Helen Whately MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  This has been an extraordinary afternoon in the Chamber. Listening to the debate, we have surely all been moved by the stories we have heard of the experiences of hon. Members, of the experiences of their families, loved ones and constituents, and of how the welfare system has served its vital purpose of providing a safety net in times of desperate need, particularly for people whose disabilities or ill health have made it impossible for them to make ends meet on their own. It is clear that there is broad consensus across the House that the welfare system needs reform. There has also been consensus that what we were debating was a bad Bill. It was a rushed and chaotic compromise that would harm disabled people, create a two-tier benefit system, and barely make a dent in the overall welfare bill. How could anyone justify voting for something that would not make a single disabled person’s life better? It is clear that many, many Members could not. I said that it “was” a bad Bill, because while we have been debating it, it has more or less disintegrated. Less than two hours ago, the Minister for Social Security and Disability told us, in an unprecedented intervention, that clause 5 of the Bill is to be removed in Committee. That takes out all the changes to personal independence payment, and with them almost the entirety of the remaining savings in the Bill. Describing it as chaos now feels like an understatement. We have a Government with a supermajority who were voted in on a manifesto for change, a welfare system that everyone agrees needs reform, and public finances that simply must be brought under control, but the Government are now serving up a Bill with next to nothing in it. They had already U-turned once; it seems they cannot even deliver a U-turn. The Prime Minister told the country that he was distracted at NATO, and he flew back home on Thursday to sort the problem out. This is what sorting it out looks like. Once again, his calamitous negotiations are letting the country down. Last week, we offered the Prime Minister help in the national interest and set out three tests that he would need to meet to have our support on welfare legislation. The first was that the welfare bill must come down. We all know people whose lives would not be possible without the help that our welfare system provides. Each and every one of us in the Chamber wants a welfare system that is there for those who need it, but if the welfare bill spirals out of control, it puts that support in jeopardy. The Bill now makes no meaningful changes to a system that we all agree is not working, and I reckon it will now save less than £1 billion from a sickness benefits bill that will be rising to nearly £100 billion by the end of the decade. That is a total dereliction of duty by a Government who claim to want welfare reform and fiscal discipline. Secondly, we said that we would support plans that get people into work, but the Bill will not help a single person into work. Ministers said, “Trust us, employment support is coming,” but why would anyone trust this Government on jobs when 100,000 were lost in May alone? None of us have seen the Government’s plan to get more disabled people into work, and apart from new red tape and making it more expensive to hire people, I do not think there is one. Thirdly, we said that we must not have more tax rises in the autumn. Given that the Chancellor had already committed to that, it should have been the simplest of those three conditions to agree to, but this desperate climbdown blows an even bigger hole in her Budget. She is pushing us into a doom loop of higher taxes, fewer jobs and more welfare. At this rate, the time is coming when our constituents will not even have a welfare system to call on in times of trouble. What is left for us to vote for or against this evening? All of us in this House know that welfare needs reform and want to see more people helped into work. All of us in this House—surely most of us, at least—recognise that the country must live within its means. The remnants of this Bill will manifestly achieve none of that. In fact, the only purpose it will now serve is to etch forever into the statute book the moment when this Government totally lost control.

