Universal Credit Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

At end to insert “but regrets the impact of the Bill, particularly with regard to age discrimination, the impact on people with high levels of need and mental health conditions, and the overall impact on rates and severity of poverty among people with disabilities, and notes the human rights concerns expressed by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I echo her concerns about the way in which this is being rushed through procedurally and how its being declared a money Bill denies us the broader debate that we might otherwise be having. I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill, welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, and express my sadness at the departure of the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan of Partick.

I begin, perhaps surprisingly, by agreeing with the Minister and the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, that we have a problem with ill health—but it is not a problem with providing benefits for ill health. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, referred to the delays and problems with NHS treatment and social care. I add that we are a deeply unhealthy society; we have food systems and housing of terrible quality, and problems with air quality, nature and the environment, low pay, and insecure work. All these things make people ill. We very much need to tackle those issues, but if we deny people enough money to live on and to be able to afford healthy food, that will not make them healthier. That is the basic reason for my regret amendment.

I have spent more time explaining what a regret amendment is in the past couple of days than I might have expected. I know that a lot of people are listening tonight, so it is worth stressing that the House of Lords has no power to stop or amend this Bill. A regret amendment is the strongest thing that I am able to do. Its practical effect is absolutely nothing, but I intend— I have tried to make sure everyone is aware of this—to put it to a vote, because it is really important that people out there who will be affected by this Bill have the chance to know that there are people supporting then. In the other place, 47 Labour MPs and many others indicated at Third Reading that they did not want this Bill to proceed.

The regret amendment notes the effects of the Bill on

“age discrimination, the impact on people with high levels of need and mental health conditions, and the overall impact on rates and severity of poverty among people with disabilities, and notes the human rights concerns expressed by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”.

That reflects the perspective of the Disability Rights UK briefing on the Bill, which I have widely circulated:

“Debt and poverty are already a fact of life for existing Disabled claimants of UC, with many unable to afford essentials such as food, energy and housing or the additional costs of disability. The cuts will exacerbate this grave situation even further, pushing people into deep poverty”.


I and many other noble Lords, I am sure, have received a flood of briefings from organisations representing disabled people, including Scope, Sense, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Parkinson’s UK, the Mental Health Foundation and Amnesty International. The last of those clearly identifies, as the UN did, that this is a human rights issue, as the regret amendment points out. The latest letter from the UN committee points out that this is going backwards, when it had already identified that there was a problem. Looking at what that means, recent research from the Trussell Trust and YouGov found that one in five people receiving universal credit and disability benefits now has been forced to use a food bank in the past month. What will that do to people’s health? How will that equip them to find work, if that is even a possibility?

There is a further joint briefing involving many of those organisations, as well as the Disability Benefits Consortium, the Trussell Trust, Citizens Advice, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Child Poverty Action Group, the New Economics Foundation, Z2K, Turn2us, the MS Society and Carers UK. It highlights how the Bill as it stands means that the existing recipients of the health element of universal credit will not see their payments frozen but will also not feel most of the benefit of the £250 per year increase in the standard allowance, which the Minister and the Government have made much of. About 50,000 more disabled people and people in households with disabled people are predicted to be in poverty by 2030 as a result.

Perhaps the most pernicious part of this is the key Clause 2, which cuts the limited capability for work and work-related activity, or LCWRA, element of universal credit—generally known as the health element—and will affect more than 750,000 disabled people by £3,000 a year, an effect that will only continue to grow unless we get a future Government who are concerned about the rights of disabled people and basic humanity. That means effective age discrimination, since younger people are far more likely to be affected.

As Sense points out, if the people with complex needs whom it represents received £47 less in support each week, a quarter would be pushed into debt—often further debt—and one in five say they would be forced to go without essential support to basically live their lives. The Government claim, and the Minister said, that some people with terminal illness and lifelong conditions will be protected, but the impact assessment confirms that fewer than 10% of new claims would be saved by this. The Cystic Fibrosis Trust says that few of the adults it represents are likely to meet the severe conditions criteria,

“despite the fact that a typical person with cystic fibrosis on the health element of universal credit is someone who cannot walk 200 metres within a reasonable timescale, the majority of the time is at risk of voiding their bowels and/or bladder, and would spend a significant portion of their day performing their daily treatments”.

