Universal Credit Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the many disabled people and disability and anti-poverty organisations, as well as colleagues in the Commons who listened to them, for winning concessions and shrinking this Bill to exclude PIP. Nevertheless, there remain serious concerns. Although, thankfully, for the most part existing claimants are protected, the shrunken Bill will still cause real damage. Yet the rushed process does not allow for proper scrutiny—a criticism voiced by the many disabled people who have emailed us. We should not underestimate the degree of anxiety, stress and mistrust that this episode has caused them.

The joint civil society briefing, for which I am grateful, warns that by 2030 the cuts to the health element of universal credit will mean a loss of £3,000 a year for 750,000 disabled people, with the impact increasing in future years. They will also have a damaging knock-on effect on carers, some of whom are themselves disabled. A major point of concern is the drafting of the severe conditions criteria, which will protect a small number of future health element claimants with a terminal illness or lifelong condition, and in particular the “constantly” requirement, which applies a more stringent standard than now, to the detriment of people with severe conditions that fluctuate day to day, including MS and Parkinson’s. The Minister in the Commons tried to address this at Third Reading, but the civil society briefing warns that

“there is a gap between the stated intention to exactly reflect the existing severe conditions, and the test which is written into … the legislation”.

Given the lack of time to look at this properly now, will my noble friend consider withdrawing paragraph 6 of Schedule 1, which simply amends existing regulations, so that this can be sorted out through secondary legislation? What the Minister said so helpfully in the Commons needs to be written clearly into legislation. Can my noble friend explain why it is not?

As noted, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Economics Foundation estimate that the net effect of the Bill’s measures will be an increase of around 50,000 in the numbers of those in poverty by 2029-30. Yet disabled people are already at disproportionate risk of poverty, as demonstrated by a recent report from the APPG on Poverty and Inequality, which I co-chair. Disabled women are particularly at risk—one of the human rights concerns raised by the UN—but the revised impact assessment offers only a superficial high-level equalities analysis rather than a proper equalities impact assessment.

The one mitigating provision in the Bill is the very welcome real increase in the UC standard allowance, which contributes to the aimed-for rebalancing of it and the health element. However, the rebalancing is not exactly balanced as, between the cuts to the health element and the improvements in the basic UC rate, even by the end of the decade we are talking about a real increase of only around £5 a week. Of course, even £5 matters to someone on a very low income, but it is hardly enough to provide the dignity and security that is promised in the impact assessment—which acknowledges that this only starts to improve basic adequacy. As the Resolution Foundation warns, it will still leave benefit income being far from adequate. Moreover, the impact assessment acknowledges that a “fairly small number” will not gain from the increase, because of the benefit cap. Can my noble friend indicate how many this “fairly small number” will be, considering that anyone who loses entitlement to the health element could then be subject to the cap?

I welcome the commitment to coproduction of the Timms review, and the assurances he has given. I hope these will allay the totally understandable fears of disabled people and carers, given the lack even of genuine consultation hitherto. But while, like him, I hope the review group will be able to achieve a consensus, if it does not, then what? Can my noble friend say whether, in such a scenario, those who disagreed with the outcome would be able to publish their views as part of the official report?

When recently I asked my noble friend whether the DWP would consider extending the principle of coproduction to the UC review, she tried to reassure me with reference to forthcoming focus groups with Changing Realities. I am a great supporter of Changing Realities, which brings the expertise of lived experience into the policy domain, but a few focus groups do not amount to coproduction. In an unanswered letter to Minister Timms, the APPG on Poverty and Inequality made the case for establishing a formal mechanism for coproduction and meaningful consultation with those who have experience of claiming UC, so as to avoid the shortcomings of the current scheme.

Finally, I hope the omnishambles of the past few weeks will stand as a lesson for how not to carry out social security reform. Yes, there is general agreement that we need reform. Indeed, I have been arguing for it for years, all the more urgently after a decade or so of cuts amounting to £50 billion a year—the very opposite of the scare stories about ballooning expenditure. Charities, think tanks and academics all make the case for investment in social security as a force for good rather than treating it as a dead weight. It is time we put the security back into social security.