"I congratulate the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) on presenting this Bill. As the public probably know, Members have huge discretion in respect of what legislation to choose when they are successful in the private Members’ ballot, and I think everyone here today is personally very …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
"Whatever else could be said about the House of Lords, it is a place that genuinely contains a great deal of expertise on the subject of pensions. We are fortunate to have that expertise in Parliament and we should be prepared to listen to it. Having studied the exchanges in …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
"I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention. I am about to explain why he has got himself and the Government into this position...." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
"With respect, the Minister just needs to listen to this point. He stands at the Dispatch Box and, like all Ministers, tells us that black is white. For instance, when the Government reacted to the crisis of their own making—when we saw the pumps run dry and the shelves go …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
"May I add my welcome to the new Ministers on the Front Bench today?
In the year before the pandemic, 380,000 sanctions were handed out by the DWP to the British people. Of course, there must be rules in any system, but since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
"People simply want to know that everyone in this country is playing by the same rules, and I think that is reasonable.
Let me turn to another crisis of the Government’s own making—the problems in the labour market we have seen over the past few months that left the pumps …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
"Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to close the Bill’s Second Reading for the Opposition. We have heard many good speeches, but, before I turn to them, I want first to deal with the central case that the Government have made for the legislation.
"I understand the basis of any nationalist claim for any sense of self-determination, but—this debate may be taking us a little away from the pensions uprating discussion, Madam Deputy Speaker—we all live on these islands together and, when we look at difficult economic decisions, the strength that we have by …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech
That this House calls on the Government to cancel its planned cut to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit which from the end of September 2021 will reduce support for many hard-working families by £1,040 a year.
"My hon. Friend is exactly right. The reduction of £20 a week for 6 million low-income families will be the single biggest overnight cut in the history of the welfare state—bigger even than the cut to unemployment benefit in 1931 that caused the Government of the day to collapse. The …..." Jonathan Reynolds - View Speech