Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Badenoch]

I will make some progress.

Despite the obvious flaws in the Bill, we offered to support benefit changes in the national interest. The hon. Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson) asked a question, and I will answer it very clearly for those who have not been paying attention. We agreed to support the Government if they could make three simple commitments; they were not unachievable or unreasonable commitments. First, they had to cut the overall welfare bill, because we are spending far too much already. Secondly, they had to get more people into work. Thirdly, they had to stand by the Chancellor’s own commitment that, with taxes at a record level because of her choices, she would not come back for more tax rises.

What did we get from the Government? A sneery response indicating that they could manage on their own. How’s that going? What happened instead was that the number of MPs opposed to the Bill grew ever larger, until the inevitable U-turn finally came, announced by a press release dispatched after midnight and a panicked letter setting out that the reforms had been gutted. The Bill is now more incoherent than it was at the beginning.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Just to reflect on the record of the previous Government, as of 2024, approximately 24% of the UK population—nearly 16 million people—were living in poverty. Between 2019-20 and 2022-23, an additional 2.1 million people were living in poverty. In the year to April 2024, before the Labour Government came into power, 4.45 million children, or 31% of children in the UK, were living in relative poverty. Will the right hon. Lady agree with me that the previous Tory Government failed a majority of the population, including disabled people and children?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I definitely will not agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is talking about relative poverty figures. The fact is that the best way to get people out of poverty is to get them into work—something we did again and again and again.

The Bill is more incoherent now than it was at the beginning. It does not do the job at all. Reforms that were not enough in the first place will now cut only £2 billion from a ballooning budget, instead of £5 billion. They will create a new welfare trap and a two-tier welfare system. Right up until the last moment, the Government kept pushing and pushing, ruling out changes and sending their poor, weary Ministers and ambitious Back-Bench bootlickers out on to the airwaves. At the last moment, as we have seen before, the Government abandon them after all of that—they have been hung out to dry.

The Government do not care how they have made their Back Benchers look, and it is not for the first time. Week after week, the Chancellor was sent here to say with a straight face that she was right to cut the winter fuel payment, that there would be no turning back and that the country’s finances would simply collapse if she did not take pensioners’ fuel money and give it to the trade unions, and her Back Benchers sucked that one up. They muttered and they grumbled, but each of them went back and told their constituents that the winter fuel payments were being confiscated to fix the foundations.

Only once pensioners had sat in the cold all winter, the Chancellor had tanked the economy and Labour MPs had had the door slammed in their face up and down the country did they finally accept that it was a mistake. This time, when asked to line up behind a Bill that takes money from older, disabled people with physical disabilities—a Bill that, according to the Government’s own modelling, gets no one into work—funnily enough, lots of Labour MPs did not fancy another go. Perhaps they will think twice next time the Chancellor comes to them with a bad idea.

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[Debbie Abrahams]

I remember well the UN rapporteur saying that the Conservatives were engaged in cruelty towards people in this country who needed help the most.

What I cannot fathom is why a Labour Government are not first putting in the support and then letting it bed in, which is what will reduce the welfare bill and increase employment levels. The impact of any cuts would then not be as drastic. The starting point should never be cuts before proper support. The review led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability, who I have a lot of respect for, is starting to look a little bit predetermined as the change in criteria will happen at the same time as the review concludes. It remains unclear how existing claimants with fluctuating conditions will be assessed, and the impact that these changes will have on the carer’s allowance. However, we do know that disability living allowance claimants and those on other legacy benefits will be assessed under the new criteria, putting almost 800,000 disabled children at risk of losing support.

The north-east region has the highest number of disabled people in England, and the number of people searching for work outpaces the number of available jobs. How on earth will cutting the health element of universal credit incentivise those people to go out and find a job that does not even exist? Since PIP is an in-work benefit, restricting the very support that could keep people in work will only help to increase unemployment. All of this for £2.5 billion of savings, when we know that savings can be made elsewhere and when we know that those with the broadest shoulders could pay more. Instead, we are once again making disabled people pay the price for the economic mess that the Conservative party left us.

