Welfare Reform

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I take the issues relating to the measures I have announced today very seriously. We want to ensure that all the assessment processes and training are properly scrutinised, and we are overhauling our safeguarding processes. My objective is to improve the lives and life chances of sick and disabled people by supporting into work those who can work, and by protecting those who will never work, through switching off reassessments to give them dignity and respect. I believe that the mission to ensure that those who can work do, and to secure the sustainability of the social security system for the long term, is the responsibility of the Labour party that founded the welfare state.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

One of the first acts of this Government was to take away the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners on incomes as low as £13,000 a year, including 44,000 who are—or were—terminally ill. Will the Secretary of State reassure all our constituents that in making these changes, she will not be going after those who have a terminal illness?

[Liz Kendall]

That is absolutely essential for me personally, and for the Government as a whole, and I give that assurance to the hon. Lady. However, I gently say to her that pensioner poverty increased under the Conservatives, and they left 880,000 pensioners not getting the pension credit they deserve. The Conservatives are suddenly converted to caring about pensioners on low incomes. In contrast, we have decided to act.