Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants

Johanna Baxter Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), this is really important. The bedrock of the report is that safeguarding needs to be integrated into policy development at all stages and at all levels of the organisation, and before policies and legislation are implemented, so it is absolutely key to the legislation that is being considered and that will be going through the House.

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her statement, and it is a pleasure to serve under her chairship on the Select Committee. This report is sobering reading, and the evidence we took was often heartbreaking. Does she agree that, over and above the report’s specific procedural recommendations, the overarching theme from everything we heard is that there needs to be a cultural change in the Department that will ensure reflective practice, curiosity and sharing of best practice, with a culture driven by compassion for the most vulnerable people in our country?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is my vice-Chair on the Committee, and I thank her for all that she does. The culture is one of the key things, and both the statutory duty and making sure we have a system-based approach to safeguarding are absolutely key. I will never forget a quote from one of our witnesses, who had lived experience of using the system, when she said she felt that

“a system that is meant to wrap its arms around us is strangling us”.

That just should not happen in this country, and with such an important Department.