As it stands, we are being asked to vote blind today. There is no new Bill, no new explanatory notes and no fully updated impact assessment. There is no time for sufficient scrutiny, and no formal consultation has taken place with disabled people. The majority of employment support will not be in place until the end of the decade, and Access to Work remains worse than ever before. We are creating a two-tier, possibly three-tier, benefit system, and we know for certain that disabled people are going to be worse off. This is not a responsible way for any of us to legislate. It is predicted that disabled people will lose on average £4,500 per year, yet we know they already need an extra £1,095 per month just to have the same standard of living as those in non-disabled households. There is a reason why 138 organisations representing disabled people are against this Bill, and there is a reason why not a single organisation has come out in support of it.

I am pleading with MPs today to please do not do this. For those on my own Labour Benches, staying loyal to your party today may feel good in this place, but once you go home and are in your individual constituency, the reality of this will hit—and it will hit very hard.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Emma Lewell]

I am sorry, but I am concluding my comments.

Just as in 2015, constituents will never forgive us, and it will haunt those MPs who vote for this Bill. I, of all people, should know.

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[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I rise not just with grave concern but with absolute conviction. I speak in support of the reasoned amendment tabled by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and with a plea to the Government to pause, think, reflect and bring back something that will work for the betterment of disabled people. I am afraid to say it, but I have been saddened to hear disabled people being presented in a negative light throughout this debate, although not by all Members. Disabled people are not a burden on society; they are part of society, and they make an invaluable contribution to it. The support that they receive allows them to make that invaluable contribution.

If this Bill passes, it will do unconscionable damage to disabled people, their carers and their families, who are already on the brink in this cost of living crisis. It will deepen poverty, increase hardship and undo decades of progress on social security. I urge the Government to withdraw it now and come back when it is fit for purpose. My independent alliance colleagues and I have been clear and consistent in saying that we are acutely aware of the devastation this Bill will cause. We have fought it and will fight it every step of the way until a Bill that is fit for purpose is before us.

Today we are being asked to sign off on billions of pounds in cuts without any credible data. We have a moving target, as elements of the Bill that are published will no longer apply when it comes back to the House. We have heard the Department’s analysis that 150,000 people would be pushed into poverty, and maybe more than 20,000 children. Despite the talk of concessions that were rushed out and tweaks that were made, they do not change the core injustice.

This Government want to create a two-tier welfare system in which today’s disabled people get help but tomorrow’s disabled people are discarded. New PIP claimants will have to pass a cruel new threshold to qualify for PIP compared with existing claimants. My question to the Secretary of State is: can she explain to my constituents who designed this four-point system? Who defined the criteria by which somebody would qualify or not qualify?

[Mr Adnan Hussain]

Does the hon. Member agree that now is the time when the Government need to confirm what we are voting on? We have had U-turn after U-turn, and I believe Members are confused.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I will accept a Government who listen, adapt and change their approach in the light of new evidence put before them, so I would congratulate the Government on improving on the proposals. I really do not question the core intentions. Fourteen years of waste and mismanagement have led us to the point of having an unmanageable welfare state, and that absolutely must be assessed and improved, but that cannot be at the expense of support for the most vulnerable in our society.

This Bill will impact not just on disabled people, but on carers. It slashes £500 million from carer’s allowance, which is the largest real-terms cut since the benefit was introduced in 1976. Carers save this country tens of billions of pounds through unpaid labour, and nearly half of them already live in poverty. Is this really the thanks that they deserve?

It gets worse: if an existing claimant loses their PIP on reassessment, which happens all too frequently due to assessor errors, they will be treated as a new claimant and be subject to stricter rules. That includes anyone moving from DLA to PIP. That is punitive and regressive, and will erode trust in the entire system.

