Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Too much of what we have discussed today has not centred disabled people, the Bill or the changes that we are being asked to vote on. We are being asked to vote on the Second Reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. We have had some reassurances from the Government and they made some announcements yesterday. Yet even if we take those into account, the principles of the Bill are wrong. This is the wrong Bill at the wrong time, which will attack people and make their lives worse. It cuts money from disabled people, and it is driven entirely by the need to make cuts and not by the need to improve the welfare system.

If, for example, the PIP numbers are spiralling out of control, perhaps the Government could concede that there are more disabled people than there were before. Perhaps there are more people that need additional support. The number of people on the state pension increases at a rate larger than the population of Leicester every year. Perhaps that is because there are more older people than there were in the previous year. Perhaps the increase in PIP numbers is happening because more people are struggling to live their lives. Perhaps that is because, as Scope has said, £1,095 a month is the additional cost of living with a disability.

If this is a Labour Government who are on the left, who care about making people’s lives better, and whose principles are those of the party that created the welfare state and the social security safety net, why are they now choosing to dismantle it? Why are they choosing to go for disabled people when there are lots of other ways they could make savings? They could scrap their self-imposed fiscal rules. They could choose to have a more progressive taxation system. They could choose to levy this £2 billion of savings—or £5 billion, however much it is today—on someone other than the people who are already struggling.

Those people are already living in a world that is made for neurotypical people and for people who are healthy. They are already struggling with the additional costs of having to heat their homes more and having to buy special food. That is what PIP is used for: to allow people to get to work when they are struggling because they cannot do the 40-minute walk in the way that able-bodied people can. It is for people who cannot sit at home and put the heating off because they need a consistent level of temperature to manage their chronic pain. This Bill will take money away from those people in the future who have exactly the same conditions as those who are eligible now, and it is purely on the basis of cost. This is absolutely not about reforming the welfare system.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State stood up to answer a question from me. She said:

“I do not expect the hon. Member to have read every line of our manifesto, but reforming the benefit system was in it.”—[Official Report, 30 June 2025; Vol. 770, c. 32.]

It was not. Reforming the benefit system was not in the Labour manifesto. It talked about “reviewing universal credit” and said it would “reform employment support”. It did not talk about reforming the benefit system. The Government are going to have a hell of a time when they get this Bill through to the Lords, because the Lords are going to know that this was not in the Labour party’s manifesto.

If the Government are going to reform the welfare system, they should look at the issues that the Timms review is looking at, but to be fair, I do not have a huge amount of trust in the Timms review, given that the Minister said to me the day before “Pathways to Work” was published that I would be reassured and that I would welcome the proposals in it. The Minister honestly thought that I would welcome, on behalf of disabled people up and down the United Kingdom, the fact that they would have to get four points in one of the components of the personal independence payment to be eligible, and that I would welcome the fact that people would have the payments that they live on taken away. They use that money to be able to live. As I have said, this UK Government making these changes are supposed to be a Labour Government.

I want to talk about a couple of the specific matters in the Bill. First, the issues in “Pathways to Work” in relation to age discrimination continue to apply. They have not been fixed. There is nothing in this fudge of a compromise that changes them. A disabled person under 22 could have exactly the same additional costs as a disabled person aged 25. A two-tier system is being put in place. Also, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has said, there are major issues with the proposals on severe conditions in relation to limited capability for work. It is clear that the Secretary of State does not know what it says in the Bill. The Bill says that the descriptor must apply “at all times” for the claimant to be classed as meeting the severe conditions criteria. If I cannot do something 95% of the time, but 5% of the time I can, I will not be considered to have a severe condition. Unless the Government promise to make changes to this, the severe conditions criteria will apply to hardly anybody. People with Parkinson’s, ME or MS, for example, and who have recurring or remitting conditions will really struggle to claim this benefit. The Government need to reprioritise and to rethink. They need to listen to disabled people and to understand the impact that this will have on their lives.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Paffey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that I hope the Minister will confirm.

There are other assurances that many of us would like to hear from the Dispatch Box today, including a defined timetable for the report. In wrapping up the debate, will the Minister confirm that November 2026 is now no longer a relevant date at all? I am glad that we will now avoid the absurd situation of having potentially three different assessment regimes running in parallel. What has been announced will, I hope, give clarity to claimants and will, I hope, in good faith demonstrate that the Government are serious about introducing reform properly.

[Kirsty Blackman]

If November 2026 is not a hard deadline any more, why do the Government need to push this Bill through today? Why does it have to get through before the summer recess so that it can go to the Lords in order that it can be in place before November 2026 if that date no longer matters?

[Darren Paffey]

Most of the answer to that question is obviously a matter for the Minister, but I do not want to delay the uplift in universal credit, so I am willing to vote that through today.

We understand the catastrophic financial mess that we inherited, but we have to underscore the fact that abstract OBR dogma means nothing to our constituents who have been worried these last few weeks. There must be a willingness from Government from the Dispatch Box today to rebuild that trust. Reform has to start with the right foundations: with investment in the NHS to help people become work-ready; with a renewed Access to Work scheme; with better jobcentre support; with the right to try; and with employer engagement. These are all good measures, and they all have my full support.

As I have just said, I welcome the uprating of universal credit, as well as the scrapping of the work capability assessment and the additional support that has been promised to those who cannot work and will never be expected to. These are important steps in restoring fairness and dignity to the social security system, but my supporting the Bill today, which was a last-minute decision, does not mean that I give the Government a blank cheque. I, like many across this House, will be watching very closely as the next stage unfolds. I still believe that the next stage is rushed, but we are where we are. I will consider opposing the Bill on Third Reading if today’s commitments are not delivered on in the coming weeks. That is not a position I enjoy being in, and anyone who thinks it is an easy position to be in does not know what they are talking about.

In constituencies like Southampton Itchen, we know the difference that a fair and functioning welfare system can make and the damage that is done when it fails. That is why we have to avoid making the same mistakes that the last Conservative Government made. Casting our minds further back, we all remember the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition’s litany of failure on welfare reform—the bedroom tax and Atos doing reassessments. I accompanied my mum to her reassessment. She was a nervous wreck because that was an absolute disaster of a scheme. We will remember the great sanctioning machine known as the Work programme. This Labour Government have different values to that, and we must demonstrate them.

There is a great opportunity here today to commit to a clear timetable for the review so that people can rebuild trust in what is about to happen, convince us as a House that the review will be a meaningful co-production, and set out what employment support will come with the £300 million that is being brought forward. If the Bill passes today then, by the Government’s own rushed agenda, they have one week to get it into shape. If we get the system right, we will have a reformed welfare system that delivers on the Government’s objectives to support people who can work into work with dignity and prosperity, and—yes—to ensure the sustainability of the welfare system.