Disabled People in Poverty Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Brian Leishman
Main Page: Brian Leishman (Labour - Alloa and Grangemouth)Department Debates - View all Brian Leishman's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days ago)
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Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing the debate.
Fourteen years of austerity, followed by a global pandemic and then a cost of living crisis, has led to out-of-control inequality in Britain. People and communities have been hammered by austerity cuts to welfare, the NHS and the public services that bind us together and are the civilising force in our society. There is no doubt about it: cuts cost lives.
Last July, people voted for all that suffering to end. They were offered change by Labour. No one from any part of the country thought that, after 14 years of Tory austerity and welfare policies that robbed people of their dignity, the change they voted for would be billions of pounds in cuts from the welfare budget. People voted for something else, and I will be voting for something else.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
Talking of austerity, Kirklees council has been devastated by the cuts imposed on it by the previous Government. Some 18.9% of people in Kirklees are recorded as disabled. Does the hon. Member agree that taking away PIP from nearly 4,200 residents in my constituency will put an even greater burden on council services that are ill-equipped to bear it?
Brian Leishman
I completely agree. I am glad the hon. Gentleman brought up the subject of local authorities and the added burden on them of picking up the pieces from this horrendous proposal.
As I said, I will be voting for something else. I will be voting against the cruel welfare reforms that the Government have put forward. A Labour Government should always lift people out of poverty, not put people in it.