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

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the light of the shambles this afternoon, with the Bill being ripped apart literally before our eyes in this Chamber and the Minister unable even to tell us how much it will now save, can you please advise me whether it should still be rushed through to be debated next week in Committee of the whole House, or whether the Government should in fact withdraw it?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Lady for advance sight of her statement. This is a Government in chaos: open rebellion from their own Back Benchers, unfunded U-turns costing billions, and welfare plans that are not worth the paper they are written on. Their latest idea is a two-tier welfare system to trap people in a lifetime on benefits and deny them the dignity of work, while leaving the taxpayer to pick up the ever-growing bill. It is a long-held Conservative belief that those who can work, should work. Work provides security and purpose. That is why we launched universal credit, simplifying complex benefits and ensuring that work always paid. And it works. In the decade up to the pandemic, we got the number of people on benefits and the benefits bill itself down. Some 800 jobs were created for every day that we were in office, giving millions of people the dignity and security that work brings. But then, during the pandemic, we saw something new. The health and disability bit of our benefits system started to break. The bill is forecast to hit £100 billion by 2030. One in every four pounds of income tax will be spent on health and disability benefits—more than the entire defence budget. That is not fair for the taxpayer, not fair for people who are written off, and certainly not sustainable for the country. Despite Labour having 14 years in opposition and now a year in government, they still do not have a plan to bring down the welfare bill or get people into work. What we have before us now is a rushed and chaotic compromise that is not reform in any sense of the word. It is woefully unambitious about savings, conspicuously lacking in compassion and achieves no meaningful change of a system we all know is broken. Thanks to the Government’s latest climbdown, we are left with a plan that will save just £2.5 billion of a £100 billion bill by introducing a two-tier system. Two people diagnosed with Parkinson’s a week apart will now receive different levels of support—all to clear up an internal Labour argument. The Government’s own impact assessment shows that these plans will not get a single person into work. The idea that work is the guiding motivation for these changes is laughable. There are things that the Government could do. They could reform the fit note system, which sees 94% of people who apply told that they are too sick to do any work at all. They could say today that they would make all sickness benefit assessments face to face. They could get a grip of the rising claims for common mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression. Claims for those and neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD are the main reason for the steep rise in the number of people on sickness benefits, making up more than half of all new claims. The Centre for Social Justice has found that the Government could save up to £9 billion by reforming those benefits. However, nothing that we have seen from Labour over the past couple of weeks suggests that it has the courage and conviction to grip that problem. In the meantime, our welfare bill will only continue to rise. We agree on the need for reform and have set out the conditions under which we would support the Government: first, the welfare budget must come down; secondly, we need to get people back into work; thirdly, there must be no new tax rises to pay for increases in welfare spending. But with the welfare bill ever growing, unemployment rising and jobs disappearing, the Bill fails on all accounts. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the changes she is announcing today will be paid for through borrowing or taxation? Where are these good jobs she claims to be creating, when vacancies are going down and unemployment is going up? Has she read the impact assessment for the Government’s Employment Rights Bill, which makes it clear that it will be harder for people to find work as a result? Why did it take the Government a year to publish the terms of reference for their PIP assessment review, and when can we expect changes if it does not report back until autumn 2026? Could I try one more time to ask what the difference is between the Secretary of State’s right to try guarantee and our chance to work guarantee? Finally, is this it? Are there any more savings? Are the Government not going to get any more people into work? Is this the extent of their ambition for reforming the welfare system during their time in office? In five years’ time, will this be the Secretary of State’s legacy?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  More than half of new health and disability benefits claims are now for mental health, yet under the Government’s welfare cuts Bill the personal independence payment could be stripped from three quarters of claimants with arthritis and two thirds of those with heart disease but fewer than half of those with anxiety. Does the right hon. Lady believe this is the right decision?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  One of the things we would very much like to see is a full set of figures from the Government, but my hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Government said they wanted everyone who was eligible to sign up for pension credit and therefore be able to access the winter fuel payment, but if everyone had actually signed up for pension credit, the Government would not have saved the money they set out that the policy would save.