Liz Kendall MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend should, 100%, send me the details of those findings and concerns. One of the reasons we are not only bringing back face-to-face assessments but recording them as standard is our wish to get to the bottom of this and make sure that we put it right.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  Our new jobs and careers service applies in all parts of the UK—including Scotland—to help get more people back into work with personalised support. The spending review has delivered an additional £9 billion for Scotland. It is the biggest ever settlement in the history of devolution. I hope that the SNP matches our ambition to get more people into good work instead of cutting the employability budget as it has done in recent years.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a powerful voice, and I know she will always remain so in this House. We are absolutely committed to co-producing this PIP review, led by the Minister for Social Security and Disability. She may know that we are also setting up collaboration committees on access to work and pathways to make sure that we really get this right. I look forward to meeting her and many other disabled people and their organisations to make sure that we get this right as we go forward.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  The Minister for Social Security and Disability and I have met many disabled organisations. In fact, he has spoken to many already about the review. We will continue to discuss with them precisely how the system of co-production will work, but I want to assure my hon. Friend that it is serious. We want to make sure people’s views and voices are heard, and I encourage him, as a Member of Parliament, to get involved in the process too.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  I am very proud of our Prime Minister, who changed our party so that we can change our country, and the mandate can be seen by the number of MPs on the Benches behind me.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  We are absolutely determined to achieve that. I do not believe that it is acceptable that in this country the disability employment gap is 28 percentage points. That is one of the widest in all Europe: in France, Germany and Switzerland, I think it is at about 22 to 23 percentage points. We have to tackle that, because if we believe that the rights of disabled people who can work are equal to those of anybody else, we have to start making a difference. I know that this is an issue of deep concern for many Members across the House, but I believe that the package we are putting forward today is a fair one and is the right one. I will continue to listen to Members of this House, but we cannot wait to reform the welfare system. People need us to make changes, and our country demands it.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  I will absolutely commit to ensuring that those views and voices are heard, and I am sure that, as a strong champion for his constituency, the hon. Gentleman will do so as well. However, I do not believe that this is about luck; I believe that certain parts of the country, and different types of people, have been repeatedly neglected and denied opportunities and support. There is nothing about luck here. This is about people and places that have been written off and denied opportunities for too long. Governments, if they are determined, can make a difference, and that is what we intend to do.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  We will absolutely ensure that the views and voices of disabled people right across the country, including in the north-east, are fully involved in our process of co-production. My hon. Friend is a powerful champion of that, and I hope that she, too, will get involved with our plans. The Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), will develop the process of co-production in close conduct with disabled people and their organisations, and I am sure that he will update the House shortly as those plans progress.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  Yes.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  They are an existing claimant and they will be assessed—let me be really clear about this—under the existing rules.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  This change will be fully funded, and that will be set out in the normal way at the next fiscal event, as I am sure all hon. Members will appreciate.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Severely Disabled People: East Worthing and Shoreham · Hansard source

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  Protecting those who can never work is at the heart of our welfare reforms. That is why, in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, we are ensuring that those with severe, lifelong conditions, which will never improve and which mean they will never work, and those at the end of their lives are guaranteed the higher rate of the universal credit health top-up, protecting one in 10 of all future universal credit health top-up claims. We are also going further by ensuring that those who meet the severe conditions criteria are never again reassessed, in order to stop unnecessary anxiety and stress, helping 200,000 people over this Parliament.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Severely Disabled People: East Worthing and Shoreham · Hansard source

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  I know the brilliant work that the RNIB does and the brilliant sight services locally in Leicester—I have visited them myself. I would say to the hon. Gentleman that nine out of 10 people who are claiming PIP when these changes come into place will be unaffected by them. We are going to see 750,000 more people claiming PIP by the end of this Parliament compared with when we are elected, and, even with these changes, spending will still be £8 billion higher.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Severely Disabled People: East Worthing and Shoreham · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the work he is doing locally. As I said, those with severe lifelong conditions —progressive conditions that will never improve, and which mean they will never work—will be protected. Even more importantly, they will never again be reassessed for their benefits, removing that unnecessary and unacceptable anxiety and stress, and giving them the dignity and security they deserve.