We are told that there will be consultation, but what consultation happens when a Bill is pushed through in a single week without adequate scrutiny or engagement with those most affected? The principle of “Nothing about us without us” has been flagrantly ignored.

We have heard from Scope that the extra cost of living with a disability is nearly £1,100 a month, which is not covered by PIP. That is expected to top £1,200 by 2029, yet under this Bill those same people will be expected to survive without the support they rely on. The Government expect disabled people to shoulder £15,000 in extra costs and to offer them less and less.

The public see through this. Only 27% support these reforms, while nearly half of those surveyed believe that they will worsen the health of disabled people, and over half expect more pressure on the NHS. These cuts will make people sicker, more isolated and more dependent on an already overstretched service. The politics of this is damning, but it cannot be about politics—it must be about the people we are in this place to serve. I ask the Government to please go back, wait for the consultation to be completed, and then integrate the learnings and the feedback from the people affected so that this legislation makes a positive contribution to our society, not a negative one.

Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that we should consider such people. I think of the lady who came to see me on Saturday at my street surgery. She was concerned about the brutality of the PIP process and the way that she and her husband, who has a degenerative, progressive disease for which there is no cure, are put through the wringer to justify their situation, which anyone with any common sense would see deserves support. But the hon. Lady will be aware of the mushrooming in claims from those with various levels of mental health challenges.

Ultimately, we must balance looking after people with degenerative, progressive diseases in a humane and civilised manner with making sure that we have a system that cuts out fraud, and that seeks to minimise those who do not need aid seeking it and getting it. If only we could have a system in which people did not claim for money that they do not deserve and need, we would be able to look after the people whom I think—this is one area of commonality between the hon. Lady and me—both she and I would agree require fairer and more generous treatment.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Does the right hon. Member agree that the reduction in investment in the NHS and in mental health service support for the people of our country has led to an epidemic of people who have had to wait for support, sometimes for nearly two years, which worsens their condition and makes it harder for them to recover and go back to their normal daily life at work? That also leads to an increased demand on PIP.

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. We on the Conservative Benches know that throwing money at a problem without proper safeguards is not leadership, is not generous and is not kind, but is an abrogation of responsibility and economic negligence.

Let me be clear: this Bill in its current form locks in billions of pounds of additional welfare spending year after year. Under the current Chancellor, we have already seen Britain’s debt interest forecast soar and the bond markets become jittery—more than that, they are charging far more than after the mini-Budget to which Labour Members so love to refer. And inflation, of course, has proven stubbornly high. Now we have yet another unfunded spending commitment, with no plan to pay for it except reaching deeper into taxpayers’ pockets. The Chancellor might not say it outright, but families in Beverley and Holderness and across the country know exactly where this ends up—with them paying more.

The Prime Minister can indulge in his favourite hobby of U-turning his way throughout his time in office, but that is not governing in the national interest, which is what he promised to do. It is the latest example of the Prime Minister bending to pressure from the left of his party, which is so well represented on the Government Benches today, desperate as he is to shore up support for a drifting Government who have lost all propulsion.

Instead of fixing the underlying problems in our economy—or fixing the foundations, as has oft been repeated—Labour has chosen the easy political route of higher spending, higher borrowing and, inevitably, higher taxes. Those higher taxes will be imposed not on some mythical class of super-rich people, which the Greens like to propose, but on ordinary men and women who get up in the morning, work hard, look after themselves and recognise personal responsibility as a central tenet of their lives. That also needs to be a central tenet of our political lives.

That is why I have tabled two amendments to the Bill. Amendment 41 would ensure that Parliament retains control over future annual above-inflation increases. It would mean that the House of Commons must explicitly approve continuing those rates beyond 2027-28, protecting against open-ended commitments that we cannot afford. New clause 9 would require the Government to report on fraud and error arising from these provisions.