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I will in a moment—I was hoping the Minister might have answers, but he does not. To this day, the Government have not published a full impact assessment setting out the truth about their policies. Is that because they do not know themselves, or because they do not want to admit the harm that they were willing to do? Thanks to the effort of colleagues and the public, we have, however, been able to glean some information in the months since. The Secretary of State admitted to the Work and Pensions Committee that she had seen internal modelling showing that 100,000 pensioners would be pushed into poverty because of their political choices. Thanks to a freedom of information request, the Government were forced to publish their equality analysis, showing that 71% of people with a disability would lose their winter fuel payment, while official NHS data shows that the number of over-65s attending A&E this winter soared by nearly 100,000 compared with last year, despite this being a less cold year. And now, as I have said, it feels as if spring is here. It is time for the Government to be honest with the public and tell us what this policy has done in practice. I hope they will not tell us that they did not monitor the results, because that surely is not credible. It is time to tell us how many eligible pensioners did not receive the winter fuel payment this year; time to tell us how the cuts have hit pensioner poverty; and time to tell us what those cuts did to hospital admissions. Ministers need to know this information so that they can prepare responsibly for next year. Back Benchers need to know this information so that they can represent their constituents effectively. And the public deserve to know the consequence of the actions of the Government they elected.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Yes. My hon. Friend makes a really important point. He has been every effective in his use of parliamentary questions to scrutinise the Government and get data from them—they do not like to give it willingly. He identifies the long delays for pension credit approvals and therefore access to winter fuel payment. Some will have applied before the deadline for pension credit and got the whole way through winter without getting money, or even knowing whether they were going to get any money. We know well from charities such as Age UK, which represents pensioners, that pensioners are very reluctant to get themselves into debt. If they did not know whether they were getting the payment, they would have been very reluctant to spend money in the hope that they might.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I could not have made the point better than my right hon. Friend. I have one final question before I conclude: what was all this for? We clearly know who lost out and who suffered as a result of the cut to the winter fuel payment, but who benefited? To govern is to choose. All those who got inflation-busting pay increases after Labour did its deals with its trade union friends were the ones to benefit. Billions for the unions, but nothing for the pensioners. This will be the legacy of yet another Labour Government. The last one increased the state pension by just 75p a week; this one have taken away the winter fuel payment. By contrast, it was the Conservatives who introduced and protected the triple lock, which saw the state pension increase by £3,700 during our time in office; it was the Conservatives who reduced the number of pensioners living in absolute poverty by 200,000—Labour will undo that by a quarter in its first year—and it was the Conservatives who delivered nearly £12 million in winter fuel payments and cost of living payments for pensioners, because we understand the need to help the most vulnerable through the winter. It is astonishing how many people Labour has already let down in just eight months—pensioners, farmers, business owners, young people looking for jobs, and, yesterday, disabled people—in its rush to fix its financial mess. Earlier we heard the Prime Minister say that if a party has a big majority, it does not need to consult, so the onus is on all of us here. Colleagues, and especially Labour Members, have an opportunity today to make the Government listen. It is a chance to stick to our principles, stick up for our constituents and vote to see the truth.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Let me make a little progress and then I will be delighted to take more interventions from colleagues. The Chancellor has previously argued that winter fuel payments should be means-tested and cut for the richest pensioners, but who here thinks that someone on an income of £11,500 is rich? Age UK estimated that over 80% of pensioners living below or only just above the poverty line would lose their winter fuel payment. The issue is not just that low-income vulnerable pensioners miss out on help with their heating because they are just above the pension credit threshold—the problem is worse than that. Last summer, the Government knew that over 800,000 people may be eligible for pension credit but did not claim it, meaning that they, too, would miss out on the winter fuel payment. The Pensions Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds), assured us that the Government would get on top of that. In fact, she told us that her target was to have 100% of those eligible for pension credit claiming it. But here we are many months later, and still around three quarters of a million eligible pensioners are not on pension credit. That is another promise easily made but easily broken. There has been a woeful failure by the Government to close properly that gap, despite all the coverage the winter fuel payment received. Of course, we knew that this would be hard. We, too, had pension credit uptake campaigns in Government. More people signed up, but still many did not. I expect the Government knew that they would fail, too. Their officials would have told them, but it was easier for them to assure the press, the charities and their Back Benchers, “Don’t worry,” just as we have heard their Ministers do about the welfare reforms in the last 24 hours. For them, it was easier to wait for the spring to come and hope that everyone would simply forget. Well I say to them, “We won’t let you forget.” Nor will millions of pensioners and their families: 10 million pensioners are missing out on help with their heating, among them around 1 million of the most vulnerable people in our country, quite literally left in the cold by this Labour Government. That will not be forgotten in a hurry.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  So the answer is that the Minister does not know. He does not know how many people are waiting for their winter fuel payment. He does not know how many people are stuck in the pension credit backlog. He does not know when they will hear about their claims. He does not know who has had help from their local council. He does not know how many people who lost their winter fuel payment have ended up in hospital this winter. He and his Department have dodged or refused to answer every single one of those questions in recent weeks. Will he commit to a full review of the winter fuel payment cut so that we can get those answers?

