Welfare Reform

Adrian Ramsay Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

We are co-producing this review, and it may result in changes that require primary or secondary legislation or other action, and I do not want to pre-empt that. Let me just bring my hon. Friend and the House back to the purpose of these changes: to ensure that we have a system that is fair for those who need support and fair for taxpayers, and to try to put the welfare state on a more sustainable footing for the future. If we do not do so, my real fear is that it will not be there for the very people who really, really need support going forward.

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

Today’s statement feels like a panicked political fix to an indefensible attempt to cut benefits from the most sick and from disabled people, but it lacks competence and compassion. Given that the Secretary of State talks about social justice, how can she justify people who might need that support in the future not receiving the support that disabled and sick people rightly receive today? Would the right thing to do not be to shelve these proposals so she can allow time to do what she has promised to do and to genuinely co-produce and consult with disabled people on the right way forward?

[Liz Kendall]

I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s proposition. Our changes are rooted in the clear principles that those who can work should work and need the support to do so, and those who cannot work should be protected, but that we need a system that is fair and sustainable. I do not believe that we can wait while disabled people in this country who want to work are denied the opportunities to do so. We cannot have a system where one in eight young people is not in education, employment or training, with all the terrible long-term consequences that brings. We cannot see one in 10 of our fellow citizens trapped out of work and economically inactive, because that is not a good future for them or for our country.