Helen Whately MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 May 2026 · Getting Britain Working Again · Hansard source

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  Oh dear; what a shame. There were no ideas for savings there at all. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that will get him a job under the next Labour leader, I am afraid that he will have to keep trying. Labour claims to be the party of working people, but the facts do not back that up. Labour always leaves office with unemployment higher than when it arrives, and it is on track to do that again. There are now over 300,000 more people unemployed than when this Government came to power. Their policies—the jobs tax, the Employment Rights Act—have actively killed jobs. Now, as mentioned in yesterday’s King’s Speech, we have the regulating for growth Bill. You couldn’t make it up. Employers are being asked to swim against the tide with bricks in their pockets, and now the Government are planning to make it worse. Many businesses have stopped hiring; others are letting people go. Businesses tell me that they are getting hundreds of applications for jobs that they might have struggled to fill a couple of years ago. No wonder that there are 700,000 graduates on out-of-work benefits. Youth unemployment is at over 14%. This is a disaster. Young people want to get their lives going, earn money, pay their own way, save for a car; instead, hundreds of thousands are stuck. The Secretary of State knows that. That is why he has frantically announced a flurry of schemes at the cost of £2.5 billion. Obviously, a work placement is better than nothing, but the young people I speak to want jobs, not Government-funded work experience. Less than two years ago, the country voted us out and Labour Members in. They have laughed and jeered at us, but they are not laughing now because they have found out that governing is hard. They promised voters change, but the only change that most people have seen is that they are poorer. Who knows what they got up to in opposition? Clearly, it was not working out what they would do if they won the election. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is chuntering. I know that yesterday he called the Leader of the Opposition “rude” when, actually, she was just telling the truth. He does not like to hear the truth. Maybe he should do a little less talking from the Front Bench and a little more listening. Being in power is not an end in itself; what matters is what someone does with the power that voters trust them with. I am sure that many of those on the Government Benches care about our country, but caring is not enough. The question is: what are they going to do to fix it? If the King’s Speech that we are debating today tells us anything, it is that they do not know. The only things they can think of will make the situation worse; and on welfare, they have given up. I believe in learning lessons whenever one can. One lesson that Labour Members should learn is to make good use of time in opposition; work hard, think hard and make a plan. That is what we have been doing, and that is why we have been able to set out an alternative King’s Speech, which has more in it than the actual King’s Speech. Take our plans for welfare—and to be clear, these are just our plans so far. We have a plan to reform welfare and make £23 billion in savings. We will bring back the two-child benefit cap, stop handouts to foreign nationals, stop sickness benefits for anxiety and ADHD, bring back face-to-face assessments, ban “sickfluencers”, reform fit notes and restore the household benefit cap to its original purpose of ensuring work always pays better than benefits. No more gaming the system, no more free cars for tennis elbow or acne—Britain will no longer be a cash machine for the world. People have had enough. They can see our welfare system is not working. It is not even working for people who are seriously ill or disabled. We are not keeping our plan secret; it is all out there. Other parties are adopting our policies. Reform, for instance, has not been shy about doing so, although it has been confused, and its Members are not here today. The Secretary of State should feel free to do so too, and though the MPs behind him will hate it, we are here to help. This is the most surreal King’s Speech debate I have ever taken part in. People out there are angry, frustrated and fed up. They can see the country is not working. They want the Government to fix it, but Labour are too busy working out who should be in charge. The saddest thing is that it will not make a difference. They can change their team captain, but they are still the same team. I have heard them cheer on taxes for farmers, family businesses and schools. I have heard them cheer for lifting the two-child cap. I have heard them argue against welfare savings. They think you fix poverty by giving out free breakfasts, paid for by people who are struggling to pay the bills themselves. Labour’s answer is always the same: tax more and spend more of other people’s money, and it is the wrong answer. Sometimes in life you have to pick a side. We have picked one: we are on the side of people who get up each day and go to work. They are doing the right thing, and we back them. Sometimes things go wrong and people need help. That is why welfare should be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. Labour have made their choice: it is to carry on as if nothing is wrong. Yesterday’s King’s Speech was a chance to fix things, and they blew it.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  What a difference a week makes. When the hon. Gentleman rose to conclude our debate last Wednesday, he delivered from the Dispatch Box what I can only describe as a tirade. Serious and considered concerns—not just from me and my hon. Friends, but from noble Lords and many respected people across the industry—were met with accusations. We were told that those concerns were “nonsense on stilts”. He said that I had been “infected” by my party. If by that he meant that I have strong opinions—that I believe in a smaller state because Governments do not have all the answers and often need to get out of the way—then I must break the news to him that I have held those views for many years. I came to Parliament after a career in business. I knew my views then, and I still know them now. Last week I thought that the Minister could and should do better, and I am glad that since then he has. His tone has shifted, and I am grateful for the discussions he has had with me and my team. His engagement has been constructive, and we have indeed made progress. Turning to the amendments tabled since our last debate, I first welcome the Government’s commitment on the local government pension scheme. A faster and wider review of the triennial valuation by the Government Actuary’s Department is sensible and significant. If the review is to be meaningful, it must focus on what actually drives employer contribution rates, and we welcome that the Government have now recognised that. Secondly, the Government have committed, in their amendment in lieu of Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s amendment 77, to examine the costs and sustainability of public sector pensions. That too is welcome. That review should consider questions of intergenerational fairness, long-term sustainability and how best to protect the benefits already promised to people, particularly at a time when demands on the state are rising and taxpayers are being asked to contribute more than ever.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Universal Credit: Foreign Nationals · Hansard source

