the purpose and freedom that work brings. It is simply not good enough.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training · Hansard source

  More

  May I say how nice it is to be sitting opposite the right hon. Lady again, albeit, regrettably, having swapped places with her? I enjoyed our exchanges on social care during the last Parliament, and appreciated our constructive conversations during the pandemic, although, given how well she knows the care brief, I suspect that she was gutted, as I was, to see the incoming Government abandon the care cap and scrap more than £50 million of funding for social care training. The consistent feedback from jobcentres was that the biggest barrier to young people taking up job opportunities in social care was lack of career progression, hence our reforms to create a career path for care workers and investment in training. Has the right hon. Lady spoken to her counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care about the impact of those social care cuts on her ambitions to get more young people working or learning?

• 3 Sept 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move amendment 18, page 1, line 12, at end insert— “25B Report on impact of prohibition on franchise extensions and new franchises The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament— (a) within six months of the coming into force of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, a report on the anticipated impact of the prohibition on franchise extensions and new franchises under section 25A; and (b) after a period of five years has elapsed after the coming into force of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, a report outlining the actual impact of the prohibition on franchise extensions and new franchises under section 25A.”

• 29 Jul 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker. Congratulations on your election. It is my honour to respond to the first Second Reading of a Bill moved by this new Government, which I see as an opportunity to set the tone for how we will act in opposition. We are not going to oppose for the sake of it, and I do not believe that a single person on either side of the House, among the public, among those working on the rail network or even among those running the train companies would say that everything is as it should be with our rail system. We are in no doubt that rail needs reform. Covid fundamentally changed the way we travel. Far fewer people now commute five days a week. The contracts that were brought in to save the railways are now stifling the companies they kept afloat, and the Treasury is subsidising the network’s day-to-day running to the tune of £3 billion a year, so things need to change. That is why, in government, we commissioned a landmark review into our rail system. I welcome the fact that Labour is taking forward our plan for Great British Railways, which is the product of that review. Joining up track and train into a single public body will make the system more efficient and save passengers time and money, which is important because affordability and reliability are what people care about, and the point of being in government is delivering on what people care about.