Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Ind)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 2(a) tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), amendment 38 in the name of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), amendment 39 in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), and new clause 8 tabled by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell).

Errol Graham was a 57-year-old grandad and former amateur footballer. When bailiffs came to evict him, they found his emaciated body in a freezing flat—no gas, no electricity and no food. Only two tins of fish four years out of date remained. He weighed just four and a half stone. A coroner ruled that he had suffered death by starvation. Errol suffered from severe social anxiety. The Department for Work and Pensions knew that, and still cut off his only source of income. As his daughter-in-law said,

“He would still be alive. He’d be ill, but he’d still be alive.”

His death was not a tragic exception; it was a political consequence.

In 2017, Jodey Whiting took her own life after missing a fit-for-work test while she was hospitalised. Stephen Smith was denied benefits despite being gravely ill. He died in 2019. These are not just names; they are the human cost of decisions made in this place—decisions that, according to Sir Michael Marmot’s research, contributed to over 1 million premature deaths in England between 2011 and the pandemic, driven by poverty and austerity. Today the Government press ahead with more of the same.

Clause 2 of the Bill will slash the universal credit health element—the limited capability for work and work-related activity component—from £97 to just £50 a week. By 2030, that is an annual cut of £3,000 for over 750,000 disabled people. These are not people waiting for an assessment; they are people who the DWP has already found too ill to work—people who cannot feed themselves, who live with degenerative illnesses and who experience daily pain, confusion and incontinence—and we are supposed to believe that this is about helping them into employment. Even the Government’s own figures show that fewer than one in 10 new claimants will be protected by the so-called severe conditions criteria, and charities such as Scope, Z2K, the MS Society and Inclusion London have made that clear. The clause will exclude “huge swathes” of severely disabled people, especially those with fluctuating or progressive conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder and Parkinson’s. Why? Because to qualify, their condition—according to the Bill—must affect them not severely or overwhelmingly, but constantly. As Scope put it,

“It feels like it’s been designed to cut support—not to support people.”

Let us not forget the requirement for an NHS diagnosis in the middle of an NHS backlog crisis. That excludes people with neurodivergent conditions and others who rely on private or social care support. This is a deliberate narrowing of the safety net. The result? A two-tier system that punishes people for trying to work, having variable symptoms or falling through the cracks of bureaucracy.

[Robin Swann]

The severe conditions criteria and the need for an NHS diagnosis exclude young people as well, because their diagnosis and condition may not automatically transfer from their medical records as a child to their adult records. They would need another NHS diagnosis to move from the children’s DLA to PIP.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zarah Sultana]

Exactly. Those are among the concerns about the requirement for an NHS diagnosis.

Meanwhile, what is the economic justification? Well, there is not one. As a share of GDP, working-age benefits have not risen since 2015. Other countries, such as France, New Zealand and Australia, invest more in their disabled citizens. We have alternatives—for example, we could have a 2% tax on extreme wealth. Just 50 families in this country own more wealth than half the UK population. According to YouGov, three quarters of the public support a 2% tax on those with wealth of more than £10 million, yet this Government will not tax the super-rich. Instead, they choose to take from those with arthritis, cancer and chronic pain. They just cannot decide how much suffering to inflict. While they squeeze the most vulnerable, they have found billions for war, and billions to raise defence spending and back endless foreign interventions—money for war, but not the poor.

The truth is this: Westminster is broken, but the real crisis is deeper. This Government are not only out of touch but morally bankrupt. They work for billionaires and big business, while turning their back on disabled people. They hold their summer receptions at Mastercard headquarters, while disabled people are pushed to food banks. They impoverish the sick and elderly to satisfy spreadsheets, and then dare to speak of “tough choices.” But the public sees through this: 81% of voters believe that disabled people should receive support for basic living costs. That is not a niche opinion; that is mainstream Britain. Disabled organisations, from Disabled People Against Cuts to Disability Rights UK, are united in their opposition to clause 2, because if this cut is passed, the consequences will be felt everywhere, especially in our constituency surgeries. The emails, the letters, the desperation, the suffering—all of it is avoidable.

