Pat McFadden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The youth hub will be able to help young people by treating them as human beings and bringing together holistic support to get them into employment, including in mental health, housing, and essential and vocational skills. As I said, it is about breaking down the barriers between Departments and seeing youngsters as people. So far, 67% of young people using youth hubs report that the support has met their needs.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Youth Hubs · Hansard source

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  The Dartford youth hub is scheduled to open in the next financial year, and it will bring together a range of support. Youth hubs include mental health support, housing support, and skills and career opportunities all in one place. The whole idea is that people do not lives their lives according to departmental boundaries, and the way that we help them should understand that and bring these departmental boundaries together. Our evaluation shows that young people at youth hubs are more likely to progress towards employment, and two thirds report that the support met their specific needs.

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

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  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the figures that I just read out. For the first time in many years, the NHS is heading in the right direction. That is good for people’s health, and it is also good for getting people back to work. As I said, the Conservatives show no understanding of how people end up on benefits in the first place. They are like a workman who wanders around someone’s house asking, “Who installed that?”, when the answer every time is that they installed it. The Conservatives say that the welfare bill is too high, but it went up by £100 billion when they were in power. They say that they want more face-to-face appointments, but they shut them down almost entirely, and then the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride), now the shadow Chancellor, signed off a bunch of contracts that allowed the assessors to work from home. The Conservatives say that there are too many people on health benefits, but they designed the system, they designed the gateways, and they designed the differences in income that have made that happen. We did not just inherit a mess; we inherited their mess. In fact, the shadow Chancellor personally oversaw the biggest single increase in welfare spending on record during his time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Two weeks ago, the Leader of the Opposition railed against there being 1.5 million more people on universal credit. She was outraged by the figure, as she often is, but there was only one problem: around 80% of the increase was a legacy transfer from old benefits that was decided, organised and begun by the Conservative party. It is no wonder the chair of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to the Leader of the Opposition to correct her. Her letter said of the figures quoted: “A substantial proportion reflects the ongoing transfer of claimants from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. This process has been a longstanding policy and has been implemented at scale by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) since May 2022, predating the current administration.” When it comes to the Conservatives owning their record, they might as well be giving CV advice to the leader of the Green party. As the King’s Speech made clear yesterday, reform of the welfare system is under way and will continue. Support must always be there for those who need it, but circling the wagons around the status quo is not the right answer. Nor do I believe that the system can act as a fantasy cashpoint for every cause going; instead, I believe that our task is to recast this system to put work and opportunity at its heart.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman opposes the changes that we made to national insurance, but he neglects to mention that employer national insurance contributions are not required for employees under the age of 21, unless they are earning more than £50,000 a year. He opposes those changes while supporting extra expenditure on the NHS. As I have said to him a few times, if his party supports extra expenditure, it really has to support revenue-raising measures to fund it. Young people will have heard the hon. Gentleman dismiss the changes that I have set out today; in fact, they will have heard him say that if he was asked to choose between management courses and young people, he would choose management courses—that is now the established position of the Liberal Democrats. I think that many people would be surprised to hear that in some years, most apprenticeship expenditure has gone on those over the age of 25 who are already in work. We have made a choice; we have chosen young people, and for good reasons. We have chosen them because of the scarring effects of youth unemployment, which I mentioned in my statement, and we now have on record that both the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats are opposed to our prioritisation of young people.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Unemployment · Hansard source

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  Whatever Department I am in, I hear the same question from the Liberal Democrats. They support all the extra spending that is funded by revenue-raising measures, but they oppose all the revenue-raising measures themselves. If the hon. Gentleman wants NHS waiting lists to fall and if he calls for more spending every week, then he has to support the revenue-raising measures that make that possible.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Support for NEET Young People · Hansard source

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  I know that my hon. Friend has spoken movingly about his own experience with ADHD. I assure him that Alan Milburn, a former Health Secretary who is carrying out this report for us, is in regular contact with the chair and secretariat of the independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism, which is being carried out by the Department of Health and Social Care. More broadly, we should support young people, try to increase their confidence and ensure they do not conclude that a diagnosis means that they cannot work, because that should not be the conclusion reached. Many people who do have a diagnosis can go on to have very productive working lives.

