Welfare Spending

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is beyond belief that Conservative Members have chosen today to shine a spotlight on the subject of welfare, when their record on it is one of failure, chaos and incompetence. Under the previous Conservative Government, welfare spending ballooned out of control. The final Office for Budget Responsibility forecast on their watch projected that annual welfare spending would increase by close to £100 billion by 2028-29. That is enough to fund the entire NHS for a year, but instead, the money was spent patching up the consequences of Conservative failure.

The Conservatives now want to run from their record. The Leader of the Opposition has even called for a “totally different approach” to welfare from the one that she supported when in government. So who did she appoint as her shadow Chancellor? The right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride)—the very Member who, as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, oversaw the overspending. When the Conservatives say that they have changed, I say: look at their Front Bench—the architects of failure are still drawing up plans.

And what a failure it was. On the shadow Chancellor’s watch, more than 800,000 people left the labour market. What does it say about a Government when hundreds of thousands of people give up on looking for work? Those people had lost hope. That is not just money lost in tax revenue—it is a parent who can no longer work because they are on an NHS waiting list; it is a young person with mental health challenges, left behind by cuts to mental health services.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I am listening, as always, to the hon. Gentleman’s wise words—he presents his case very well—but, honestly, has he forgotten the pandemic? Will he give any credit to the then Government for managing it? Does he talk to his constituents, and all the businesses that are still going thanks to the work done at that time? With regard to his attacks on the Conservatives, will he just grow up? I hope to goodness that Labour never has to manage what we had to manage, but if it does, I hope that it manages it even half as well.

[Luke Akehurst]

Obviously, the pandemic was a factor, but the right hon. Gentleman cannot blame every Government policy failure on external factors. All Governments must deal with external factors.

Unpaid carers are having to leave their jobs because the Conservatives never fixed social care. Behind every one of those 800,000 people who are outside the labour market is a tragic story of wasted opportunity and a Conservative Government who looked the other way. That abject failure hits constituencies like mine the hardest; North Durham has more economically inactive people than the national average.

Let us contrast that with the record of this Labour Government in our first year in office. Economic inactivity has fallen and employment is up: 730,000 more people are in work, and 360,000 fewer working-age people have been out of work and not looking for work since we entered office. That is 360,000 stories of lives moving forward, new parents able to get back to the workplace, people off NHS waiting lists thanks to our record investment, and young people accessing training. Behind every one of those stories is a Labour Government who refused to accept wasted opportunity.

There is still so much left to do to fix the mess that we inherited from the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Chancellor and the rest of the Conservative party, but I am proud to support a Labour Government who want to help people into work, so that they can get on with their lives.