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will know that this Labour Government are investing billions extra into the NHS precisely so that we can drive down waits for vital operations and increase the number of people getting mental health treatment. It is also the case that good work is good for physical and mental health. There is very clear evidence on that, and that is one of the things we know that we can achieve with the £1 billion extra a year in employment support.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes. Already this year, we are rolling out £300 million of support through our Get Britain Working plan and Connect to Work. That will rise to £600 million next year and build to an additional £1 billion. This is the biggest ever investment into employment support for sick and disabled people, because we believe work is the route out of poverty. We want to build dignity and a better life for those who can work, while protecting those who cannot.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have great personal respect for the hon. Lady but she really needs to make up her mind: first she says our proposals are too late, then she says they are rushed; she criticises us for being cruel, and then says the Opposition are going to vote against our Bill because it does not go far enough. But her deputy, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), has let the cat out of the bag, saying in a recent Westminster Hall debate: “I am not able to tell…exactly what we would do.” —[ Official Report, 7 May 2025; Vol. 766, c. 301WH.] The truth is that the Conservatives are a broken party with no ideas, let alone a strategy—and, unless they change course, they have no future either.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, we absolutely want that to happen. Indeed, we want to record the assessments as standard to ensure that claimants have confidence in what is being done. This is an issue that causes huge anxiety among my constituents. Too many decisions take too long and are overturned, and we want to deal with these problems head-on.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Nine out of 10 people who are on PIP when the changes come in will be unaffected by the end of this Parliament. Anybody who is affected will keep that benefit for three months—that is, I think, one of the longest transitional protections ever and certainly three times as long as when we move from disability living allowance to PIP. The important Access to Work fund is there precisely to help anybody who needs that sort of support to get into work. We will guarantee that during those three months, anyone who is affected and who uses their PIP for work will get access to an adviser who will help them to apply for Access to Work, because it is so important that we support them.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I congratulate, through my hon. Friend, those in his constituency on the fantastic work that he has described. I recently visited an incredible supported internship programme that helps young people with learning disabilities to get work and stay in work, including in our local NHS and with our local hotel voco in the heart of Leicester. This Government are determined to tackle the disability employment gap, which fell under the last Labour Government, although movement stalled under the Tories. We are going to turn this around with the biggest ever investment in employment support, introducing mandatory disability pay gap reporting and looking at what more we can do to support brilliant employers, like the one my hon. Friend described, to recruit and retain more disabled people.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Let me tell the hon. Lady what we are doing to improve mental health support for people in this country and to make sure that it is treated with equal importance to physical health: we have made significant progress towards recruiting the additional 8,500 mental health workers we said we would recruit in our manifesto to reduce delays and provide support; we have confirmed funding to help an extra 380,000 patients get access to talking therapies; and we are investing the biggest ever amount in employment support for sick and disabled people. I say to the hon. Lady, who left 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness and 1 million young people not in education, employment or training, that it is about time she apologised to the country and made up her mind about whether she will back our reforms.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am proud of the steps this Labour Government are taking to tackle child poverty. Our historic expansion of free school meals to families on universal credit will lift 100,000 children out of poverty and tackle term-time hunger. That is alongside the £2.5 billion we are investing in the household support fund, and our commitment to funding the holiday activities and food programme, which will tackle holiday hunger too. Making sure that children have hungry minds, not hungry bellies, will help them to fulfil their potential in life, and that is what this Labour Government are all about.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, I can. That is a firm commitment from me personally, and from the Prime Minister. We have made a start on that work: our expansion of free school meals to children in all households on universal credit will benefit, I think, around 6,500 children in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and we are helping more people into work, which is the best way to tackle poverty in the long term. We have a long way to go, but we are absolutely committed to bringing those numbers down.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will know that that assessment does not take into account all the steps that we are taking to get more sick and disabled people into work, with the biggest ever investment into support—support that was denied to them by Conservative Members, who wrote people off, consigned them to a life on benefit and then blamed them. We take a different approach. We believe that sick and disabled people should have the same rights, chances and choices to work as anybody else. That will be a key measure in tackling poverty.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. I can absolutely confirm that the child poverty strategy will be looking at all the levers we need to tackle this really important issue, including in relation to social security. She is impatient for change for her constituents, as am I. We have already put in place a fair repayment rate for universal credit, we are increasing the standard allowance for universal credit for the first time in its history, and we are rolling out free school meals, but I will of course take her representations forward and ensure that they are heard by the taskforce.