Health and Disability Reform

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

It is the case that there has not been a fundamental review of PIP on the basis that that has subsequently led to a change in that benefit. Therefore, it is the case that that benefit has remained fundamentally the same for more than decade—it actually came in in 2013, as the hon. Gentleman will know. On what assessments may or may not be made available, I think they will come at a point when the Government arrive at their conclusions having conducted the consultation.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Members of this House may remember that I had to take a leave of absence from this role three years ago because I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I can tell the House that the insinuation that mental health conditions are not debilitating, do not affect people’s ability to go about their daily life or to go to work, and do not incur additional costs could not be further from the truth. The Prime Minister’s comments about so-called “sick note culture” and the changes that the Government are proposing will do nothing to help people with mental illnesses, and will just make their lives harder. Why are the Government setting back the clock on the acceptance of mental illness as a disability instead of truly tackling the crisis in mental health support?

Two-child Benefit Cap and Child Poverty

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) on securing the debate and on the passionate way that she put her argument today. That passion cannot be doubted in any way whatsoever and due respect is due to her for that.

The Government believe that the best way to support people’s living standards is through work, better skills and higher wages. I regret to say that I will rely on an answer similar to the one that the Prime Minister gave to the hon. Lady at Prime Minister’s questions. Whether she agrees or disagrees with that answer, I hope that she will bear with me as I give it.

In 2021-22, children living in a household in which all the adults were in work were five times less likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than children living in workless households. We believe that we have made progress. In 2021-22, there were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs than there were in 2009-10, including, as has been made clear, 400,000 fewer children. There are also nearly 1 million fewer workless households now than there were in 2010.

Following the review of the benefit cap levels by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in November 2022, those levels were increased by 10.1% from April 2023. Let us not forget that households can still receive benefits from the taxpayer up to the equivalent of a salary of £26,500 nationally or £31,300 in London, allowing for London weighting. Also, we uprated the national living wage by 9.7%, increasing our support for both those who are in work and those who are out of work, as well as uprating all benefits by 10.1% in April. That is the largest cash increase ever to the national living wage, which is now up to £10.42 an hour, providing extra support for workers.

Clearly, there are over 1 million vacancies across the UK and our focus is firmly on supporting people into work and helping them to progress in work. That approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full time, in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the recent study by the London School of Economics, published last month, that found that the two-child benefit cap policy has not increased employment levels? We can only conclude from that that even on its own terms, the policy is failing while hundreds of thousands of families have been pushed into poverty.

[Guy Opperman]

As I think I have made clear, I do not accept the arguments about poverty. I am not aware of the specific LSE paper that the hon. Lady mentions, but I would make the simple point that in this country we have never given more welfare support or paid higher figures for pensioner support or disability support. Without a shadow of a doubt, there has been massive cost of living support, as I will outline, to the most vulnerable.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

I got into politics in 2013 because I saw the devastating impact of the bedroom tax on my community, my friends and my neighbours. In 2013, we were angry and we were tired of three years of public sector cuts, but never for a minute did I think that I would be here, eight years and billions of pounds of cuts later, asking the Government not to implement the biggest welfare cuts in the history of the welfare state.

It is not only the universal credit cuts that will hit low-income families; those cuts are combined with the 3.2% rise in inflation, the national insurance rise, the end of the furlough scheme and the resumption of evictions. It is not the Tory party’s billionaire donors, who have increased their wealth during the pandemic by more than £100 billion, who are paying the price; it is key workers like my former colleagues in social care, shop workers and teaching assistants.

For many of the families I represent, £20 is the difference between eating and not eating. International law is very clear that cuts should not occur if human rights violations would occur, so is the Secretary of State still “entirely happy” with a cut that will plunge 730,000 children into poverty? What does she have to say to the 14,250 families in Nottingham East and the six million families across the country who will lose £1,000 per year? I do not want to hear about incentives to get people into work—the Conservative party knows full well that the cut hits people who are in work, because work does not pay. Cancel the cuts, introduce a real living wage and scrap the benefit cap.

Income Tax (Charge)

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Gosh, I am really sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; we have building work going on in the house at the moment.

The pandemic has shown us the impact of a decade of austerity forced on us by Conservative Governments. We have seen that a cocktail of poverty pay, job insecurity and cutting public services to the bone has resulted in one of the worst death rates and the worst recessions in the world. This was not inevitable and the Budget was the Chancellor’s opportunity to put it right with a programme that meets the scale of the challenges we face. Instead, this Budget is filled with half-measures and wrong priorities.

There is a rise in corporation tax in 2024 but a huge £25 billion giveaway to big businesses before that. The wealth of British billionaires has already soared by a third in the last year. The Government talk of a green industrial revolution but they are slashing green homes grants, freezing fossil fuel duty and continuing to back coal mining. There is a lot of talk about looking after Brits, but the Chancellor did not mention the NHS once in his speech. He had no plan for the crisis in social care and he is freezing public sector wages instead of giving our key workers the pay rise that they deserve.

The Chancellor has taken the rhetoric of Labour’s policies but none of the substance. The centrepiece of yesterday’s Budget was the switch to fiscal austerity in April 2023, which will involve around £68 billion of spending cuts and tax rises until 2026. Make no mistake, this Budget has paved the way for more misery, more austerity and more hardship just over the horizon.

Today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Resolution Foundation said that the cliff-edge cut in universal credit will bring down incomes to levels that we have not seen since the early 1990s. It is set to plunge 500,000 people into poverty. Does the Minister consider those people, including many of my constituents in Nottingham East, to be collateral damage?

We all want a secure job, healthcare we can rely on and a good home in a community that we can be proud of, but poverty pay, underfunded hospitals and catastrophic climate change threaten our lives and our futures. This Budget should have tackled the root of these problems—our rigged economic system—but instead, it rearranges the deckchairs on the Titanic. We need a permanent transfer of wealth and power from billionaires profiting from the pandemic to workers who have got us through it, but this Government do not want to tackle a broken economy that works for their super-rich friends instead of for my constituents. They have failed catastrophically during the pandemic and this Budget shows that they will fail to deliver the recovery that we need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and welcome him to his place. He is a strong local champion, hence his election. I would of course be very happy to visit Warrington.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Universal credit and transitioning to universal credit are causing real hardship in Nottingham, with more than 26,000 people using food banks for emergency supplies in the past year alone. Will the Minister accompany me to my constituency to see for himself the destitution and desperation caused by his Department’s policies?

[Will Quince]

I visit constituencies all around the country. Only last week I was in Scotland visiting numerous jobcentres.