Neil Duncan-Jordan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2025 · Disabled People in Poverty · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for disabled people in poverty. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. Most hon. Members present will be aware that this debate takes place in the shadow of the publication of the welfare Bill, probably tomorrow, which could usher in some of the deepest and most severe cuts to disability benefits since 2010. We already know that the current benefits system is not working. Some 700,000 families with a disability are already living in poverty, and 75% of people who turn to food banks are disabled or live in a disabled household. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions in March this year revealed that 4.7 million people in disabled households are facing hunger, and unsurprisingly, women make up the majority of those disabled people and carers.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Disabled People in Poverty · Hansard source

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  We absolutely have to look at our taxation system and ensure that those with the broadest shoulders carry the biggest burden, rather than saving money on the back of disabled people. Even the Government’s own assessment shows that the changes are likely to have a significant financial impact on claimants. For example, tightening the eligibility criteria for personal independence payment so that individuals will be required to score four points in at least one category will mean that 800,000 people lose the daily living element of PIP, with an average loss of £4,500 a year. The points system is already deeply flawed, especially for those with dynamic disabilities such as multiple sclerosis or myalgic encephalomyelitis. The domino effect of tightening PIP eligibility will be severe, because it acts as a passport to other support—150,000 people are set to lose their carer’s allowance if someone they care for no longer qualifies. That could mean a loss to a household of £10,000 a year. We know that having a disability is expensive: on average, households that have someone with a disability need over £1,000 a month more to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households. The proposed changes to the health element of universal credit will freeze the benefits of over 2 million people, and an estimated 730,000 new claimants will get a lower rate of £50 a week.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Disabled People in Poverty · Hansard source

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  I have not seen that evidence, but what I have seen points me in a different direction. We already know that PIP is an underclaimed benefit, as I think my hon. Friend would acknowledge, and that fewer than half of the disabled people who are eligible to make a claim do so. I would therefore argue that the recent increase in the number of claims is largely the result of declining public health in this country combined with the increased financial hardship that disabled people are facing. The Government have suggested there has been an unsustainable rise in the benefits bill, but as a percentage of GDP, we are spending the same amount on working-age benefits as we were in 2015. Cuts to social security are not an economic necessity; they are a political choice. It has been suggested in the media recently that the transitional arrangements for someone who loses their PIP will be extended from four to 13 weeks, but that only delays the fact that the Government will be making people permanently poorer. It is right for Ministers to say that work can be a route out of poverty, and that disabled people should be supported to find a job, but the proposed £1 billion of support comes in only at the end of the Parliament—three years after the cuts have been introduced. The Learning and Work Institute estimates that only 45,000 to 90,000 people might find work through that proposed employment support, which cannot possibly offset the 3.2 million people who are having their benefits cut. It is a completely false equivalence. As hon. Members know, PIP is not an out-of-work benefit, so cutting it is likely to undermine efforts to get people into employment, rather than supporting them into gainful work. Too often, the attitude of employers is the real barrier to disabled people finding a job. Reluctance to offer flexible working patterns, harsh sickness absence policies and disability discrimination are the blockers that many disabled people face. Tackling those would be an important place to start.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Disabled People in Poverty · Hansard source

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  I agree. I will come on to that later in my speech. Those individuals I mentioned—the 730,000 new claimants who will get the lower rate of universal credit—will see an average loss of £3,000 a year. The health element of universal credit will also be cut for those aged under 22, removing vital support that helps young people into work, education and training. The Government cannot claim to want to help young people into work while taking away their safety net. People in all those groups are already struggling to make ends meet so, in reality, the figures are likely to be an underestimate of the scale of the pain being proposed. A recent freedom of information request revealed that 1.3 million people who currently get the standard daily living award will no longer qualify, which is significantly higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility’s estimated 800,000 people. As a result, 350,000 people will be pushed below the poverty line. In total, over 3 million households will lose out, with as many as 100,000 children being pushed into poverty. I have heard Ministers repeat the claim that only one in 10 PIP recipients will be affected by the proposals, but that is based on the false assumption that people will get better at filling in the claim forms and that more people will be successful in scoring four points. There is absolutely no evidence to show that that will be the case. The one in 10 figure also does not take into account the potential new claimants who will lose out.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Disabled People in Poverty · Hansard source

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  Yes, I agree, and later I will talk about disabled people and how employment may be a route out of poverty. Any losses through changes to benefits will overwhelmingly fall on those who are already the poorest in our society. The Government are right that the social security system is in need of reform, but benefits are far from generous, and they often fail to cover the essentials of living. The process of claiming support can also be extremely complicated and confusing, and that often leads to individuals incorrectly filling in the forms or finding the process too difficult to even start. The assessment process, which is outsourced to five private companies, can be slow and is often open to appeal.

