Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Hollern Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and speaks from a position of experience on this issue. The Government have now reached settlements with every other part of the public sector, including, most recently, consultants, and I am grateful to them for their constructive engagement with the Government. The junior doctors are taking action in the face of a recommendation from an independent body of a 9% pay rise, on average—the highest increase across the entire public sector. The Government have gone beyond that in conversations with them, but they have still decided to take damaging strike action. It is wrong, and that is why we have introduced minimum service levels, to ensure that we can guarantee a safe level of care for patients across the NHS. It would be good to hear from the Labour party, at some point, whether they will get off the fence, condemn these strikes and back these minimum service laws.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Q14. Universal credit is broken. One constituent told me that the Department for Work and Pensions is refusing to reimburse her childcare payment because it was four days late due to a phone being broken. She is down £1,200 and is unable to pay for childcare. She has lost her job and will likely have to move house. With three weeks to go before Christmas, she is extremely anxious and distressed. Does the Prime Minister realise the real consequences for real people of this broken system?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sorry to hear about the circumstances of the hon. Lady’s constituent. If the hon. Lady writes to me, I will make sure that we get specific support in place for her constituent and ensure that she can access what she needs. When it comes to universal credit, I strongly disagree with the hon. Lady. It was only because of the actions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) that universal credit was implemented, and the only reason we were able to get support to millions of vulnerable people during the pandemic was that we had replaced the legacy system with universal credit, and that was opposed at every step by the Labour party.