John McDonnell
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Through you, Sir Edward, may I address the Minister? Just read the room. The only other times it has been as packed as this when I have been here in recent times have been for debates on the two-child limit and on welfare benefits. I do not want to see our Government make another embarrassing U-turn like that.
The reason we are here is that every one of us has a case that, if the proposed change goes through, will be absolutely tragic. Families have settled, sold their accommodation and everything in their home, worked hard and delivered everything asked of them, and we are going to deny them and their children the right to the future that they hope for. If this goes ahead, every one of us will report social care collapsing in our constituencies.
I remind people that it was many of these workers, with their experience, who delivered us through covid. Some of them sacrificed their lives. This is just unjust, and the Minister needs to recognise that, take the message back to those who are developing our strategy as a Government and say, “This isn’t the route to go down.”
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
John McDonnell
I would rather not, because other people need to come in.
Let me just make a point about parliamentary process. If this is to be done not through primary legislation that we can debate and amend, but via a statutory instrument, it needs to be done under the double affirmative process, so that we can have a debate and the opportunity for amendments. Otherwise, I think the Government are going to run into opposition of a scale that they have seen on other issues, frighten people and undermine our support, completely unnecessarily. If there are issues around immigration that we have to deal with—if people can remember, we did it with the bogus colleges—we should do it through proper legal process and prosecution. If there are abuses in the system, let us address the abuses, but do not harm people in this way as a result.