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

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  A strongly held Conservative principle is that public money must not be wasted. We hold this view not because we are mean, but because the Government do not have money of their own. What they have, they raise through taxation from all of us. A tiny fraction of every penny that they spend is yours, mine and everyone else’s who pays in. Those who spend public money have a duty to spend it wisely, and ensure that it ends up only with those who should have it, for the purpose for which it was intended. In a big, complex system of government in a country of nearly 70 million people, from time to time that will not happen for a range of reasons—from a form that has been accidentally filled in with the wrong information, or a change of circumstance that someone forgot to notify the jobcentre about, to serious organised fraud—but however taxpayers have lost out, it is incumbent on the state to do all that it can to get their money back. That is what taxpayers rightly expect. It is part of the unwritten contract for collecting that money in the first place. Therefore, it will be no surprise to hear that, in principle, we support the Bill’s aim. In fact, much of the Bill continues work that we did in government, and legislation that was interrupted by the election. It is important to put what we are discussing today in context. Before the pandemic, fraud and error across the DWP benefits and tax credit system was at a near record low, but then we had two national crises—first, the pandemic, then war in Ukraine—which piled huge cost of living pressures on families across the UK. During both, we acted rapidly. We set up never-seen-before systems of support in record time. We protected millions of people’s jobs. We paid half of everyone’s energy bills for a year. We got direct payments to the people who needed them the most. I am proud of what we did, and I think that history will look back kindly on how we supported people through those times, but the truth is that when we do something fast at a moment of crisis, that inevitably opens up new vulnerabilities in the system. Disappointingly, against a national spirit of getting through hard times together, some people saw it as a chance to make a quick buck, and we saw a material increase in the amount being lost to fraud within the system. Any and all of us could spell out better uses for that money. That is why, back in May 2022, we published our plan, “Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System”. We increased the number of frontline counter-fraud professionals in the DWP, created a new Public Sector Fraud Authority and started work on new legal powers to investigate and punish fraudsters. It was a good start. In 2022-23, fraud and error were cut by 10%. We saved £1 billion through the Department’s dedicated counter-fraud activities. The next year we upped that to £1.35 billion, exceeding the £1.3 billion target, yet we were still not satisfied. In May last year, we published a second fraud plan to save £9 billion by 2027-28, which included hiring more staff to check claims for accuracy, modernising information-gathering powers, broadening the penalty system and investing £70 million in advanced data analytics. In April, we announced plans for a new fraud Bill to align DWP investigations with HMRC, treating benefit fraud like tax fraud and giving investigators new powers to make seizures and arrests. When the general election was called, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill had already passed through the House of Commons. The Bill included the powers the Government are introducing today to require third parties, such as banks, to provide relevant information to the DWP. To the extent that this Bill continues that work, I do not envisage substantial disagreement—albeit we have questions on how the law will work in practice. I also have serious concerns about the powers that the Cabinet Office is giving itself. Before I deal with those, let me say that I recognise the concerns that people have about the state getting too much information about their finances. Privacy should never be taken lightly. I do not want to live in a country where the Government can access our bank accounts and look at what we have been spending our money on, and I would not support a Bill that would allow the Government to do that, but I believe that it is right for the DWP to learn lessons from HMRC to recoup taxpayers’ money. The fact of the matter is that if someone receives money from the state, it is not unreasonable for the state to investigate if there are signs they are taking money that they should not be. As I said, I have some questions about how the social security powers in the Bill will be put into practice, and I expect to probe those matters further as the Bill progresses. For instance, on the role of banks, how much testing has been done of the systems that they expect to use? The Horizon scandal is a recent reminder of how computer systems do not always get it right. What progress has been made on the code of conduct, and when will we see it? I also note that no impact assessment has been done on the cost to banks. Has the Minister met the sector and discussed what the changes mean for it? I know there are concerns within the sector about the lack of detail brought forward by the DWP. If the maximum level of scrutiny allowed under the Bill is demanded by the DWP, how would that work in practice for banks and what would it cost? On the sanctions that can be meted out under the Bill, we support the Department for Work and Pensions being given further powers to pursue recovery outside of benefits and PAYE, but are the measures outlined in the Bill tough enough? Why is 40% the maximum amount of someone’s capital that can be reclaimed? Allowing for hardship, which the Bill does, why should someone potentially keep the majority of their ill-gotten gains? It is not clear how the Bill intends to treat carer’s allowance overpayments, which I know from my time as Care Minister are complicated and often accidental, though unfortunately not always. None the less, they are a loss to the taxpayer that should be investigated. We would like to understand in more detail how the savings we are told to expect from the Bill will accrue. How many people does the Government think that will affect, and what proportion is it of the fraud currently being perpetrated? I was concerned the other day to see reports in the media of a number of artificial intelligence schemes being quietly shelved in the Department. It is noticeable that the plans rely heavily on human labour to root out fraud. While I know the Government have to create jobs somehow, I would be interested to hear what consideration has been given to automating some of the processes in future. That too will help ensure that taxpayers’ money does not go to waste. I come to my main area of concern, which is the powers being given to Cabinet Office Ministers and the Public Sector Fraud Authority. I know what it is like to make legislation thinking that I, as a good person, would only use it wisely, but I also know what it is like to be wrongly investigated by a public authority on the grounds of a misleading newspaper article. Looking at the investigatory powers bestowed in chapter 2 of the Bill, how could one not be worried to see a Minister being given powers, with little oversight, to compel a person to release whatever information they wish, in any format demanded, within 10 days, along with the information of anyone connected to them, on any grounds that the Minister deems “reasonable”—and to disclose that information to whomever they think necessary, with the sole right of appeal being only to that Minister? It could be impossible for someone to comply within the timeframe given, yet the Bill includes fines set at £300 a day for missing the deadline. Of course the Government should go after fraudsters, but I worry that some of that power could be abused and that, in its current form, it may breach laws on the state taking someone’s property without due process. I would be interested to hear if experts in the legal sector have been consulted on the legislation as drafted. Have Ministers engaged with the Law Society, the Bar Council or, for that matter, organisations like Liberty and Justice? In the Department for Work and Pensions and the Cabinet Office, it is right to pursue fraudsters with the full might of the law, but the ends cannot justify all means and the process must always be fair, reasonable and proportionate. I look forward to further discussions on the detail of the Bill, and I am sure that colleagues in the other place will be preparing for that, too. In the meantime, we must not let the Bill distract from the elephant in the room. For every penny the Bill will save—welcome though that is—it will do nothing about the billions of pounds that will be racked up in sickness benefits under this Labour Government. It is staggering that they did not come into office with a plan. They have done nothing to halt the tide in the seven months they have been in office, and I hear that they have shelved some of the work we handed over. We have heard not a murmur about what they will actually do, just briefing after briefing to the papers. Why not bring an actual plan to Parliament rather than talking to the papers? I suspect you, Madam Deputy Speaker, might agree with me on that point. We had a plan—where is theirs? Every day the Government scramble about without a plan costs taxpayers millions. Fraud and error in the system is a problem, and I am pleased to pledge the Opposition’s support for tackling them, but let us not use this Bill as a distraction from the big issue. We all agree that the welfare system needs reform. Let us end the briefings and have some action.