• 20 May 2025 · Pensions: Expatriates · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this important debate on an issue that is often overlooked, as I think we would all agree. It is fair to say that successive Governments have ignored this issue for decades and, understandably, many UK citizens are unaware of what would happen to their state pension if they were to relocate to one of the countries affected by this regressive arrangement. It seems completely arbitrary that someone could emigrate to America and continue to receive an annual uprating in their state pension, but not if they went to Canada. We have heard that the blight of frozen pensions affects nearly half a million British citizens living overseas, despite the fact that they paid national insurance contributions for much of their working lives. The impact of this arrangement is absolutely shocking. We have already heard that four in 10 frozen pensioners report that they struggle to afford items such as food and fuel. In my view, our state pension system is already insufficient to meet the needs of millions of existing and future pensioners, but let us imagine how inadequate it would be if the pension failed to rise at least in line with inflation or earnings for more than 20 years of someone’s retirement. Most pensioners in this position were never informed that their state pension would be frozen in this way. The scandal therefore has a number of parallels with those behind other campaigns, such as that affecting women born in the 1950s, who argue that they saw their state pension age increase without due notice. Such measures only end up hurting the most vulnerable in our society. Taken alongside recent decisions to means-test the winter fuel allowance, which was mentioned earlier; the refusal to pay compensation to the WASPI women; and the proposed cuts to disability benefits, it could appear that the Government are trying to balance the country’s books on the back of some of the poorest members of our society. Although there will always be a cost to Government decisions, I ask the Minister to consider that beginning to uprate the frozen pensions at a future date would cost only around £55 million a year. Most commentators would understand that that is not beyond the realms of possibility. It would be a significant step not only in showing that the Government are on the side of older people who have made a contribution to our country, but in unravelling a long-standing anomaly that the public simply cannot understand. Finally, the Government should also consider that with changes to the overseas voting rules, as was mentioned earlier, many of the UK pensioners affected by the frozen pension scandal are now in fact registered voters in the UK.

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

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  The right hon. Member brings me to my next point, which is the risk of a Horizon-style scandal on a massive scale, given the sheer volume of accounts that will be scanned. That is glaringly obvious. These new powers also strip those who receive state support of that fundamental principle of British law, the presumption of innocence, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) said earlier. Amendment 11 would ensure that the Government can tackle fraudsters, but would limit the use of an eligibility verification notice to cases where a welfare recipient is suspected of wrongdoing and not merely of error. That proportionate and necessary safeguard would prevent the corruption of our welfare system, which will turn it from a safety net—meant to offer dignity and support to those in need—into a punitive system, where accessing help comes at the cost of someone’s privacy and civil liberties. The Bill grants the Department draconian powers to apply to a court to have people stripped of their driving licence if they have an outstanding debt, whether for overpayment, fraud or error. Amendments 10 and 12 would remove that power from the Bill. There are fairer and more effective ways to enforce the law. Analysis of the Bill has shown that where assessment deems that a financial deduction would cause hardship, the debtor can face losing their licence. That is not justice in my view, but a penalty for being poor. I have heard the claims that this measure will be a last resort when the debtor has failed to engage over a period, but that overlooks the fact that non-engagement can be a symptom of hardship rather than wrongdoing. Many welfare recipients, including those with mental health conditions and caring responsibilities, find it difficult to navigate the complex bureaucracy of our social security system, and may be unfairly deemed not to have engaged with the DWP.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. It is the very poorest in our society who will be most affected by this legislation. Banks will be able to trawl through financial information even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing—that is the key point in this debate. The very poorest, including disabled people on PIP, older people on pension credit, carers and those on universal credit, will effectively have fewer rights to privacy than everyone else. I am also deeply concerned about the slippery slope of compelling banks to act as an arm of the state.

