Welfare Reform

Debate between John Milne and Liz Kendall

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. At the heart of our mission is providing equal rights and choices for disabled people to work. We will be working with disabled people and the organisations that represent them to develop our pathways to work employment support so that we get it right, because we will not do that unless we work closely with disabled people. We are also working right across Government—we have disability Ministers in every single Department who are driving this agenda forward—and I know that my hon. Friend will give much valued advice and help to make sure we get it right in every part of Government.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

Encouraging and enabling people to get back to work is a laudable aim, but how can the Secretary of State assume £5 billion of success in advance of actually rolling out the programme? Surely the right approach is to let the reforms generate savings naturally by a concrete reduction in need, rather than to set an arbitrary target beforehand.

[Liz Kendall]

We are not setting an arbitrary target. We are fixing a broken system, and we are taking action immediately, because we believe we have to put in place employment support, health support and social care support at the same time as fixing a broken benefits system. I always start with people—what do we need to do to give people the opportunities they deserve if they can work? What do we need to do to make sure the social security system lasts? We cannot put that off any longer, because it is not good enough for the people we were elected to serve.

Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report

Debate between John Milne and Liz Kendall

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I understand the concerns that my hon. Friend raises, but I reiterate the findings from the ombudsman’s report that there was no direct financial loss. We agree that those letters should have been sent out earlier. We will learn all the lessons needed to put that right. I am more than happy to discuss precisely how we will do that with the all-party parliamentary group, so that that kind of maladministration of sending out letters never happens again.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

Last month, the word “WASPI” made it into the Collins English Dictionary, which is a credit to the campaigners behind it. Does the Secretary of State agree that she has gone through the ombudsman’s report with, to use her own words, a fine-toothed comb, in order to get the answer that she always wanted to find in the first place?

[Liz Kendall]

No, I do not agree with that. It was only when we got into government that we were able to see all the information and advice provided by the Department. I did not go into it in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests; that is not correct. This report is not about the policy decision and women against state pension age increases. That decision was taken in 1995, agreed to by subsequent Parliaments and deemed lawful by the courts in 2020. The ombudsman’s report is not about the state pension age increases; it is about how they were communicated. I take responsibility for that and will make sure that we do everything possible to put it right.