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

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  Not at the moment. As I said, around half the families who will benefit were not on universal credit when they had any of their children. These are people who found themselves in need of help long after any decisions about family size had been taken. No account was taken of the costs of the policy further down the line, such as lower educational attainment, worse mental health and lower earnings, perhaps for the whole of people’s working lives.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report · Hansard source

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  In November, I informed the House that the Government would make a new decision in response to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report into the way changes to the state pension age were communicated to women born in the 1950s. This followed relevant evidence coming to light as part of legal proceedings challenging the original decision announced by my predecessor in December 2024. We have now concluded the process to make a new decision and are placing copies of the Government’s full response in the Libraries of both Houses. Before I turn to the substance, I think it is important to be clear what this decision and statement is about, and what it is not about. There are legitimate and sincerely held views about whether it was wise to increase the state pension age, and in particular whether the decision taken in 2011 by the coalition Government to accelerate equalisation and the rise to the age of 66 was the right thing to do. But the issue we are discussing today is not the merits or otherwise of past policy decisions about the state pension age. What the ombudsman investigated was how changes to the state pension age were communicated and whether within a specific and narrow time period there was maladministration and injustice—and if so, whether that warrants compensation. In March 2024, the ombudsman published its final report. As with so many other issues, the previous Government left the report on their desks, issued no response, took no decision, and left it to this Government to respond. In December 2024, the then Work and Pensions Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), set out the Government’s response, having considered all the information provided to her. However, given that relevant research from 2007 about the effectiveness of sending letters subsequently emerged that had not been provided to my right hon. Friend, I wanted to ensure that the right and proper process was followed to take account of this alongside the information previously considered. Of course, I asked the Department not just to consider the 2007 report, but to undertake new searches as part of an extensive review of relevant historical documents to help inform the new decision. We accept that individual letters about changes to the state pension age could have been sent earlier. For that, I want to repeat the apology that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West gave on behalf of the Government. I am sorry those letters were not sent sooner. We also agree with the ombudsman that women did not suffer any direct financial loss from the delay. However, the question is about the impact of the delay in sending those letters. The evidence taken as a whole, including that from 2007, suggests that the majority of 1950s-born women would not have read and recalled the contents of an unsolicited pensions letter, even if it had been sent earlier. Furthermore, the evidence also suggests that those less knowledgeable about pensions—the very women who most needed to engage with a letter, and for whom it might have made a difference—were the least likely to read it. An earlier letter would therefore have been unlikely to make a difference to what the majority of women knew about their own state pension age. Indeed, the 2007 report concluded that automatic pension forecast letters had only a negligible impact on pensions knowledge and planning, and the Department stopped sending them. The evidence shows that the vast majority of 1950s-born women already knew that the state pension age was increasing thanks to a wide-range of public information, including leaflets, education campaigns, information in GP surgeries, and information on TV and radio, in cinemas and online. To specifically compensate only the women who suffered injustice would require a scheme that could reliably verify the individual circumstances of millions of women, including whether someone genuinely did not know that their state pension age was changing and whether they would have read and remembered a letter from many years ago and acted differently. It would not be practical to set up a compensation scheme to assess the answers to those questions conclusively. A flat-rate scheme would cost up to £10.3 billion and would simply not be right or fair, given that it would also be paid to the vast majority who were aware of the changes. I have heard calls for compensation aimed at lower-income pensioners, and we have focused in the past 12 months on raising pension credit uptake, but in the context of this decision, a scheme focused on any single income group still would not specify who may or may not have suffered injustice. That is why, in taking this new decision, we have come to the same conclusion on compensation as that announced by my right hon. Friend the previous Secretary of State in December 2024. I know that many people feel that the state pension age should not have gone up in the way that it did; indeed, Labour argued against the 2011 policy decision put in place by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition that accelerated the increase. However, I repeat what I said at the start of my statement: that is a different issue to the one the ombudsman investigated and that I am responding to today, which relates to the communication of changes in the state pension age and, narrowly, to a delay in sending letters over a relatively short period. The changes from 2011 underline the importance that decisions on the state pension age carry and the impact they have on people’s lives, and I take seriously the need to weigh carefully any future changes. That is why, together with the ombudsman, the Department has been developing an action plan for the future. Work on that had stopped pending today’s decision, but I can confirm that it will now resume. It also underlines why we are determined to ensure that all pensioners on lower incomes, the majority of whom are women, have a better life in retirement, just as Labour has done in the past—from the Wilson Government, who first formally linked the uprating of pensions to the higher of earnings or prices, to the previous Labour Government, who lifted 1 million pensioners out of poverty. Labour introduced pension credit, which is vital in topping up the incomes of the poorest pensioners, with women consistently making up the majority of those benefiting since we first introduced it in 2003. This Government are ensuring that more pensioners get that extra income with the biggest ever campaign to increase take-up, which saw tens of thousands more pension credit awards in the year up to November than in the previous year. In addition, our commitment to the triple lock for this Parliament means that women will see their state pension rise by up to £575 this year, with incomes up to £2,100 a year higher by the end of the Parliament. Indeed, overall spending on the state pension is set to be more than £30 billion higher a year by the end of this Parliament than in 2024-25. We are also putting record investment into the NHS, meaning that thousands more pensioners are getting the operations and treatment that they need, rather than being left in pain on waiting lists. This is the positive difference our Government are making. I believe it was right to review the evidence and that, having done so, we have made the right decision based on due process and the body of evidence. At the same time, looking to the future, we are taking important steps to support women in retirement and help them to build a better life for themselves and their families. I commend this statement to the House.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Since the new year we have had the first expressions of interest from firms that want to participate in the youth guarantee scheme. We have announced our intention to change benefit entitlement for people in mental health hospitals who have been convicted of serious violent crimes. We have announced reforms to the disability confident scheme to encourage more employers to make their workplaces suitable for disabled employees, and we have introduced a Bill to lift the two-child limit, which will have its Second Reading in the House next week.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have had a number of discussions, including with victims’ families. It is important to stress that if someone is sentenced to a psychiatric hospital, their care and maintenance is paid for by the state in any case. We therefore propose a change to the previous system that will stop the build-up of—in some cases—large sums of money in continued benefit payments.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to say that purposeful activity, be it training or work, can be an answer to some of the mental health problems that we are seeing in society, so I welcome her endorsement of the youth guarantee and the intentions behind it.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Pensions · Hansard source