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

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  I agree. I think that the complexity of our system lends itself to errors on the part of individuals who find it extremely difficult to navigate. In Committee, several witnesses explained that people avoid repayment for a variety of reasons, including not knowing where to get help, simply being overwhelmed by the whole process, or facing multiple debts. I hope that the Minister will provide further reassurance on that specific point relating to amendments 10 and 12. All these challenges will only be made worse if the Government proceed with the planned cuts in disability benefits outlined in the recent Green Paper, which will affect more than 3 million families. The last Government stripped our welfare state to the bone during 14 years of deep cuts—disabled people are already far more likely to be in destitution and to rely on food banks—but spying on millions of people or piling cuts on to a failed system will not repair our welfare model. The Government must pause for thought, meet representatives of disability organisations, and build a fairer system with their consent and confidence. Our welfare state needs to provide support for those who need it, and the change that we promised as a Government must lead to a more compassionate and caring society—one that enables rather than penalises. These are the values that make us different from the last Government, and we should not forget that.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Wealth Tax: Potential Merits · Hansard source

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  Analysis from a number of disability groups shows that the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper will have a detrimental effect on more than 3 million people, while polling from Oxfam shows that 77% of the public would rather the UK Government increased taxes on the very richest than cut the benefits of the poorest in society. Should we not be looking at raising funds from those with the broadest shoulders?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  Paragraph 1.14 of the OBR report outlines that the planned cuts to disability benefits will reduce personal independence payments for 800,000 claimants, and cut health-related universal credit for 3 million families. Is it not time that we asked those with the broadest shoulders to carry the heaviest burden, rather than the poorest in our society?

• 11 Mar 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Having been a trade union activist for 40 years and a regional official, I have a genuine sense of pride in seeing the Bill make its way through Parliament. It is truly transformational and seeks to address the imbalance that has existed in the workplace for far too long. Many of the amendments before us strengthen existing rights so as to ensure that unscrupulous employers are unable to frustrate, delay or act unreasonably when dealing with their workforce, either collectively or as individuals. Other amendments, such as new clause 101 in my name, seek to introduce new rights and protections for groups of workers who have hitherto been forgotten or overlooked. My new clause calls for the establishment of a regulatory body for foster carers. Currently, those who employ foster carers—local authorities, charities and independent fostering agencies—also serve as de facto regulators, with the power to register and de-register workers. That puts too much power in the hands of the employers, and, according to the foster carers branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, it illustrates a structure within the sector that fails to bring consistency, transparency, fairness or decent outcomes for the children and young people in their care. A new regulatory body would therefore accredit educational institutions to provide standardised training courses. Once completed, those courses would remain on a carer’s work record. At the moment, every time a foster carer starts with a new provider, they are required to do the training again. That is both unnecessarily costly and time consuming. The body would also be responsible for maintaining a central register of foster care workers, and would ensure proper standards of care and deal with fitness-to-practice cases. As with the very best regulatory bodies, it would include those with lived experience of foster care. One of the key roles of that proposed body would be to standardise the employment rights available to carers, such as maximum working hours, entitlement to statutory sick pay and protections against unfair dismissal, while also considering the important issue of collective sectoral bargaining. Through that, we would hope to see improvements in pay, minimum allowances, holidays and pension entitlements. As the UK continues to lose foster carers at an alarming rate, now is the time for that basic oversight, which will help to ensure we have enough safe and loving homes for the vulnerable children who need them. My amendments 316 to 323 relate to the issue of redundancy. Over the years, I have negotiated with a number of employers over hundreds of redundancies, and I am seeking to improve the legislation based on that first-hand experience. Amendment 316 would require an employer to hold meaningful consultation even if they were preparing to make fewer than 20 staff redundant—something that many good employers already do, of course—whereas amendments 317 and 318 would introduce greater sanctions for those who fail to consult properly. Amendment 319 would treat workers dismissed under fire and rehire as having been made redundant and would ensure that they receive greater remuneration as a result. Amendments 320 to 323 all seek to improve the level of redundancy pay by removing the 20-year cap on entitlements; by ensuring that someone with 10 years and six months’ service, for example, receives 11 years’ redundancy pay rather than 10; by basing the statutory redundancy calculation on months rather than weeks; and by ensuring those with less than two years’ service also have the right to redundancy payments. Of course, there are many reasons why redundancies occur, but at the moment, the rules and sanctions around this issue enable some unscrupulous employers to exploit the situation and treat their staff unfairly. These amendments seek to address that imbalance, and I hope the Government will consider ways in which the issues I have highlighted can be included in the legislation.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) for securing this timely and important debate. According to National Energy Action, one in 10 households in my constituency live in fuel poverty, with the worst affected likely to be low-income households, the unemployed and, of course, pensioners. There is no doubt that fuel poverty is inextricably linked to financial poverty. For example, 1.8 million carers struggle with their fuel bills, and the same people often have to use food banks or to cut back on food in order to pay for their gas and electricity. Many of those carers are themselves older; as we know, it is essential to keep warmer for longer when we get older, as we become less active and more sedentary and our blood circulation becomes poorer. That is why the decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance was wrong and needs to be reversed. Department for Work and Pensions figures show that 880,000 older people were eligible for pension credit but did not claim it. Since the decision to means-test the winter fuel payment, around 47,000 pensioners have come forward to make a claim, but that leaves over 800,000 older people without a winter fuel payment they previously would have received. Let us be under no illusions: these are among the very poorest pensioners in our society. There is considerable evidence that when a benefit such as the winter fuel payment is specifically named for a purpose, recipients are more likely to use it for that reason—they put it aside to pay the next bill that comes in. It comes in the winter, because that is when the largest bills arrive; however, for this group of pensioners, the bill came but the winter fuel payment never showed up. Universal payments also reach the people who need them most; it is more efficient to make payments to everyone and then to use the taxation system to redistribute from wealthier pensioners who might not need the payment. According to the Carers Trust, at least 180,000 unpaid carers over 65 will have been negatively impacted by the decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance. That group is also shut out of much of the other support available from Government. For example, eligibility for carer’s allowance does not qualify people for the warm home discount, which is based on a property’s type, age and floor area, not on someone’s actual bill. Likewise, an underlying entitlement to carer’s allowance does not qualify individuals for cold weather payments. The drive for a clean energy transition is an opportunity to tackle the problem by lowering bills and insulating our homes, but the energy market, with the role of private companies, is broken. My hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth mentioned the obscene levels of profit being made, and they need to be addressed. As a minimum first step, we need to introduce social tariffs for low-income households to guarantee lower bills for those who need them. We also need to consider making assistance with fuel bills available as a form of social prescribing. Health professionals who consider that it would have a recognisable health benefit could then enable patients to get cheaper fuel. Finally, we need to reverse the cruel decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance. In one go, we reduced support for 10 million pensioners. That needs to end.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Social Security Benefits · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does the hon. Member agree that just as the Government are addressing child poverty by setting up a child poverty taskforce, they should set up a pensioner poverty taskforce for pensioner poverty?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Social Security Benefits · Hansard source

