Welfare Spending

Jeevun Sandher Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

Today’s motion represents the same failed punitive and cruel social security system that the Conservative party had for 14 years—a system that did not help people into good jobs or get social security spending down, and that led only to destitution. By contrast, our approach is to create good jobs, get good training in place, and help people into those jobs.

Let’s talk about the record of the Conservative party. Let’s talk about the rise in employment. The rise in employment was not among those who they punished. Non-graduate employment fell from about 73% when we were last in office, to 68% when the Conservatives left office. The rise in jobs was not among the non-graduates who they were punishing or those who they drove into destitution; the people who took those jobs were the increasing number of graduates. What was the cruelty that they put forward? They were measures that saw someone sanctioned because they went to their wife’s funeral, or that saw someone get punished because they went to a job interview—sanction after sanction, cruelty after cruelty.

It is the same with the Conservatives’ cuts—cuts that led to 3 million foodbank parcels being handed out. I did not know what a food bank was when I was growing up, yet every one of us in the Chamber knows what they are today. We see the growing destitution and homelessness before us, but what we did not see was any improvement in our country. There was no economic growth, and no extra good jobs. Cruelty and futility—that was the record of the Conservative party.

Think about where we are today. What do we need to do to ensure that people have decent jobs? We know that to live a decent life, a working family is this country needs to include two parents earning about £35,000 each, yet in 80% of this country the average wage is less than that. About 40% of full-time jobs pay less than £35,000. Going beyond that—[Interruption.] Would someone on the Opposition Benches like to intervene?

[Oliver Ryan]

To quote the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend thinks he is “so clever”, arguing with facts! Those facts are not particularly appreciated by those on the Conservative Benches. Does he agree that what is important in this debate is the people who were left destitute by the policies of 14 years of Conservative government?

[Dr Sandher]

I could not agree more. When we go forward and think about how to create a good life for people, we first need to create good jobs, but we also need to ensure that people have the training and support they need to get there. That is exactly what this Government are doing.

We are creating good jobs by working with the private sector through our industrial strategy, and ensuring that the private sector gets the support it needs to work with businesses and—yes, of course—with trade unions. We are ensuring that there are good jobs for people to get into in the green economy and healthcare. We are creating the good jobs that people need and, more than that, the training they need. Through our work on the social security system, we are making sure that people can try work without the fear of losing their social security payments. That is the difference between us and the Conservative party. It is a difference in values.

We believe that every single person should be able to afford to live a decent life, that we should create good jobs for them to move into, and that the job of the Government is to work with the private sector to create those jobs directly, so that people can work and earn a decent wage. We are not about being punitive or cruel, and our measures will not lead to more destitution. That is the difference between Labour and the Conservatives. I am proud to be on these Benches; I do not know how they feel today.