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  I would like to make a statement on the investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman into the way state pension ages were communicated to 1950s-born women. The background to this issue is well known to the House. It arises from how decisions to equalise and raise the state pension age were communicated over a number of years, and the impact that that may have had on the ability of 1950s-born women to plan for their retirement. It stems from the communication of changes in the Pensions Act 1995, which gradually increased the state pension age for women from the age of 60 to 65 to bring it in line with that of men. The Pensions Act 2011, introduced under the coalition Government, then brought forward the timetable for equalisation, and the rise to age 66 for both men and women. It is important to be clear that the ombudsman was not looking at those policy changes to the state pension age, but between 2018 and 2024, it investigated complaints from 1950s-born women about the communication of changes to the state pension age. In March last year, following a lengthy investigation lasting six years, the ombudsman published its final report. In December last year, the then Work and Pensions Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), provided the Government’s response to the House. In coming to this decision, she gave the ombudsman’s report full consideration, and looked in detail at the findings, reviewing all the information and advice provided to her at the time by the Department for Work and Pensions. She did her job thoroughly and professionally in weighing up all the information before her, coming to a conclusion and informing Parliament. Since then, as part of the legal proceedings challenging the Government’s decision, evidence has been cited about research findings from a 2007 report. That was a DWP evaluation of the effectiveness of automatic pension forecast letters. Had this report been provided to my right hon. Friend, she would of course have considered it alongside all other relevant evidence and material. In the light of this, and in the interests of fairness and transparency, I have concluded that the Government should now consider this evidence. That means we will retake the decision made last December as it relates to the communications on state pension age. As the House will be aware, the decision announced last December has been the subject of Court action in recent months, and we have today informed the Court of the action we now intend to take. In retaking the decision, we will review the evidence from 2007 alongside evidence previously considered. I have of course asked the Department whether there is any further survey material or other evidence that should be brought to my attention as part of this process. I understand that people are impatient for this matter to be finally resolved, with the ombudsman’s investigation having taken six years before reporting last year, but it is important that we give this full and proper consideration. We will approach this in a transparent and fair manner. However, retaking this decision should not be taken as an indication that Government will necessarily decide that they should award financial redress. The work will begin immediately, and I will update the House on the decision as soon as a conclusion is reached. Mr Speaker, I understand that Members will have a number of questions, but I hope that you and the House will also understand that I cannot say anything today that pre-empts the conclusion of the process I have set out. I commend this statement to the House.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Youth Guarantee Trailblazer Scheme · Hansard source

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  The trailblazers are up and running and have been delivering support for young people since earlier this year. That includes, for example, mental health support and flexible work experience sessions. We have extended the programme for a further year, bringing the total funding to £90 million. The insights from those trailblazers will inform the national roll-out of our youth guarantee.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Plan for Change: Tracking Dashboard · Hansard source

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  Our plan for change is already delivering for the British people, as the Minister without Portfolio, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and East Dulwich (Ellie Reeves), has just said: wages up more in the first 10 months of our Government than in 10 years under the previous Government; a new nuclear age with £14 billion committed to building Sizewell C as a critical part of our clean energy transition; and NHS waiting lists down by more than 200,000 for the first time in years. What a contrast to the record of the Conservatives.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Government Resilience Action Plan · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member on his wonderful tartan tie, which has caught my eye today—he is the best-dressed man in the House. He is absolutely right about attacks on the health system. It is frankly outrageous that people out there would seek to disable parts of the NHS as a means of extortion, and it is really important that we do everything we can to defend the NHS and stop patients from being subject to delays in their treatment because of these outrageous attacks.