Welfare Spending

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Smith]

Sorry; I am going to continue.

Motability is a lifeline for those with serious mobility issues, yet under Labour, Motability costs have surged by almost 10%.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rebecca Smith]

I am going to continue because I am running out of time.

We will stop taxpayers subsidising new cars for people with ADHD and tennis elbow, and will ensure that the scheme is targeted at those with genuine mobility issues. It is not compassionate to pretend that our welfare system can solve everyone’s problems. If we continue turning a blind eye to misuses of the system, it will not be robust enough to help those who need it most.

Lastly, we must keep the two-child benefit cap in order to encourage people into work and to strengthen our economy. Having parents with a stable job is the best foundation from which a child can better their prospects in life. Of course we want children and families to thrive, but fairness requires that families on benefits should face the same decisions as those in work about whether they can afford another child. The Conservatives are the only party that believes in keeping the cap and living within our means; Labour, Reform and the Liberal Democrats would all scrap it, costing £3.5 billion by the end of this decade. As I have said before, scrapping the two-child benefit cap, like rolling out universal free school breakfasts, is a sticking plaster at best that will not tackle the root causes of poverty—something that I believe we all want to do.

By returning to sustainable levels of welfare spending, a Conservative Government will build a stronger economy. These welfare savings will enable us to axe stamp duty on primary residences, helping first-time buyers to get on to the property ladder. We will introduce a permanent 100% business rates relief for the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors, enabling a quarter of a million businesses to invest in better premises, more staff and lower prices. We will deliver a £5,000 first jobs bonus, giving a boost to young people’s savings or home deposit.

The Conservatives are the party that backs ordinary working people who play by the rules, while Labour seems bent on making our country into a welfare state with an economy attached. We urge the Government to reform the welfare system. They must continue to provide support for those who need it, while refusing to consign people to a lifetime on benefits.

Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for his introduction to this debate. I know from my own mailbag the importance of statutory maternity and paternity pay across Bexleyheath and Crayford. My constituents have pointed out to me that the evidence shows that the current situation with both leave and pay for new parents is bad for everyone—mums, dads, kids and society as a whole.

I will briefly say again what I said last year: I accept that we have moved forward since my twins were born 12 years ago, but my experience of my children being born nine weeks early, my wife having a C-section, one of my children being diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 12 days old, and me working through the whole six weeks of them being in special care because I was not entitled to a day of paternity pay, continues to live with me. We have seen neonatal care benefit and some benefit in paternity pay. But we must continue to battle for better rights for parents.

One in three dads do not take their paternity leave because they cannot afford to. The system is complicated and we do not always give people the support that they need. We must modernise to deliver for today’s families. A survey undertaken by Maternity Action has shown that of 1,000 new mothers, the majority have had to resort to credit cards or loans to finance their maternity leave. Over half have said that they have had to return to work early, as it is impossible to support themselves and their new baby. It is therefore vital that we ensure that new mothers have access to the support they need. They should all be supported to focus on their own wellbeing and their baby’s health, both during pregnancy and after birth.

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: Capital Disregard

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Liam Conlon]

I completely agree, and it shows the power of film and culture to tell such stories.

Mother and baby homes were open in Ireland for more than seven decades until the 1990s. During that time, 56,000 so-called fallen women were sent to those cruel institutions, and 57,000 children were born or placed in them. The women’s only crime was the perceived sin of becoming pregnant outside of marriage. There they suffered the most horrific mistreatment and abuse. Women were used as unpaid labour. Others, like Philomena, had their children forcibly adopted, sometimes overseas, never to be seen again. Too many women died in these institutions, and infant mortality was shockingly high.

Many survivors who escaped moved to Britain as a direct result of the mistreatment they experienced in mother and baby homes. In some cases, they came because they thought that disappearing from Ireland was the only way to protect their families’ reputations. Thousands came to this country for a fresh start and to build a new life, but they carried with them a great deal of internalised shame as well as the secret of what had happened to them. For lots of survivors, including Philomena, it was not until much later in life that they felt able to confront what had happened to them and share the details of those traumatic years with their families, often revealing long-lost relatives in the process.

It was a significant day in 2021 when survivors finally received an apology from the then Taoiseach Micheál Martin for what he described as:

“the profound, generational wrong visited upon Irish mothers and their children”.

That was followed by the mother and baby institutions payment scheme to provide compensation for what happened to them. The scheme opened to applications in March 2021. It represents a measure of accountability for what happened and aims to acknowledge the suffering, and improve the circumstances, of former residents of mother and baby homes.

However, for more than 13,000 survivors living in Britain today, what was meant to be a token of acknowledgement and apology has ended up becoming an additional burden. That is because under our current rules, any money accepted through the payment scheme is considered to be savings, and it could see recipients lose any means-tested benefits—such as housing benefit, pension credit or financial support for social care—that they receive.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the fantastic work carried out by Irish Community Services in Bexleyheath in my constituency. It is supporting a number of survivors who are in those circumstances and would lose their means-tested benefit. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to look at disregarding the rules, so that survivors can keep both their compensation and any benefit that they are entitled to?

