Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Phil Brickell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

So there we have it: a Prime Minister not in control, a Work and Pensions Secretary with her hands tied behind her back, and a Chancellor now scrambling to find ways to balance the books after months of reckless spending. This shoddy attempt at welfare reform has revealed something that the nation has learned over the last year: Labour did not plan for government. We all know that the welfare bill is enormous, with more than £150 billion being spent on benefits for working-age adults. A staggering one in four claim to have some form of disability; that is simply unsustainable.

The Government had a prime opportunity in their first year in office—their honeymoon period—to bring about long-term reforms, yet this half-baked Bill, which has already been hastily rewritten to appease hard-left Government Members, does not even achieve the £5 billion of savings originally intended. Worse, it leaves us with a two-tier system from a two-tier Prime Minister.

We all know why the Chancellor needs these savings: she will go down as the Klarna Chancellor—spend now, pay later. After all, she has blown taxpayers’ money on 25 more pointless quangos.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Bedford]

I am not giving away.

The Chancellor has also blown billions of pounds on GB Energy—a project so vague that no one seems to know what it does—while handing out inflation-busting pay rises to appease the unions. Now she cannot even claw back £5 billion of savings to keep market confidence as the country’s debt spirals out of control.

When the Work and Pensions Secretary tabled the Bill, Conservative Members gave her three reasonable asks. First, we needed the Government to commit to reducing welfare spending, yet as their screeching U-turn shows, they are incapable of tackling that problem. Indeed, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts an increase of £60 billion in annual welfare costs by the end of the Parliament.

Secondly, we asked for a clear commitment that the Government would get people back to work. However, as was highlighted by the Secretary of State yesterday, the pathways to work programme will not be fully funded until the end of the Parliament, so it will arguably be inconsequential, weak and woefully underfunded.

[Phil Brickell]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Bedford]

I am not giving away; I am going to make progress. The hon. Member can repay the favour sometime.

Thirdly, we needed a guarantee that taxes would not rise again in the upcoming Budget. But let us be honest: the Chancellor has only one move left—she will raid the pockets of hard-working families, which is something Labour promised not to do. Even today, we have heard rumours in the media that she is coming after people’s ISAs.

It is painfully clear that the Government have lost their fiscal credibility. I say to my constituents: I will always be there to support you and I will fight your corner when the Government come back again for more of your hard-earned income to cover their incompetence. This embarrassing failure of leadership from a Government who should be at the height of their power has led Conservative Members to conclude that we cannot and will not support the Bill.

Green Book Review

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for introducing this important debate.

I rise today to make the case for communities such as mine in Bolton West to be placed at the heart of the Green Book review. The Government’s laser-like focus on growth is welcome, but I know from talking to businesses in my constituency, such as Woodall Nicholson in Westhoughton, Scan Computers in Horwich and Cohens Chemist in Lostock, that they face real obstacles to expansion and job creation. Some of that is a result of a lack of central Government co-ordination. The Green Book has consistently reinforced an economic model that prioritises investment in parts of the country that are already more prosperous, such as the south-east, rather than constituencies like mine.

Despite the expensive self-congratulation from the previous Government, levelling up did not amount to all that much in Bolton West. Indeed, under the last Government, Bolton West simply did not get a fair deal on funding. Time and time again, our towns lost out—a situation played out across the north. The result is that inequality has become entrenched and high streets across the north-west have become ghost towns, with young people having to leave their communities to find work, just as many of my peers had to when I was growing up.

The review is the perfect opportunity to fix this fatal, regressive flaw and ensure that investment decisions consider the wider benefits to our communities: job creation, skills development, better transport and improved public services. Crucially, investment in Greater Manchester cannot just mean investment in Manchester city centre; it must mean investment in the towns and communities that make Manchester the innovative economic powerhouse it has become.

We are at the cutting edge of the cyber and digital industries in Greater Manchester, and Bolton is a key part of that, with a growth corridor that stretches out across to Wigan. Bolton and other surrounding towns, however, have yet to be given the tools to harness that immense opportunity. After years of the Conservatives failing to put their money where their mouths were, we now see more investment into connecting Bolton to these high-growth sectors through training, infrastructure and partnerships, which bring those opportunities to my constituents’ doorsteps.

In my constituency, despite having a number of brilliant small and medium-sized enterprises, including the pioneering Blackedge brewery around the corner from my office in Horwich, I worry that many smaller firms still struggle to access the finance they need to grow. Too often, our local businesses struggle to secure the funding they need to expand, innovate and compete. We must ensure that businesses across the UK, including those in Bolton West, can access the capital they need to succeed.

If we are serious about driving economic growth, Government must invest and build the appropriate infrastructure. We must also work with the private sector to empower our entrepreneurs and local businesses, and not leave them battling a system that is stacked against them. The Green Book review must lead to real, tangible change that rebalances our economy and puts regions like ours at the heart of national prosperity. Never again should we live in a country where people’s futures are too often determined by their postcodes.

Income Tax (Charge)

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The Budget is a strong first step in delivering a better future for our country, for towns such as Westhoughton, Horwich, Blackrod and Bolton, and for restoring the trust that is so vital for our democratic system. After all, this is a Budget that will increase the national living wage—by £1,400 for a full-time worker—and invest £25.6 billion in the NHS so that my constituents can access health services when and where they need them instead of waiting hours on end, as well as cracking down on fraud, tax avoidance and waste so that every penny of taxpayers’ money is put to good use.

Fully funding the electrification of the Bolton to Wigan train line will make a tremendous difference to the rail network for those travelling to work and to see loved ones in my constituency. I commend the Government for committing to investing in public infrastructure across the Bolton borough.

Parents, teachers and school staff across my constituency have told me time and again that current funding for education is simply inadequate. That is why I am so pleased to see an extra £1 billion for special educational needs, the breakfast club budget tripled, and a £2.3 billion increase in the core schools budget. I particularly welcome the additional £1.4 billion allocated to rebuild 500 schools, noting that St Bernard’s Roman Catholic primary school in my constituency was found to contain aerated concrete.

The Conservative party increased taxes to their highest rates for working people in more than 70 years, so I welcome the raising of much-needed cash for public services by putting up taxes on unearned wealth, but that does not mean that the Budget is anti-business—not at all. As someone who worked for over a decade in the private sector, I know that a strong, business-friendly economy is needed to deliver prosperity for working people and decent public services. The Government are making tough choices, but fair choices. I commend them to the House.