• 29 Jan 2025 · Welfare Cap · Hansard source

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  The welfare cap we are debating today was introduced back in 2014 by the Conservative Chancellor at the time, George Osborne, to hold the Government to account on the cost of our welfare system. Through the 2010s, in government, we broadly kept to that cap; it was part of the discipline we applied to the welfare system to make it fair for the taxpayer and to put into practice the strongly held Conservative principle that if you can work, you should work. We introduced universal credit to ensure that work always pays and supported businesses to create millions of jobs, and we helped thousands of people into work and drove down economic inactivity—and were opposed at every step of the way by the Labour party. But in the years during and since the pandemic—I will not shy away from telling the truth—things changed. While the number of jobs kept going up, the number of people economically inactive also started to go up, and with that, the welfare bill, and that is a big problem. It is a financial problem that means we are today debating a welfare cap which has been breached. It is an economic problem because our economy needs the talents and energies of everyone. And it is a social problem: of the 9 million people of working age defined as economically inactive, 2.8 million are not working because of ill health. That includes growing numbers of young people. Young people are starting out on a life on benefits instead of starting out on a career, missing out on the opportunities that work brings—the sense of purpose, the connections with other people, the chance to learn and develop skills—missing out on the experience of being paid for their efforts, and missing out on the chance to build financial independence and security. We as a country have a moral and financial imperative to turn this around and in government we were working flat out to tackle it.