[Liam Conlon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The work of Irish Community Services in Bexleyheath is outstanding, and I will discuss some of the work of other community groups shortly. We absolutely need to see an indefinite disregard.

Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

As the parent of a child with cerebral palsy and complex disabilities, I know what it is like to be a carer—I am a carer every day and I will be a carer until my dying day. It is therefore incumbent on me to speak on behalf of carers in this debate.

I am now privileged because of the income I earn, but I have been there: worrying every day about the struggle of caring and the cost of paying the bills and mortgage. I know how many of my constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford are stuck in the bubble that you get yourself into—stuck on a mixture of carer’s allowance and PIP, often becoming disabled yourself because of the mental or physical cost of that care. According to analysis by the Carers Trust, 28% of carers are already living in poverty; it has particularly asked for a detailed impact assessment specifically on the carers community. Will the Minister comment on that when he sums up?

I believe that this policy is driven by the DWP and Treasury alone. It is incumbent on us to ensure that other Government Departments—the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Department for Transport—come up with proposals that also support the measures. I ask the Minister to comment on that because if we are truly to get disabled people to access work, and if we are truly to support carers, we need a strong cross-Government departmental strategy.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (in the Chair)]

I am going to call the final Back-Bench speaker and, following that, Steve Darling.

PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The assessment published yesterday is that 90% of those receiving the daily living PIP component will continue to receive that benefit after the changes take effect, so I think the concern that the hon. Lady raises is not entirely appropriate.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Like thousands of others, I carried out my caring responsibilities this morning before I came to this place. I have first-hand experience of worrying about paying the bills every month due to caring responsibilities—something I no longer have to worry about. Will the Minister consider whether we need a plan across Government Departments to identify the support available to ensure that carers can work, and that they and their loved ones do not fall into poverty as a result of the announcements made?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am working with the Minister for Care in the Department of Health and Social Care on this. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to work across Government on these issues. We need to be concerned about the effect on young carers in the education system, so the Department for Education needs to be involved as well. His point about cross-Government working is absolutely right.

Welfare Reform

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

The Conservatives did not have a plan. The former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt), admitted during the general election campaign that the money had already been scored. I will listen more to the hon. Member when the Conservatives put forward a plan that works, instead of having it discredited in the courts.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Too many carers of disabled people end up with physical and mental health disabilities themselves, and end up trapped in the same system as their loved ones. What more can the Secretary of State do with her colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education to end that trap?

[Liz Kendall]

I have been a lifelong champion of family carers, who give their all to looking after the people they love. My hon. Friend will know that we have already boosted the carer’s allowance earning threshold by £45 a week to £196, benefiting more than 60,000 carers by ’29-30—the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for carers. We need to do much more to support family carers, including enabling them to balance their work and caring responsibilities. I look forward to talking to my hon. Friend about that.

Carer’s Allowance

Daniel Francis Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) for bringing this debate today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German) and for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) and to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) for their maiden speeches.

First, I put on record my thanks to carers across Bexleyheath and Crayford and to fantastic local charities including Bexley SNAP, Bexley Voice, Bexley Mencap, Carers’ Support Bexley, Crossroads Care, Evergreen Care, Mind in Bexley, and Irish Community Services for all they do to support communities in my patch. Being a carer is often unexpected: we all see people who come to us when a loved one is diagnosed. As I referred to in my maiden speech, my wife and I knew at 12 days, when one of our children was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Day to day, we see what it means to be a carer in the support we have to give her.

I have thought today about the pressures that exist: not just the mental health and caring pressures, but the pressures of managing the bureaucracy, such as applying for and renewing your freedom pass and blue badge; dealing with the administration of appointments at four different hospitals, in our daughter’s case; the constant appointments and calls to ensure your child’s wheelchair is working to support them; organising and constantly chasing for the correct equipment at home; reapplying for disability living allowance every three years; trying to find the respite to allow you a break and the ability to work; and exploring the minefield that comes with applying for a disabled facilities grant.

There is also the complexity of being an employer under the direct payments system: arranging shifts, issuing contracts, running payroll every month, paying insurance, calculating your staff’s holidays and ensuring the support is there, just to get—in our case—eight hours’ care per week. I have twice exhausted the complaints process with our Conservative local authority through stage 1 and stage 2 complaints. On one occasion, they did not pay our carers for six weeks; on another occasion, they did not make those payments at the national minimum wage. That all adds to the burden and pressure on carers.

In our case, we do not claim carer’s allowance, but I know at first hand the pressure of having to battle the system when it is not working for you. I hope that the review set up today will look at the issue of overpayments and at other issues that really need to be resolved for those on the frontline. As I have said previously, I will carry on pressing the Government to create a sustainable national care service that works for unpaid carers, sector partners and carer organisations. As part of that process, I will be supporting the Government’s amendment today as the first step to make things easier for carers in the years ahead.