Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

We will not build the much-needed 1.5 million homes without bringing people into the construction sector. That is why, as part of our new approach for employers, we have partnered with the construction sector and set up specific schemes with them. We are also talking directly across Whitehall with other Government Departments and with the sector about moving people into great jobs in construction.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to see you back after the summer recess.

The hon. Lady can fling around the stats all she likes, but the facts are clear and bleak. Under her watch, youth unemployment has gone up; nearly a million young people, and rising, are not in work or education, including over 40,000 more young women. A generation of brilliant young people are going on to benefits, rather than into work. The Government’s jobs tax and their unemployment rights Bill were guaranteed to reduce opportunities for young people. We have had the winter fuel U-turn and the welfare U-turn; why not a U-turn to help young people?

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[Sir Stephen Timms]

I very much welcome the NHS 10-year plan published by our right hon. Friend the Health Secretary, which gives a new priority and commitment to mental health support. I agree with my hon. Friend that that is an important part of tackling the problems that we need to resolve.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is good to see the Minister back after the break, but I am sorry to hear that there are still no plans to reduce spending on personal independence payments. He has said that he is collaborating with people who would not be working with him on his review if there were to be any reductions in the levels of benefit or eligibility. Given that veto on cuts to PIP, I implore him again to consider the benefits to which PIP is a gateway, such as Motability, disability premiums, council tax discounts and blue badges. Will he promise at least that those entitlements could come down?

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[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend has raised this matter with me before, and the one thing I can confirm is that she is a powerful advocate for her constituents on this very important issue for them. As she knows, I cannot comment on individual cases—particularly as the matter is now with the Pensions Ombudsman—but more generally, it is important that promises made to pensioners about their pensions are lived up to. Making sure that happens is exactly why the Pensions Ombudsman exists.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Thanks to our Conservative winter fuel payments campaign, thousands of pensioners have signed up to pension credit, and millions more pensioners will receive winter fuel allowance, now that the Labour party has admitted that its policy on winter fuel payments was wrong. However, the Social Security Advisory Committee recently concluded that the Government’s winter fuel plans fall short of delivering their objectives of fairness, administrative simplicity and targeted support. It seems that the Government have prioritised civil service bureaucracy over helping frozen pensioners. Does the Minister agree with the Social Security Advisory Committee’s conclusion about their policies?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the hon. Member for his question, and I congratulate Members on all sides of this House who have run campaigns to drive up pension credit uptake. That is very important, and it is why we have seen 60,000 extra awards over the course of the year to July 2025 compared with the previous year. That work, which is very welcome, has been done by not just Members but civil society organisations and local authorities.

On the points that the hon. Member raised about the process for winter fuel payments this winter and going forward, I do not agree with the characterisation he chose to present. Particularly on the tax side, the process will be automatic. Nobody will be brought into tax or self-assessment purely because of that change; the vast majority of people will have their winter fuel payments automatically recouped through the pay-as-you-earn system; and anyone who wants to can opt out. I remind Members that the deadline for that is 15 September.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

Around a year ago, the Labour Government inherited from the previous Conservative Government around 3 million pensioners in poverty. Sadly, last winter’s cuts to the winter fuel payment saw many pensioners pushed into hardship. In the light of winter fuel price hikes, will the Minister reconsider the Government’s proposals and ensure that moneys are paid to pensioners who missed out on the winter fuel payment last winter?

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[Liz Kendall]

In the spending review we announced this first ever multi-year settlement for local support, replacing the household support fund. The crisis and resilience fund will provide £1 billion every single year, and will give families emergency help if, for example, their white goods break down or they need food urgently. However, we want to start shifting it increasingly towards tackling the root causes of poverty, helping people to become more financially resilient through the provision of debt advice. We recently held a meeting with more than 600 stakeholders to discuss how we could achieve that shift, because we want to prevent people from falling into poverty and to give them the tools that they need to emerge from poverty themselves.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I welcome the right hon. Lady back after the summer. She said recently that it had been “a bumpy…few months”—an understatement, in my view. Last time we stood here, she had just completed a rather humiliating climbdown on her welfare savings plans. She set out to save money, but ended up spending it. You couldn’t make it up, Mr Speaker, but here we are: the number of benefit claimants has hit a record high; the sickness benefit bill is heading up and up; and still the right hon. Lady has Back Benchers and Cabinet colleagues calling for even more spending on welfare. The Chancellor is busy doing her sums in advance of the Budget, so can the right hon. Lady tell us how much lifting the two-child benefits cap will cost?

[Helen Whately]

I asked the right hon. Lady a simple question, but I fear that she does not know the answer; she certainly did not reply to it. What is clear is that Labour wants to spend more on welfare. So do the Liberal Democrats, and so does Reform. Only one party here is telling the truth about the welfare bill: the country cannot afford it.

May I urge the right hon. Lady to take up my proposals? Will she stop giving people benefits for common mental health problems such as anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and give them help instead? Will she stop giving personal independence payments to foreign citizens who have not paid into our system and free cars to people who do not need them? Will she stop people scamming the benefits system over the phone and on the internet? Will she keep the two-child benefits cap, and get the benefits bill under control?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just say that we are on topicals? It is your own Members who are not going to get in.

[Liz Kendall]

The Conservative party failed on welfare because it failed on work. The reason why we inherited such a dire situation with sickness and disability benefits is that the Conservatives failed to get people into work. We are turning that around, and it is about time the hon. Lady and Opposition Members put forward a proper plan of action that actually gets people into work. We believe in work; it is a pity the Conservative party does not.

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

Yes, that is exactly how we are working, and I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Our “Get Britain Working” plan identified Cornwall as a rural industrial legacy employment area, and we specifically pointed out the lack of connectivity. That is why, when it comes to our new jobcentres service, we are also trialling jobcentres on wheels: buses that can take support to where people are and which are designed for rural areas. They recently featured on “The One Show”.

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Liz Kendall]

We are already extending free school meals to all families on universal credit. We have extended the holiday activities and food programme, so that we feed poor kids not just during school but in the holidays, too. We have introduced a new fair repayment rate in universal credit. We have made the first ever multi-year settlement for the crisis and resilience fund to help struggling families. We are introducing and rolling out breakfast clubs. Our child poverty strategy will be published in the autumn. We are already taking action to tackle poverty and we will do more. I say to the hon. Lady that the Scottish Government need to look at how they are spending the biggest ever funding settlement, given in the spending review, including on employment support, because helping parents into good quality jobs is the long-term key to tackling poverty and inequality.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I was delighted to see the establishment of the disability advisory panel a week or so ago. [Interruption.] I am so sorry, Mr Speaker; I have a cold. How will the advisory panel link with the co-production in the Timms review?