Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Laurence Turner Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Badenoch]

I will in a moment.

We all know why this is happening: this is a rushed attempt to plug the Chancellor’s fiscal hole. It is driven not by principle, but by panic. The changes were forced through not because they get more people into work, but because someone in 11 Downing Street made a mistake. It is clear that these changes were not designed to introduce fundamental reforms.

How did we get here? Last year, at the Chancellor’s first Budget, she left herself no headroom. That same Budget killed growth, meaning that unemployment has increased every month since Labour took office. This is a good time for me to remind the House again that every time Labour leaves office, it does so with unemployment higher than when it came in, and it is doing that again.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

rose—

[Mrs Badenoch]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) first.

[Laurence Turner]

I am sure the right hon. Lady would not want an inaccurate statement to stand on the record. Unemployment fell under just two 20th-century Governments: the first Labour Government and the 1970 Government of Ted Heath. I know that she is repeating a standard Conservative party message, but it is a really cynical and silly misuse of statistics.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. He needs to get an education and look at the facts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I think every Member of this House would agree that welfare needs reform. I think about the constituent who was asked in a PIP assessment, “How long have you been autistic?” I think about other stories that are close to my heart, which I cannot repeat because they are not my stories alone to tell. The words come easily; the path to reform is harder, and I think many of us have walked that hard path in recent weeks. We have heard many points made in this debate, and in the short time available to me, I would like to respond to some of them.

A number of Members have sincerely suggested that there is something inherently wrong about creating a system where people’s treatment depends on the date of application, but I ask, how many people in this Chamber who have been a negotiator or a trade union member have voted for an agreement that involved red-banding a particular rate of pay? I think every representative of every party that has served in government has passed cut-off points into legislation. I remember leaving school around the time that the statement system in special educational needs started to be phased out in favour of EHCPs, and the consequences of that are with us to this day.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) said that we are being asked to place trust in Ministers, and in particular my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability. Following many discussions in recent weeks, I do have that trust, and I know that many Government Members have that personal trust. The fact that the review will now be co-produced with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations is a real and material change.

In this age of snap judgments, when we are expected to respond immediately to every manner of change and when politics in public is rewarded more highly than the politics carried out in private, the party system perhaps is not in good repute. But I know that many Members—I am one of them—have wrestled with their individual concerns and the desire to have collective discipline, without which there is no party and no programme, and nothing would ever get done. These are good and honourable principles to have. They must be moderated by a willingness to listen, and however it came about, people have listened today. The changes that have been made, as Ministers and officials will know, have been the subject of many long and, at times, difficult conversations.

We now have a Bill that removes the critical problem for many of us, which was that the change would have begun next November before the review was completed. That has been addressed. We are in the business of making material change for the people we represent. I think about the 10,037 PIP recipients in my constituency, with perhaps 1,000 more recipients of DLA, and the many more family members who will have the ease of mind of knowing that the changes we in this place have made will protect their income and security in life. The Bill still has some way to go over the course of the next week, but we must recognise progress when it has happened. I thank everyone in my constituency who has contacted me and taken time to meet. In all those discussions with officials and Ministers—

[Bobby Dean]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Laurence Turner]

I will not, as I do not wish to deny other Members the chance to speak.

All those representations were helpful and made a difference, and I am grateful to everyone who shared their story. I will be voting for the Bill tonight.

[Several hon. Members rose—]