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  The working-age benefits bill is set to reach £171 billion by the end of this Parliament, yet the Government are doing nothing to get it under control. In fact, by scrapping the two-child cap, they have added another £3 billion. It is time to stop spending and get saving. The Conservatives would stop benefits for foreign nationals and save £7 billion a year. Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world. With war in Ukraine and now in the middle east, we must boost our national security, so why are the Government continuing to bankroll benefits for migrants rather than investing in defence?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions during the passage of this Bill. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), who has argued with true passion against the Bill, drawing on her own experience as well as her sound principles. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) and for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), my right hon. Friends the Members for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) and for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), who spoke on Second Reading, and my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), who spoke in Committee this evening, and pointed out with customary clarity the flaws in the reasoning of Labour Members. We have all seen the strength of feeling among MPs who support this Bill, but passion does not make a policy right. Children are a blessing, but they are also a responsibility. Parents up and down the country work long hours and make sacrifices to bring up their children. Many couples question whether they can afford one child, let alone three, four or five. They make tough but responsible choices, yet this Bill means they will be taxed to fund other people who make choices they know they cannot afford, and that is fundamentally unfair. It is unfair to people who make responsible decisions, unfair to people who decide to live within their means and unfair to the people who cannot get a job, let alone afford to start a family, because this Government are wrecking the economy with ever higher spending and higher taxes. People do not get a pay rise from their employer when they have another child; they make their money stretch further. However, for people on universal credit, this Bill means their benefits will rise by thousands of pounds for each extra child they have. Some families are about to get tens of thousands of pounds extra. A single parent with five children will be able to get £10,000 more, and an annual income just from benefits of over £45,000 untaxed. To get the same through work, someone would need to earn £60,000. I heard that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who is standing behind the Chair, was due to talk about welfare reform this evening. I say to him and all Labour Members that anyone serious about welfare reform or about ending the welfare trap would vote against a Bill that makes benefits pay this much more than work. Anyone serious about fiscal responsibility would not vote for a Bill that adds £3 billion a year to the ballooning welfare budget and costs £14 billion over the next five years. That money is not just sitting there jingling in the Treasury bank account waiting to be spent on this; it will have to be taken from a small business desperately trying not to let staff go, from a family already struggling with food and energy costs, or from the next generation through higher borrowing. However Ministers dress it up, someone else will pay. Labour Members have said that this Bill cuts child poverty. What they generally mean is that it reduces relative poverty, a statistic that tells us nothing about whether children’s lives are actually looking up. They ignore that relative poverty tends to look better when the country gets poorer, which is exactly what their policies are doing to this country. They have done it before and they are doing it again—taxing more to spend more, killing growth and killing jobs. What really makes a difference to children’s lives is having their parents in work, but what are the Government doing about that? They are making it less likely. Under this Government, we have seen— [ Interruption. ] I know that Labour Members do not want to hear it, but we have seen the fastest increase on record of children growing up without a parent in work. Unemployment has gone up every month; now it is at its highest for five years. This debate is about more than just one policy; it is about two different visions for our country. Labour’s answer to every challenge is the same: spend more money. Labour Members see people as victims of circumstance, and their instinct is always to compensate rather than change the circumstance. We see it differently. We know that children are better off if the country is better off; if there are more jobs, higher wages, lower inflation and stronger growth. Look at the moments in our history when living standards rose for everyone. It was when people were motivated to strive, ideas were turned into businesses and hard work reaped rewards. That is how countries get ahead and their children thrive. [ Interruption. ] I do not expect the argument that I am making to be popular in this Chamber, although— [ Interruption. ] I am not expecting Labour Members to like what I am saying, but it is popular out there in the real world. I know that every other party represented here wants to expand the state—not just Labour, but the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP, Plaid, and who knows how Reform will vote tonight? I can see one Reform MP is here; maybe somebody will help his colleagues to find their way to the right Lobby tonight. I think Reform now says that it would keep the cap, but it still does not back it in principle; it is just a question of timing. Well, well. The Prime Minister has decided that the time is now because he needed to save his skin. He is not a Prime Minister who will take the tough decisions to control the welfare bill and make work pay, because that would require a backbone and the support of his Back Benchers. Only Conservatives are prepared to make the argument for welfare savings and stand up for principles like fairness, personal responsibility and living within your means. Other parties compete to be more generous with other people’s money; we do not. Conservatives believe in a country where work pays, responsibility is valued, and welfare is a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. That is the difference not just over the two-child cap, but over the direction of Britain itself.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I do not agree with the hon. Member. I am going to talk about poverty in a moment, so if he will just hold on, he will hear my view on that point. This is a ticking time bomb. If we do not solve this problem, our economy will collapse, yet opposite me sit members of this Labour Government who have just shown us, with the welfare chaos over the past couple of weeks, that they will not, and indeed cannot, fix this. In fact, they are just making it worse. If hon. Members cast their minds back to early 2020, they will remember that Labour was in the midst of a leadership election. The now Prime Minister made a clear and unequivocal commitment to “scrap…punitive sanctions, two-child limit and benefits cap.” Then, once he had secured the leadership of the Labour party and the election neared, he changed that tune. He said Labour was not going to abolish the two-child limit. He acknowledged the need to take tough decisions and not to make unfunded spending promises, and on this we can agree. But saying that he would take tough decisions is not the same as actually taking them. Take for example the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, now just called the Universal Credit Bill, which Labour voted through last week. It was meant to save £5 billion. The first U-turn brought that down to £2 billion, and the next U-turn then brought it down to—well, the Minister on the Front Bench at the time could not tell us, but the consensus is that it will now cost the taxpayer around £100 million.