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  You are making a very powerful case. Would you agree with me that—

• 3 Feb 2025 · Pension Credit Take-up · Hansard source

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  2. What steps she is taking to increase take-up of pension credit.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Pension Credit Take-up · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister. The latest figures show that at least 800,000 pensioners are eligible for pension credit but do not claim it, which means they have now also lost out on the winter fuel payment that they previously would have enjoyed. Does the Minister think that means-testing is working?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for securing this important debate. My interest in the issue stems from the fact that one of my constituents, Barbara Manning, was affected by Primodos, and, along with the tireless campaigner Marie Lyon—who has already been mentioned today—has been seeking justice ever since. For the benefit of Members who do not know this, let me explain that between 1958 and 1978, Primodos was a hormone pregnancy test that was given to about 1.5 million women in the form of pills. It was taken off the market in 1978 amid concerns about the effect on the unborn children of those who were pregnant, but the link has never been formally recognised by regulators or the manufacturer. Some research at the time suggested that there might be an association between the drug and miscarriages, and babies born with shortened limbs, abnormalities in their internal organs, brain damage and heart defects. Many of those children died before reaching adulthood, and of those still alive, some are blind, deaf and brain-damaged. In 2017, a report from an expert working group of the Commission on Human Medicines concluded that there was no causal association between Primodos and severe disabilities in babies, but there are real concerns about the conflict of interests involving some of those on the expert working group and their connections to the big pharmaceutical companies involved in the scandal. On 8 July 2020, Baroness Cumberlege published her in-depth findings on how the health system responds to reports from patients about harmful side effects from medicines and medical devices. On the MHRA, she said: “A regulator must work both for patients and with them. This hasn’t been the case in the past. We are recommending that the regulator of medicines and medical devices… is overhauled. It needs to change and radically improve the way that concerns about medicines and devices are detected and acted upon. The regulation of devices in particular needs urgent change. The MHRA needs to engage more with patients and track how medicines and devices improve—or fail to improve—patients’ health and quality of life. It needs to raise public awareness of its role and it needs to ensure that patients have a core role in its work.” The review also concluded that the state and manufacturers have a moral responsibility to provide ex gratia payments to those families who have experienced avoidable harm due to their failure to remove Primodos from the market. The duty of the regulator was to protect women. It chose to protect the manufacturer instead. Thousands of women and unborn children were exposed to a risk that was widely acknowledged at the time. That should not have happened. It now falls to us to put right that injustice, to persuade the manufacturer to pay compensation to those affected families and to reform the regulatory system, so that it protects patients in the future.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he confirm whether the Government’s decision and their claim that only 10% of women affected were unaware of the state pension change is based on a survey from 2006 involving just 210 respondents?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Inflation: Pensioner Living Standards · Hansard source