I voted to protect winter fuel payments, and I would do it again. I voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap, and I would do it again. I will vote against these cuts tonight, because this is not just about benefits; it is about the country we want to be. Do we want to be a country that protects the vulnerable, or punishes them? I know which side I stand on, and I know that I speak for millions across this country when I say that we are not going to take this any more. The two-party stitch-up is finished. There is an alternative, and we will be offering it.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

I begin by saying how much I respect the sincerity of colleagues who believe that the Bill will help address some of the difficult challenges that our country faces. I know many in this House are motivated by a genuine desire to improve lives and ensure that our welfare system is fair, sustainable and fit for purpose, but I have to say, with the deepest respect and regret, that on this occasion, I think we have got this wrong. Yes, the Labour Government have inherited a broken system on multiple fronts and, yes, we need reform, but we must be clear that reform cannot mean pushing disabled people further into poverty. It cannot mean referring to cuts as modernisation. Poverty has a price tag, and the cost-shunting that will be involved in these cuts will be plain to see in years to come and must be taken into consideration.

I support amendment 37 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles), which highlights the lack of value for money in the contracts for assessment. There are so many successful reassessments and appeals; it is clear that we are not getting value for money from these contracts, and that this is an expensive and ineffective model that Ministers should look at, if they are looking for savings. There are better ways forward, and that is reflected in many of the amendments that I am supporting.

New clause 8, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), would ensure that any changes to PIP must be brought forward in primary legislation. I strongly agree with that. Given the lack of time we have had to debate and give proper scrutiny to what is before us today, we should slow things down until the recommendations are brought back to us, so that we can have good-quality debate, and put better regulation and safeguards in place to prevent changes that would worsen eligibility for those who are already struggling or at risk of poverty.

New clause 11 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) calls for any review of PIP to be grounded in the principles of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. In a sense, I am disappointed that such a clause might be needed, but it points to the fact that we need more transparency, independent oversight and, crucially, co-production with disabled people. There can be nothing about us without us, and I hope the Government are listening on that new clause.

Amendment 38, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), acknowledges the fluctuating nature of some medical conditions that can be unpredictable and debilitating. The amendment would ensure that people with those conditions are not left vulnerable, and that the process is responsive and serves its purpose of being a safety blanket to those who need it most. Countless organisations have reached out to me and many others to raise concerns. People with conditions including multiple sclerosis, Huntingdon’s, cancer and schizophrenia are concerned about how the changes will impact on them. Their voices must be heard in this place. The amendments do not block reform; I think they strengthen it. They will ensure that the Bill is evidence-led and rooted in fairness.

New clause 12 seeks to prevent people with indefinite leave to remain, refugees and victims of trafficking from accessing PIP and elements of universal credit. Although it is not a shock that the Opposition will use any debate as an excuse to have a game of migrant-bashing, I am disappointed that those ideas have made their way into this proposal. What they will not tell the public is that most migrants in the UK are already excluded from accessing PIP and universal credit because they have no recourse to public funds. That restriction acts as a blanket ban on access to the social security system for 3.6 million migrants. Is it really acceptable to deny access to PIP or other social security to those who have spent years living and working in the UK—paying taxes and astronomical visa fees, and finally securing indefinite leave to remain—based on their nationality rather than on their disability? The new clause threatens the fundamental principle of our immigration system—that those granted indefinite leave to remain should have access to many of the same rights as British citizens.

There are better choices we can make, and better ways to find the money that we are told we need to find. We can scrap the outdated marriage tax allowance, a gimmick of the Cameron Government that still costs us £590 million a year. We can close unjustifiable tax loopholes, such as the carried interest loophole used by private equity bosses, which would raise half a billion pounds. We can apply national insurance to investment income, raising over £10 billion. A modest 2% adjustment to the £207 billion handed out in non-structural annual tax reliefs would raise £4 billion alone each and every year.

Let us talk about those reliefs. There are roughly 1,180 tax reliefs in the UK. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has no idea what benefit 815 of them bring to the public. This is about choices—we hear all the time about “tough choices”—so why are we not choosing not to properly examine that £200 billion of public spending while we tighten support for disabled people, who are just trying to live? We can and should reform the system.