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

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  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?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Disability History Month · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this debate during Disability History Month. As someone with a disability herself, she will likely know that everyday life can be so much harder for those with a disability than for those of us fortunate to be able to take our health more or less for granted. Before I was elected to Parliament, I had an inspirational colleague who had suffered a spinal injury that left her unable to walk. Our jobs were demanding—a 70-hour week was not uncommon—and somehow my colleague managed to do the work, and do it brilliantly, despite all the extra challenges of life in a wheelchair, including the difficulty of getting to and from work and navigating inaccessible buildings, and all the extra effort it takes to do the everyday things that so many of us do without thinking, like getting dressed or taking a shower. Working alongside her made me realise the importance of the things that we have done to help disabled people over the years, like making buildings and transport more accessible. I also saw the consequences of people failing to give any thought to those needs: for example, by using disabled toilets as storage cupboards, or leaving them locked so that people have to go on a mission to find the key—a mission that is doubly hard for someone in a wheelchair. My colleague’s disability was obvious, but we should be sure to remember people whose disabilities are hidden and not to underestimate the difficulty that such disabilities can add to life. For instance, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) said with great insight that in this job it is the first time her hearing loss has felt like an advantage as she uses her platform as an MP to advocate for others. She argued powerfully for disabled people to be able to access not just a job but a career. Alongside talking about the challenges, this Disability History Month is a chance to reflect on pivotal moments of progress for disabled people and to celebrate the individual heroes who picked up the cause and made the running—metaphorically and sometimes in practice. If we cast our minds back, for instance, to summer 2012, right here in London the international bar was raised and a new standard was set for what disabled people could imagine achieving. More than 4,000 para-athletes from 164 countries competed with everything they had in front of a physical audience of 2.7 million people. It was watched on 3.8 billion television screens around the world, with record- breaking audiences, including a record number of young people growing up with a disability who were waking up each day and thinking, “If I put my mind to it, that could be me.” We in this country made a leap forward at that moment, and as we did so, we led the world. The message is repeated at every Paralympic games: never underestimate what someone with a disability can do. That brings me to disability employment. The Government should recognise the challenges that disabled people face, but must not dissuade anyone of their ability to overcome them. On the contrary, the Government must lean into the barriers to employment and help to knock them aside. On that my party has a strong track record. As a new Back Bencher, I remember being encouraged by a passionate disabilities Minister at the time, Justin Tomlinson, to get involved in our Disability Confident programme to get employers across the country to think differently about disabilities. In 2017 we set a target to get a million more disabled people into work by 2027, and we met that target five years early; there are now 5.5 million disabled people in work. We took practical steps to achieve that, including working with employers, as I mentioned; funding Access to Work, which helped more than 67,000 people in 2023-24; launching universal support to give personalised support to long-term sick and disabled people to find and stay in work; and providing supported internships for people with special educational needs. Those are just a few examples. I am a firm believer that work is the best way to improve our standard of living, as well as giving us the satisfaction of a job well done—a view that I am sure is shared by many, if not all, hon. Members present, and also argued for compellingly by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) in his extremely well-informed speech. The question is not whether someone can work, but what work they can do and how. If a person with disabilities needs help to work, where does that help come from? Often it comes from family, community, charities—as hon. Members have referred to today, which often have deep expertise—volunteers who give their time and compassion, and, as I have set out, the Government. The Government’s resources must be targeted. Since the pandemic, we all know that the number of people who are economically inactive due to ill health has surged, reaching 2.8 million people. Apart from the cost, that is a waste of talent and potential. That is why, when the Conservatives were in government, we embarked on reforms to help people to stay in work or get back to work—reforms to fit notes, the launch of WorkWell, the launch of universal support, and our work with employers. We reformed welfare to make sure that financial incentives did not get in the way of work. I welcome the Government taking forward many of those reforms, but I believe they have made a grave error in kicking the can down the road on the accompanying benefit reforms. Every day that someone who could work is getting money from benefits instead is money that could help a disabled person to live their life to the full. As I conclude I will return to history, given the topic of the debate. The Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944, which was introduced in response to the second world war, as the hon. Member for Thurrock said, laid the path for disability legislation and protections for the next 80 years. We live in a different era, but our welfare system is built on the vision of our predecessors who were determined to make sure that soldiers who were wounded defending our freedom would be supported on their return home. When the Conservatives were in government, we put our shoulder to the wheel to make our welfare system fit for the 21st century. We made progress, but there is much more to do. Every hon. Member who has spoken today has made important suggestions. This Disability History Month is a chance to send an emphatic message of encouragement to people with disabilities across the whole United Kingdom. We know how hard every day can be, but let there be no limits to what they can achieve.