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  The poorest pensioners in our society are those who are eligible for pension credit but do not claim it, and those who are just a few pounds above the threshold and miss out on passported support. Means-testing, by its very nature, is simply not the best way to get help to those who need it most, so will the Minister reconsider the recent decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance?

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I should place on record that my wife is a hard-working NHS employee, and she will thank me for saying that. I have today met representatives of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which has raised serious concerns about the waiting times that children with conditions such as motor neurone disease face in accessing community services and hospital treatment. I am hopeful that children’s health will be targeted for additional resources in the Budget, because if we can tackle children’s health early, we can help to reduce poor health in later years. I welcome the key point in the Budget, which is the recognition that increasing public spending—on health, for example—benefits those on lower incomes the most. Likewise, the Budget concentrates increases in tax on the households with the highest incomes, as it should. I have received representations from hospices in my constituency about the increase in national insurance contributions for employers, and I urge the Chancellor to consider granting hospices an exemption, in recognition of the difficult and much-needed work they do. The announcement of £1 billion of additional funding for SEND is to be warmly welcomed, and I am keen to see how that funding will be distributed to benefit the children and families who have been struggling for so long. The announcement of compensation for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal and the infected blood scandal is a welcome step in recognising those injustices, but I urge the Chancellor to see what similar support can be given to women born in the 1950s who were never properly informed about the changes to their state pension age. I also recognise the £600 million grant funding for social care for local authorities, but the entire sector urgently needs reform, especially if we are to realise the Government’s stated aim of moving healthcare from hospital to community. Finally, I again express my concerns about the decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance. I am looking forward to meeting the Minister with responsibility for pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds), tomorrow to discuss that further. I hope we can explore what further support we can give to those who are just above the pension credit threshold. There is much to welcome in this Budget, but those with the broadest shoulders need to carry the heaviest burden.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  This Government have inherited a Britain that is now the most unequal country in the G7 bar America. The UK’s 50 richest families own 50% of the country’s wealth, and our tax system exacerbates this inequality with unfair loopholes that benefit those who have wealth rather than those who go to work. What steps—

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the problem is that wherever we draw the line, there will always be those just above who end up being poorer because they do not gain the benefit and do not get the passported access that gaining the benefit gives? Those individuals end up being worse off than the people who do claim. That is one of the problems with the means-tested system.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Social Security · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the chance to speak in this important debate. I felt compelled to do so because for nearly 20 years I was an active campaigner in the pensioner movement. I want to make it clear that the financial mess inherited by the Government is a result of 14 years of austerity and financial mismanagement, and I reject any suggestion that public sector workers are benefiting at the expense of pensioners. That is well known to be a crude attempt to divide working people, and we should reject it as such. In the short time that I have, I want to make the case for universalism as the cornerstone of our welfare state. We know from the latest figures that 880,000 older people are eligible for pension credit but do not claim it. Means-testing is supposed to target help at those who need it most, but those people do not claim it. For decades, successive Governments have talked about needing to improve take-up, but even in the best year the take-up rate was 67%. Of course, some people do not claim it because they are unaware of what they are entitled to, but most are wary about having to answer more than 230 questions about their circumstances, and many charities such as Citizens Advice in my constituency do not have the capacity to help people fill the forms in because of cuts to funding over the years of austerity. We should also recognise that there is still a stigma attached to having to declare that you are struggling, and concepts around the deserving poor are as old as this building. I thought that in the 21st century we would be hoping for something better. The key question with any means-tested-system is: where do we draw the line? By its very nature, the biggest losers will be those just above the cut-off point. In my constituency, around 19,000 people will miss out. The UK has long-standing problems such as poor housing that is difficult to keep warm, one of the lowest pensions in Europe, rising energy costs, and annual cold-related winter deaths among older people—I could go on, but I am running out of time. I urge the Government to think seriously about delaying this proposal and, in its place, putting forward a pensioner taskforce to look at how we can tackle pensioner poverty in the UK.