Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Whately Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Two weeks ago, the hon. Gentleman’s Government told people they were U-turning on winter fuel payments because the economy is on a “firmer footing”. The next day, the unemployment figures were released, showing that a quarter of a million jobs have been lost since the Chancellor’s job-taxing Budget. The country is now losing 100,000 jobs a month. These figures are worse than even the most pessimistic forecast. Is that what a firm footing looks like to the hon. Gentleman?

[Torsten Bell]

A firm footing for economic recovery looks like kicking the Conservative party out of office and growing the economy once again, and that is what we see if we look at the data. The hon. Lady likes to look at one month’s data—well, let us look at it. Data from the Office for National Statistics show that vacancies rose by 27% between April and May. I know the Conservatives want to pretend that everything was wonderful a year ago, but every business and every voter in this country knows that that was not the case.

[Helen Whately]

Honestly, who does the Minister think he is fooling with this spiel? Growth forecasts have been slashed and inflation has surged. What world is he living in? The Government have been in office for a year and people are losing their jobs because of the decisions that they have made. How does he think his “everything’s fine” mantra actually sounds to one of the people who have lost their jobs or to a business facing a tax bill that it cannot afford? Has the Secretary of State even told her Back Benchers, who will be strong-armed into voting for cuts next week, that the welfare cuts Bill that we will be debating will get a grand total of zero people into work, according to the Government’s own impact assessment?

[Torsten Bell]

The hon. Lady asks about what is going on with the economy. What is going on is that we have had four rate cuts over the past year. What is going on is that we have signed three trade deals over the past year. What is going on is that employment has gone up and inactivity has gone down. I know that the Opposition love to latch on to one month’s data, but let us look at the whole period of this Government: wages have increased by more under this party in the past 10 months than they did in the first 10 years of the Conservative Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

More than half of new health and disability benefits claims are now for mental health, yet under the Government’s welfare cuts Bill the personal independence payment could be stripped from three quarters of claimants with arthritis and two thirds of those with heart disease but fewer than half of those with anxiety. Does the right hon. Lady believe this is the right decision?

[Liz Kendall]

I have great personal respect for the hon. Lady but she really needs to make up her mind: first she says our proposals are too late, then she says they are rushed; she criticises us for being cruel, and then says the Opposition are going to vote against our Bill because it does not go far enough. But her deputy, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), has let the cat out of the bag, saying in a recent Westminster Hall debate:

“I am not able to tell…exactly what we would do.”—[Official Report, 7 May 2025; Vol. 766, c. 301WH.]

The truth is that the Conservatives are a broken party with no ideas, let alone a strategy—and, unless they change course, they have no future either.

[Helen Whately]

Goodness me; I asked the right hon. Lady quite a serious question, so that was a very disappointing answer. However, she and I are in agreement that the benefits bill needs to come down, and that will need real reform of the system, so why is she pressing ahead in a panic with her half-baked cuts rather than doing the job properly? We would support a proper rethink of which conditions should get what help, and a better system for people struggling with mental health or neurodiversity, who would be better off in work than parked on benefits. Why did not she make that part of her plan?

[Liz Kendall]

Let me tell the hon. Lady what we are doing to improve mental health support for people in this country and to make sure that it is treated with equal importance to physical health: we have made significant progress towards recruiting the additional 8,500 mental health workers we said we would recruit in our manifesto to reduce delays and provide support; we have confirmed funding to help an extra 380,000 patients get access to talking therapies; and we are investing the biggest ever amount in employment support for sick and disabled people. I say to the hon. Lady, who left 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness and 1 million young people not in education, employment or training, that it is about time she apologised to the country and made up her mind about whether she will back our reforms.