• 12 Nov 2024 · Social Security Advisory Committee: Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. This Government made a choice to take away the winter fuel payment from 10 million pensioners this winter and to rely on the notoriously under-claimed pension credit as a system of means-testing it. That choice will make life harder for pensioners across the country. It will see 750,000 of the poorest pensioners miss out on much-needed help with the cost of heating, and according to the Labour party’s own research, it could lead to 4,000 additional deaths this winter. The Government know that. That is why they have not done an impact assessment. Perhaps it is why, after seven weeks, they still have not responded to the concerns of their own advisory committee. The committee wrote the Secretary of State a letter containing its concerns about how the policy will affect the poorest people. It said that 70% of disabled pensioners will miss out on their payment this winter, and it suggested expanding the eligibility for winter fuel payments beyond pension credit because the committee knows that the Government’s savings are based on a third of the poorest pensioners missing out. In direct contrast to the Government, the committee said that “a more detailed assessment is urgently required”, as colleagues from all parts of the House—including Labour Members—charities and pensioner groups across the country have also said. Here we are, seven weeks later, and the Secretary of State is yet to even respond to the advisory committee. In fact, she is not even here to answer this urgent question. I ask the Minister: will the Government now, after seven weeks, respond to their own advisory committee? Will they now, after seven weeks, publish a full impact assessment for everyone to see? Does she accept that her Government have got this wrong? Does she recognise that they have negligently underestimated how many people will fall through the cracks? I suspect that deep down she is worried, as I am, about pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. I am sure her Secretary of State has been lobbying the Chancellor behind the scenes—perhaps that is where she is right now, instead of being here. Will the hon. Lady go back to her Chancellor one more time and try to make her think again?

• 12 Nov 2024 · Social Security Advisory Committee: Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when she plans to respond to the Social Security Advisory Committee’s letter, published on 17 October 2024, on the means-testing of winter fuel payments.

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

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  I accept some of the points that the hon. Gentleman made. That is why I said that the record of DOHL had been mixed. Sometimes there has been improvement in performance, but that is not the case for all the franchises it runs. That is my reason for not being confident that it is the right organisation to take on such a large increase in its workload, particularly without any further increase in its resources, including some operators that are performing better than the train companies that he mentioned. We want every contract that is awarded to place a duty on DOHL to look at how to modernise our network and to ensure that passengers are at the forefront of all decision making—passengers not just in urban areas and around London but, crucially, in rural areas and places that have traditionally been under-served by the rail network. Time and again, the Secretary of State has said that her No. 1 priority is passengers—that she will protect their interests above all else, and that it is for them that she is seeking this change. This is a chance to put her money where her mouth is and create a legal duty that promotes the needs of passengers in all future agreements with public sector operators. That will build in a layer of accountability on things that we all agree are important. On amendment 8, public bodies marking their own homework is not something that Opposition Members believe leads to good results. I know from my time in government that independent scrutiny makes life harder for Ministers, but it also improves accountability, and with that outcomes. That is why we seek to introduce proper financial reporting and oversight for public sector operators. Under the franchise system, whatever its shortcomings, train operators are incentivised to increase passenger numbers and control costs. That has been an undeniable success of privatisation. Passenger numbers have doubled and costs have been controlled, increasing at a far slower rate than revenue. In future, passengers and taxpayers will have to foot the bill for any loss of control on costs, any inefficiencies or any failures to innovate. That is a serious implication, and something we should do our best to protect people from. Creating, or recreating, some incentives is a good place to start. We will need to know how well the public train companies are performing—what they are doing to increase passenger numbers and drive growth in rail services, how reliable their services are, how well they are keeping costs under control, and how satisfied passengers are with the service they provide. Our proposals will allow us to identify both good and bad performance, hold the managers of those companies to account and reward them accordingly, such as by linking managerial pay to performance. Those companies will no longer have shareholders to answer to, or the financial incentives that go with a senior role in the private sector. The Government have told us that part of their rationale for these changes is to better align the incentives of train operators with the interests of passengers, but the Bill currently provides no mechanism for that. We are not seeking to frustrate a change that this Government were elected to deliver; we simply wish to bring proper transparency and accountability to the process. That includes reporting on the costs involved in bringing operating companies into public ownership. Government Members will no doubt point to the money that will be saved by removing management fees, but this equation is not one-sided. While the Secretary of State might be saving £150 million each year on fees, industry experts have predicted that the Bill could cost passengers and taxpayers up to £1 billion a year in lost productivity and growth—and that is before accounting for the Government’s taking on all the long-term liabilities of the companies. Pension obligations, rolling stock and long-term leases will all be transferred on to the Government balance sheet, and we have had alarmingly little information on what that figure will be.

