Welfare
Debate between Helen Whately and Stephen Timms(2 days, 10 hours ago)
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Helen Whately
My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that that was not the intention of the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis).
Reforming welfare is not cruel to people on benefits—quite the opposite. What is cruel is failing to reform welfare, parking young people on benefits while taxing and regulating jobs out of existence, and telling people that a handout is the answer to their problems rather than going out to work. Truly what is cruel is what the Government are doing to hard-working families: squeezing them with tax rises, higher inflation and higher bills so that there is less to go round at the end of the month, all to fund the lifestyle of “Benefits Street”.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that failing to reform welfare is a very serious failure indeed. Her party was in government for 14 years. Will she tell us in which years spending on welfare fell?
Helen Whately
The right hon. Gentleman’s intervention is extremely timely, as that is literally the next bit of my speech. I thank him for taking me on.
The Government like to say that all this happened on our watch. Let me remind them what actually happened. Last time Labour left power—no surprises—we inherited high unemployment, a rising welfare bill and more than a million young people not in education, employment or training. During the 2010s we brought down unemployment, brought down the number of NEETs and brought down the welfare bill. In the 2020s, as we all know, covid and lockdowns accelerated the rise in claims for mild mental health conditions and neurodiversity, and the number of NEETs did go up, although it did not reach the level it is at today under Labour. When this Government showed up, they had no plan, and in fact they have only made things worse.
Sir Stephen Timms
No, I am not giving way again.
Like the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), I am looking forward to Alan Milburn’s report. His interim report on young people and work was a powerful rallying cry for change and a powerful indictment of the system left behind by the previous Tory Government. The steering group working on PIP, which I co-chair, will also be coming forward with our recommendations later this month. The final reports of both reviews will be published in the next couple of months. The Government will then consider the recommendations and bring forward a White Paper in the new year.
The social security system should always provide security for those who cannot work, but for those who can work the system needs to be a bridge to provide a way into greater participation. That means going beyond the approach we inherited that provides an assessment, writes a cheque and after that says goodbye, with no offer of skills or training and no opportunity to get a job. We do not just owe young people an income; we owe them a future. Young people were starting to doubt whether they had a future. We need to show them that a way is being opened up, as it is. It means ending the Tories’ “signed off, written off” culture, changing the question the system asks from, “What benefit are you entitled to?” to “How do we help you to live the fullest life, to fulfil your aspirations?”
Helen Whately
I object to the way the Minister is describing our approach to welfare, which I do not agree with. I have talked about how the Conservatives brought down the working-age welfare bill during our time in government. The Minister appears to disagree with that statement. Can he tell me whether he is disagreeing because he includes rises in the state pension during that time—so he is considering the full bill including the state pension—or is it because he is looking at figures in nominal terms?
Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Lady has perhaps taken some advice and is conceding that the bill never fell under their 14 years in government.
We need to learn the lessons from the success of what has happened in other countries, such as Denmark, which the Secretary of State visited last week to see how a focus on asking what people can do, not just what they cannot do, has given it one of the highest disability employment rates in Europe.
The Tory party signed people off, wrote them off and then blamed them. Our approach is very different: we want to invest in people’s success and give them the chance of education, training, a decent job and a full life—not a life constrained by the limitations of benefit income. That is the way to bring hope for the future and bring the benefits bill down. In the next few weeks, the House will see the two major reports that we are bringing forward. The Government’s response to them will set out the details of how we will set about that task, and I am looking forward immensely to the debates ahead.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Helen Whately and Stephen Timms(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Helen Whately
Some 100,000 households get over £50,000 in benefits, and 16,000 households get over £60,000 in benefits. That gives them the same income as the top 10% of earners in this country. British people are sick and tired of footing the bill for “Benefits Street” and seeing welfare claimants living lives of luxury at their expense. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has called for more collaborative politics, so will the Minister adopt our plan to toughen up the benefits cap and save £1 billion off the benefits bill?
