Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

John Glen Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I wanted to speak in this debate to try to get behind some of the headlines and challenges that those on the Government Benches face in getting to a settled view today, by looking back over the last years the Conservatives had in government at some of the lessons that we must draw from that experience but which are relevant to consider today.

I will not be able to support the proposals, not because I do not think some of them have significant merit, or because I do not have the greatest respect for the Minister for Social Security and Disability, who has spent 31 years in this place and who I believe will do all that is asked of him, but because I do not think that the changes in the Bill are sufficiently ambitious to deal with the scale of the challenges we face.

I was in government for seven years and I was in the Treasury for most of that time. During the covid epidemic, we had to make some pretty quick changes while the economy was shut down overnight. They involved changes to benefits, standing up a furlough scheme very quickly, bounce back loans and many interventions to try to keep our public services going, and they were at the core of some of the patterns of behavioural change that we now see in our benefits system. I was looking at the numbers for my constituency, which I recognise is a wonderful place and also quite a wealthy place that does not have some of the embedded challenges in other parts of the country. The number of PIP claims in January 2019 was 2,065 and in April 2025 it was 4,211. The vast majority of my constituents and the vast majority of people in the country cannot understand how those numbers have doubled in such a short amount of time.

I fully respect the aspirations of the Secretary of State and her ministerial team in seeking to address that, because we have to come to terms with what we can afford as a country. I also respect sincerely the remarks of the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden), whose constituency is rather different from mine, because I think we are united in this place in wanting to look after the most vulnerable. I want to see those who are suffering, who are disabled and who need support from the state to receive that support in a timely way. What I do not want to see is people written off permanently.

About 12 or 14 years ago in this House, we had a debate about mental health. Several Members of Parliament stood up and bravely talked about their own mental health challenges. We then went on a journey to bring parity of esteem to mental health and physical health in our benefits system. I believe that that pathway into assessment for mental health has not worked. It writes people off too easily and it does not serve them well, by leaving them in a place where they are, on an enduring basis, reliant on the state. As a country, we cannot afford it. It is time to legislate for more resilience: resilience in our country and in those who receive benefits such that they can get out of that place of dependency, because I do not think it is a happy place for anyone to be.

When I reflect on the changes proposed today, I can see the hand of the Treasury. I can see the fiscal imperative. I can see the public finances and what is now likely to happen in the autumn, which will mean more tax rises. Now, for some on the Government Benches that will be a price worth paying, but we as a country will lack the productive capacity to grow if we tax those who create jobs to a level where they just will not create jobs any further. We have to come to terms with that profound reality; if we do not, we are in a death spiral as a country.

I give credit to the Government for some of the steps they are taking today. However, for reasons different from those stated by many on the Government Benches, I will not be able to support the Bill. I do not think it is holistic, goes far enough or deals with the profound tragedy that has happened to our benefits system as a consequence of covid and our public finances.

[Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)]

I always appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks in the Treasury Committee and in the Chamber as an extremely fair-minded colleague. I appreciated his remarks in yesterday’s statement and the admission that the previous Government’s handling of our recovery from the pandemic was not what it should have been. However, does he not recognise that the constituents with whom I meet now rely on their PIP to get to their places of work because of the stripping away of council funding for bus routes, social care and all the services that were left in tatters by the previous Government?

[John Glen]

I reciprocate the hon. Lady’s warm sentiments. She makes her political points, some of which will be true in some circumstances, and some of which will not.

My point today to everyone in this House is this: let us be real, honest and true about the trajectory of growth in welfare spending in this country, and let us be honest about what we can afford. We face a transformed landscape of threats to this country, with calls for more spending on defence. We have to address our priorities, but we must also recognise that the most vulnerable need continued support. However, the system we have brings too many into dependency on the state, and that is not right.