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

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  I will give way but not right now because I heard the reaction. Right now, many European countries are in the process of unravelling their public models. They are introducing private provision and competition into their networks. The Dutch, the Czechs and members of the European Union will all be very confused to see us hurtling past them in the other direction. Of course, free enterprise does not always succeed. That is why we already have a system in place for times when state intervention would—or, at least, should—benefit passengers. As I am sure the Secretary of State knows, the Department for Transport is already running several train operating companies, such as Northern Trains, which was taken into public ownership back in 2020. Four years ago, when the state took it over, a measly 61% of its trains arrived on time. Today, free from the greedy profit vultures who previously feasted on its carcase, that figure remains at 61%. Compare that with Greater Anglia, whose contract comes up for renewal in September. By the way, Greater Anglia is the first train operating company in the Secretary of State’s crosshairs, and why the Government are choosing to rush this Second Reading through before recess. All of Greater Anglia’s services are running new trains. Some 94% of those trains arrive within three minutes of the scheduled time. The company manages to deliver that while paying a premium back to the Treasury. It is not failing. In fact, every single one of the top five performers across the network is a private provider. By contrast, are hon. Members aware which company accounts for more delays than anyone else? Network Rail—some 60% of delays are caused by a single public sector organisation.

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

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  I was perfectly clear at the beginning of my speech that we agree that reform is needed. That is why we commissioned a review and set out ambitious plans for reform, including the Great British Railways. I welcome that the new Government intend to introduce that. I am not here to make an ideological argument. To respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Mike Amesbury), sometimes, like with our plan for Great British Railways, the public sector is the right vehicle to solve a problem. At other times, a competitive, private model will lead to better results. The point is, if the Government are going to change things in the first piece of legislation they bring before this House, they need some pretty clear evidence as to why, so I have some questions for the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), who will be summing up. How exactly will bringing train operating companies into public ownership benefit passengers? Unfortunately, the Government’s impact assessment does not tell us, for sure. What improvements can passengers expect? Who is the Secretary of State going to get to run these companies? Where are all these different, better train operating experts going to come from? If they are out there, twiddling their thumbs in the hope that this day would arrive, would the Department for Transport not have brought them on board already to help with the running of Northern Trains or Southeastern? It is the same question across the network. Will she be sacking everyone currently working for the train operating companies and replacing them with a horde of superior, yet currently out-of-work, staff? Or, as I suspect, will passengers simply encounter the same group of people in a different colour shirt? What we need to hear is what tangible difference this going to make for passengers, because if the answer is nil, then there are lots of other things she could be doing with her time, such as prioritising the railways Bill. The railways Bill is the legislation that will actually make a difference to how passengers experience our railways, with simpler tickets, joined-up decision making and efficiency savings that can be passed on to passengers. She could be modernising working practices, instead of bending over backwards to the unions, as reports suggest she has already done. How does she think that creating a single employer and, in the process, uplifting every rail worker’s terms and conditions to the least favourable for passengers, will benefit the network? She could start by saving the train manufacturer, Hitachi—something that, when in Opposition, she said she could do with the stroke of a pen. I notice that it has been three weeks and that pen is yet to materialise. Perhaps she no longer takes for granted the work her predecessor did saving the Alstom factory in Derby. Or she could prioritise investment in the network, like the £100 billion we spent improving the railways since 2010. On that point, I feel for her because I know what it is like to argue with a Chancellor for investment in something and not win that argument. It is clear from the Chancellor’s statement earlier that the Secretary of State for Transport lost the argument pretty catastrophically. Rather than setting out to reform welfare or control public spending, the Chancellor opted to slash a host of transport infrastructure projects. She will now review all transport infrastructure plans, putting the entire transport pipeline into chaos, letting down communities across the country and letting down a fair few of her new colleagues, too. Those new colleagues will be dismayed to find that they campaigned on false promises to the electorate, and that their pledges to invest in economic growth and not to raise taxes were not even worth the glossy paper on which their leaflets were written. Although I know what it is like to lose an argument with the Chancellor, I do not share the experience that the Secretary of State and many of her colleagues will now be going through: of changing their tune just three weeks after they were given a mandate by the electorate and less than two weeks after their party leader had said that trust was the new battleground of politics. It seems as if he has given up on that battle already. All the same, I welcome the right hon. Lady to her post, and I do genuinely wish her well. I will gladly offer my support to anything that she does to make our railways more reliable and more affordable. This Bill will not do that. It is a rushed piece of left-wing ideology. The evidence, both here in the UK and across Europe, shows that an effective public/private model, where the incentives are properly aligned, delivers more choice, more passengers and greater efficiency. Over the next few weeks of recess, the Secretary of State and her team will have some time to reflect and reconsider. I hope that they will return in the autumn with a Bill that jettisons the baggage of ideology and takes up the mantle of evidence—a Bill that will have more prospect of improving the rail service for passengers, because, as I said, I have no interest in opposing for opposition’s sake, but this Bill as it stands will not be receiving the support of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.