Sir Stephen Timms
If there is a plan, I would be very interested to see it. We certainly have not seen any details of it. The hon. Member’s comments are a further example of her expressing dissatisfaction with the system left behind by her Government after 14 years. We are reforming the system and making sure it is doing the job we need it to do, and we will carry on with that programme of reform.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Helen Whately and Stephen Timms(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Since the right hon. Gentleman became Disability Minister, half a million more people have gone on to PIP, and the sickness benefits bill is heading up to £100 billion a year by the end of this decade. We know that his review is not due to serve up any savings, but there must come a point where even he would say that the country cannot afford this. Does he have any ambition to make welfare savings?
Sir Stephen Timms
We have already made some important changes. For example, we have removed a serious disincentive to work that was created in the universal credit system by the last Government. That has gone, thanks to the changes in the Universal Credit Act 2025, which finished its passage last summer. Those changes will take effect in April. We do have a broken system—the hon. Lady is absolutely right about that—but it is the system that was left behind by the last Government; and, yes, we are determined to fix it.
Welfare Spending
Debate between Helen Whately and Stephen Timms(1 year ago)
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Helen Whately
The hon. Gentleman thinks he is so clever, but I am sorry to say this is a whole lot more serious than that. [Interruption.] I am glad Labour Members liked that. The fact is, if the hon. Gentleman looked a little further than his time in politics, back to 2010, he would know that the welfare bill and unemployment figures came down, and that we had the huge reform of universal credit, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), which made a huge difference. [Interruption.] As has been chuntered by those on the Government Front Bench, yes, of course, the pandemic made a difference. We had a set of reforms going on, and then those on the Front Bench and some of their predecessors—there has been a certain amount of turnover—came in and gave up on those reforms. Where are we now? There are no savings and no plans to get people off welfare and into work.
However, it does not have to be this way. The country knows that this is not working, and people want change. They want a fairer system: one where people who do the right thing are rewarded; where work does pay; where people taking personal responsibility for themselves and their family makes sense; where there is help for those who need it, but not for just anyone who might fancy it; and where welfare is a safety net, not a way of life. It might be hard for Members on the Government Benches to hear, but this is what people out there want. They want it now—let us get on with it.
The Conservatives have set out our common-sense proposals to start fixing the welfare system. We would stop sickness benefits for people with lower-level mental health conditions like anxiety and reform Motability, putting an end to taxpayer-funded cars for people who have conditions like ADHD and tennis elbow. We would bring back face-to-face assessments, which are going down under this Labour Government, and change the sick note system so that it does not just funnel people out of the office and on to benefits. We would prioritise Brits in our welfare system, stopping people with indefinite and limited leave to remain claiming benefits. Of course, we also believe in retaining the two-child benefit cap, because it is fiscally responsible and fair. Removing the cap would cost more than £3 billion and would be deeply unfair on families who are not on benefits—the couples who decide they cannot afford another child, but would pay taxes for someone else to do just that. The Conservatives are the only party fully committed to the two-child benefit cap—no ifs, no buts.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
I have read somewhere that the list of things the hon. Lady has gone through would, the Conservatives estimate, save £23 billion. Part of that is from housing benefit. Can she tell us how much of the £23 billion would be saved from housing benefit?
Helen Whately
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. As he says, we have earmarked potential savings of £23 billion, and housing benefit is one area. There is the other set of savings that I have just gone through. I am very happy to go through some of our sums and how we have got to those figures with him. As I have said to him, I believe that this Government should be picking up on our suggestions, because that is how they could bring down the welfare bill and avoid what we saw the Chancellor clearly rolling the pitch for this morning: tax rises at the Budget.
Times are hard. I do not want the Government to put up taxes. I do not want them to keep spending other people’s money on welfare, because we all know that one day it will run out. I do not want them to keep people living a life on benefits rather than being in work. That is why I have been so clear about what they could and should do.
I have heard Labour Back Benchers say in this Chamber, “I didn’t come here to cut benefits”, and that is why we have offered to help. The Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Chancellor and I have made a big offer to the Government. We will help them make welfare savings, and we will work with them in good faith to get the welfare bill down and get people off welfare and into work. Labour Back Benchers do not want to make the tough decisions on welfare, but our door is open. We will work with the Government in the national interest. It is not too late to make those bold decisions and make serious savings. A vote for our motion is a vote to get Britain’s welfare system back on track, to get the welfare bill under control, and to set out on a moral mission to get millions off welfare and into work.