Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

This is a crucial moment for a lot of people in this country. This Bill did not come from the demands of the disabled community or from an understanding of the inequality and injustice in our society; the whole origin of this Bill was a demand to save £5 billion. That £5 billion was wanted by the Defence Secretary for more armaments—no doubt other Departments were making demands—so the whole thing has been driven from a bad source at the very beginning.

It would be much more honest and much better if the Government simply withdrew the Bill altogether and allowed the review of the Minister for Social Security and Disability to take place and look at the issues of poverty facing people with disabilities and the huge levels of stress that many others face. That includes children with special needs that are not met in schools and children with autism or other special needs not being housed in decent-sized homes. There is a whole area of discrimination against people with all forms of disabilities that could and should be addressed.

As the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) just pointed out, it was a previous Labour Government who introduced the disability discrimination legislation that made such an enormous difference. Going back further, it was the Labour MP Alf Morris who introduced the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, which made a phenomenal difference to a lot of people’s lives. What has happened is that that whole tradition seems to have been stood on its head.

We are now presented with a piece of legislation that was going to take the personal independence payment away from a very large number of people, but instead, after the failed rebellion by some Labour MPs, it was changed to say that only future generations will be denied access to the payments they absolutely deserve. That means that in future, there are going to be very serious levels of poverty—much worse than there are now—among every family that includes someone with a level of disability.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, entitled to his opinion regarding this proposed piece of legislation, but would he concede that voting against it also means voting against £725 extra in cash terms for those on universal credit, against denying those people the ability to try work, and against investing £1 billion in the health and skills of people who wish to try work?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Voting against this Bill will be a clear message to the entire community that we believe in the equality of people’s needs, and that we will bring in new legislation that will meet those needs. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that he will have to face people in his own advice bureau who will be asking why they cannot get a personal independence payment, yet their brother, their sister or their neighbour still gets it because they got it before the cut-off date. He knows full well the anomaly that, presumably, he will be voting for this evening. Perhaps he would care to reflect on that, and how to represent the people who have sent us to this place.

At the present time, the levels of poverty among the disabled community are absolutely huge. According to Scope, the cost for any family with levels of disability is around £1,000 per month. That is what will be removed if this legislation goes through. I ask Labour MPs—because it is in their hands at the present time—to reflect on what was said in the Labour manifesto last time, what was said in previous Labour manifestos and the history of the Labour party with respect to disability, and not to turn that history on its head by deliberately impoverishing the next generation. Are we to be a society that is a welfare state, with universality of benefits and support for people whoever they are and whatever their needs are—that is the whole tradition of the welfare state—or in 10 or 15 years’ time are we all going to be supporting charities, trying to raise money for people who are in desperate poverty because they have a disability that is absolutely no fault of their own?

We are going to move into a two-tier benefits system, in which those who got PIP before 2026 will seem to be relatively all right, but the rest will not. This is a ridiculous situation for the Secretary of State and the Government to have put the House in, and the only sensible thing to do is to withdraw the Bill now, allow the review to take place, and recognise the needs of all people with disabilities. If that costs us more money, so be it. As a society, are we content not to have a wealth tax, to have massive levels of inequality, and to accept that those with disabilities live economically much poorer lives because of the system we have? Surely, our function as Members of Parliament is to recognise a problem and be prepared to grasp that nettle and, above all, change it.