Those are the people the Bill explicitly targets for benefit cuts. If the Minister can tell me that they are going to be protected, I am interested to have that on the record, but that is not what charities that are experts in this area believe. Parkinson’s UK notes that it has legal opinions from two different experts concluding that the severe conditions criteria are likely to effectively prevent people with Parkinson’s getting the higher-rate health element.

I came into your Lordships’ House promising to share the voice of the voiceless. As I am sure many others have, I have received hundreds of emails from individual disabled people and their carers, setting out their situations. I am going to use just one, with permission, although I will not name the person to protect their and their family’s privacy. This woman is a former elected Labour councillor and former NHS professional. She is a carer for her young adult autistic son and a parent with multiple sclerosis. She says, “I am currently advocating for my son, who has applied for universal credit and is now undergoing the LCWRA assessment. Without me helping him, my son could not negotiate this system. Cutting the health element for these young people is wicked. This is how they end up on the streets when there is no family to support them. This generation has been shafted by the SEND system. Most did not achieve their potential due to unmet needs and lack of support in school. They are at higher risk of mental health issues; they are less likely to gain employment”. She notes that the first requirement of most job ads is excellent communication skills. She says, “My son is selectively mute. He is at an immediate disadvantage”. Can the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, responding for the Official Opposition, confirm that, having listened to the speech by the noble Viscount, Lord Leckie, she agrees that this family needs the strongest possible support? I hope the noble Baroness can confirm that.

I conclude with remarks from this former Labour councillor, who said, “I am shocked and appalled at this proposal. It really will destroy lives”. I am sorry that I will not be able to respond individually to everyone who has emailed me; the volume is just too great. It is a collective testament to the fact that disabled people in our society are not feeling how Sir Keir Starmer told the Liaison Committee yesterday that he wants them to feel. They are not feeling secure and supported; they are feeling the opposite. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her typically comprehensive response within the limits of the time available. I thank everyone who has contributed to this extremely rich debate.

Your Lordships’ House has done what we can within the limits of the procedure allowed us, and I particularly note the highlights of the maiden speech and the valedictory speech. However, this debate has inevitably left many questions unanswered. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, noted that what we heard from the Minister today and what we heard in the other place do not square with what is actually in the Bill on constant and continuing. Had we had further stages of the Bill here, we would have been able to explore that at depths that we simply have been unable to do today.

I note the equality points about age, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Browning; about gender, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton; and about nations, especially Wales, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith—and we did not even get into the regions of England. A particular highlight was the strong and powerful contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, in which they attacked some of the disgraceful stigmatisation and victim blaming that this debate has almost been free from, with a couple of exceptions. We have seen far too much of that in the public debate and in the other place.

The issue of finances is still hanging. The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, rightly pointed out that the justification for the Bill, when we started, was to cut government spending. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, highlighted that we really have no idea what impact the Bill will have on raised costs for the NHS, social care, local councils and lots of other people. I should declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

On jobs, the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, said that we need to do more to encourage employers. I am afraid that I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, in thinking that employers should provide jobs, ensure that those jobs are open to disabled people and make appropriate accommodations.

The right reverend Prelate said a very powerful phrase: we have to embrace those who do not fit the model of financial productivity. People can contribute to our society in many ways. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott—I am sure that she did not mean to say this—spoke about a sense of purpose coming from paid work. I am sure she will acknowledge, as all sides of this House have acknowledged, that there are people who will never be able to take paid work, but those people’s lives can still have a sense of purpose. They can still contribute to communities—through caring and through volunteering—if they get the appropriate support.

The tone of this debate has very much been one of regret. The people listening to this debate need to hear as much support as they possibly can, so I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.