Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Darling]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution—his contributions are always good value.

What message does this Bill send to disabled children? We will be saying that those who have gone down the path of their disability degenerating to the extent that they can claim PIP will be over the line, but those youngsters who know they have a degenerative condition can look forward to no PIP under the Bill.

I reflect to the Chamber that PIP is often a passport to other levels of support, such as blue badges or rail cards, which give people the opportunity of getting out and living their best lives. Perhaps the most important passported benefit from PIP is carer’s allowance. We have grave concerns about this Bill’s impact on those families who will no longer benefit from carer’s allowance. They will be robbed of up to £12,000 a year.

Do not get me wrong; we as Liberal Democrats recognise that the benefits system is broken and needs resolving, but it needs, as we had in our manifesto, co-design with disabled groups and carers groups to make sure that we get it right for our people.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State has claimed that she is listening. Does the hon. Member agree that she is certainly not listening to many of her Back Benchers, nor the 86 disability charities that have said this Bill will harm disabled people? We all know that reform is needed, but when we talk about reform, there is no mention of the fraud that goes on within the system that is costing our country billions. Surely we should start with that and not impact on and affect the most vulnerable in our society. We will be voting against this Bill today for that reason.

[Steve Darling]

I agree with the hon. Member.

Let me return to the reasons why people are not in work—the root causes, and some of the challenges. People have come to my constituency surgery and said, “I have a long-term illness, but I cannot be fixed by the NHS because it is broken.” Until we have sorted out the national health service and the social care system, people will be trapped in long-term ill health, and that needs to be resolved as a matter of urgency. I have already banged on about this, but while we acknowledge that PIP is not an out-of-work benefit but a benefit that helps people to lead lives that many of us would take for granted, the reality is that the Access to Work scheme is massively broken, and that too needs to be resolved. While there are warm words—