Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Anna Dixon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham North) (Lab)]

I begin by welcoming the positive steps the Department has set out in the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper on supporting people into work; the right to try work without the fear of having to go through reassessment for benefits if it does not work out; reforming and modernising the Access to Work system; disability pay gap reporting; disability employment gap reporting; ensuring everyone has access to a supportive work coach; the assessment process, and ensuring that assessments are recorded as standard, which people were desperately crying out for; and ensuring people with lifelong conditions do not need to be reassessed when we know their condition is unlikely to ever improve. I also welcome many of the concessions the Government have made over the past week: bringing forward employment support, introducing protections for current PIP claimants going forward, and recognising the need for co-production.

However, I continue to have some concerns, which I believe must be addressed. We need the Timms review to report before the new system is rolled out. On co-production, I want to start by saying that this should have happened way before we got to today’s debate. I know from my time as shadow Minister for disabled people that when we work with disabled people and their organisations from the start, we produce better policy. There is so much talent out there and, like many of us in the Chamber, disabled people and their organisations want reform of the benefits system, but the reforms set out in the Bill are not what they want or need. We should have been working with them on it right from the start.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. Does she agree that, as well as having meaningful engagement with disabled people themselves and disabled groups, it is really important that the Timms review engages with unpaid family carers, both because they are caring for people with disability and because they are implicated through carer’s allowance being linked to PIP?

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I absolutely agree. The review needs to ensure that it has the right engagement and consultation with everybody, but it must be co-produced with the experts by experience.

I want to take this opportunity to clarify exactly what we mean by co-production. The principle of co-production is rooted in the US civil rights movement and the ladder of citizen participation developed by Sherry Arnstein in 1969. It should be in place from the start of the process. All information should be made available to everyone. A plan should be agreed together. There must be the ability to bring in experts. These experts should be paid for their contribution and treated as valued partners. We should empower and upskill those who are involved. And I hope that it goes without saying, but all information should be available in accessible formats. The valued partners need to be user-led disabled people’s organisations.

I finish by underlining that the focus of making the changes should not be on making cuts, but on getting it right. The focus on getting it right means that everything needs to be in scope of the review, not just the ability to tinker within limited predetermined parameters. Co-production must take place before any changes to the current assessment criteria are proposed. If that means pausing to ensure that we get it right, then that is what we must do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore]

Trust is at the heart of the issue, and if we want to create a system that commands public trust, this is not the way to do it. We need to reward effort and promote self-reliance, but the Bill creates a two-tier system detached from individual responsibility. We need to make the welfare system more targeted, but the Bill, like many Government policies, simply shifts new costs on to people who will genuinely be ill, newly disabled or simply younger and does little to target those relying on the state.

[Anna Dixon]

The hon. Member talks about fairness and trust. I wonder if he is proud of his Government’s record, where Tory cuts to welfare pushed more people into poverty, with 2.9 million emergency food parcels in the last 12 months. If he votes against the Bill, he will be voting against the biggest uplift in the UC standard allowance. Is he proud of that?

[Robbie Moore]

I will take no lectures from somebody who supported a 10% rise in council tax across the Bradford district, impacting many of those who will be impacted by PIP.

This is not principled reform, it is not radical and it is not good policy making—and many Labour Members know it. The Government can and should be doing better. I will not support the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Pakes]

Thank you—you have saved me the embarrassment.

It is a great privilege to speak in this debate alongside so many passionate advocates who want to get this reform right. I think all of us on the Government Benches, whatever our differences of opinion on a point of policy, came into this House to make a difference and fix the welfare system, to liberate and create opportunities for people. I thank the Secretary of State for her statement yesterday and welcome news of the PIP assessment review, which moves us forward. It is vital that we engage those most affected by a failed welfare state in designing a successful one.

We have put off change for too long. That is particularly true when it comes to young people. If politics is about choices, condemning nearly a million young people to the scrapheap of unemployment was the choice of the Conservative party. I want to focus my contribution on how these changes can affect young people and their life chances.

Full employment and good-quality jobs have been a central part of Labour’s most successful Governments. That is why fixing Britain’s broken system of social security must be a priority for this Labour Government. There is no dignity in denying young people the opportunity to learn, earn or make a better life for themselves. As we approach the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Labour landslide, we must remember previous Governments who have dealt with such big challenges. Work was essential to that great 1945 Labour Government. William Beveridge’s landmark report in 1942 laid the foundation for Labour’s post-war welfare state, with an NHS, free education for all and full employment.

The vision of Labour leaders such as Attlee, Morrison and Bevin was that every citizen would live a life free from want, squalor, disease or poverty, with meaningful help when times were tough. In return, every citizen was expected to play a full part in the social and economic life of the nation. Looking at the high number of people not in education, employment or training—NEETs, that terrible phrase—in my constituency, I see an economy that is still letting people down, a mental health system that is letting young people down and an NHS system that is trapping too many young people on a life of benefits.

When the Minister winds up the debate, can he confirm that we will deliver the employment support that young people need and simplify the way that benefits and jobcentres work, so that young people get the support they deserve? Will the Secretary of State work with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to fix our broken mental health system, so that young people have a hand up rather than being pushed down? Our values should be about compassion, and our social security system should be about dignity for those who are unable to work or need support. That is why I welcome the protections that have been announced for people already on PIP.

There has been a common theme in the debate. Many Members have raised concerns not with the fact that the Timms review will happen—it will begin to embed co-production, as the Secretary of State and many others in this House have said—but, I think legitimately, about its timing.

[Anna Dixon]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Andrew Pakes]

I will give way.

[Anna Dixon]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I am pleased that he could hear my desire to intervene. Does he share my concern that the Timms review is too slow and will not conclude under its current timetable until next autumn? Does he agree that the Timms review should be accelerated so that a package of measures that have been co-produced with disabled people and their carers, including young people, can be implemented in November 2026?

[Andrew Pakes]

I thank my hon. Friend for making an important point. I would, if possible, give my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability Duracell batteries to turbocharge his work in this area.