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[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the next speaker, may I remind all Members that this is the Committee stage? Can we have some focus on the amendments we are debating this afternoon, not wide-ranging Third Reading speeches? At this rate, there will be little time for Third Reading.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I rise today to speak in support of amendments 2(a), 37 and 39, and new clauses 8, 10 and 11. Without going into a Third Reading speech, it is important to highlight that we are debating a Bill that will have a profound and, in many cases, devastating impact on thousands of families across our country.

As the Resolution Foundation puts it, this Bill represents an

“income shock for millions of low-income households.”

That should give every Member in this Chamber pause. What is particularly troubling is that the areas hardest hit are the very communities that this Government claim to support—places in the north of England, in Wales and in my region of Yorkshire. These proud working-class areas are being failed by a Government tightening the purse strings on the most vulnerable.

In Dewsbury and Batley, 7.9% of people claim personal independence payment. I have had more than 150 constituents contact me terrified about what these cuts mean. Those are not just numbers; they are real people with real needs. The universal credit health element is an essential lifeline for millions of people in our country. One of my constituents, Andrew Waring, ran a business before 2020. Then covid left him with long-term organ damage. He could barely walk 10 metres, and his PIP payments became a lifeline. Cutting such support is not about trimming fat; it cuts into people’s dignity and survival. More than 20 civil society organisations have urged MPs to reject these cuts. Even with the Government’s amendments and the change introduced last week to defer any cuts to PIP until the Timms review has concluded, people are still left concerned and in severe distress.

As it stands, clause 2 will leave 750,000 people, according to the Government’s impact assessment published last night, up to £3,000 worse off by 2030. One in five people on universal credit and disability benefits have used a food bank in the past month, and this Bill will just increase that number. That is why I support amendment 2(a) tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) to maintain the current universal credit health element. That cut will especially hurt people with mental health conditions who are already struggling to access support.

Many Members across the House have spoken in support of the other amendments that I also support, and I will not repeat their eloquent and informed speeches and the points they made. To conclude, what has been disappointing at the end of my first year in Parliament is to see a critical Bill, which will impact millions and millions of people in our country, rushed through the legislative process in a way that has not allowed the relevant time to understand, amend and improve it so that it is fit for purpose. I am sorry to say so, but this process has been a legislative mess.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I just want to make a gentle point to the hon. Member. He points out that the process feels rushed, but sitting here, I observe that there is not a lot of demand to speak from Members from any of the other parties on the Opposition Benches: just two Conservative MPs, no SNP MPs and no Reform MPs. Does he share my disappointment?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I am unable to comment on the people to whom the hon. Gentleman refers as “absent”. I am here to represent my independent alliance colleagues, all of whom strongly oppose the Bill as it is presented here today. It will adversely impact millions of people in our country—the people at the bottom of the food chain; the people who are struggling to feed their children, heat their homes, get to work, and keep appointments that are critical for receiving treatment that enables them to manage their conditions.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

The hon. Member talks of the difficulty faced by people with disabilities. Many millions of those people are supported by family members who are unpaid carers. Does he agree that although the Government have said that they will work with disability groups and people who have disabilities, they should also co-produce whatever comes forward in conjunction with carers’ organisations?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I do agree, and I repeat a point that was made earlier by one of my colleagues: the Timms review must include not just disabled people but disabled people of all ages, and also carers. As I said in my speech last week, this change could potentially cut £500 million from carer’s allowance for people who are caring for disabled relatives, the largest cut since the allowance was introduced in 1967. We urge the Government to maintain that holistic view of the change and the impact that it will have.

The process of the Bill—despite the objections from Labour Members—has been a legislative mess. What happened last week has been followed by today’s amendments, which will basically gut the Bill and focus the changes on universal credit. We have seen last-minute changes, a rushed timescale and a lack of proper scrutiny. Disability is not a choice. Needing help is not a failure. This Bill is not just bad policy; it is a betrayal. I urge every Member of the House to reject it.