I am proud of the steps this Labour Government are taking to tackle child poverty. Our historic expansion of free school meals to families on universal credit will lift 100,000 children out of poverty and tackle term-time hunger. That is alongside the £2.5 billion we are investing in the household support fund, and our commitment to funding the holiday activities and food programme, which will tackle holiday hunger too. Making sure that children have hungry minds, not hungry bellies, will help them to fulfil their potential in life, and that is what this Labour Government are all about.
Closing the disability employment gap is a matter of opportunity for disabled people in my constituency. I recently visited M&M Supplies, a stand-out company in Bletchley, not only for its many exporting successes but because a quarter of its workforce are adults with learning disabilities and difficulties—and that is thanks mainly to the vision of managing director Frank Purcell, who works with organisations like MK SNAP to run a work experience programme for adults with disabilities. What assurances can my right hon. Friend give me that this Government are committed to working with employers to ensure that no disabled people in my constituency are written off?
I congratulate, through my hon. Friend, those in his constituency on the fantastic work that he has described. I recently visited an incredible supported internship programme that helps young people with learning disabilities to get work and stay in work, including in our local NHS and with our local hotel voco in the heart of Leicester. This Government are determined to tackle the disability employment gap, which fell under the last Labour Government, although movement stalled under the Tories. We are going to turn this around with the biggest ever investment in employment support, introducing mandatory disability pay gap reporting and looking at what more we can do to support brilliant employers, like the one my hon. Friend described, to recruit and retain more disabled people.
More than half of new health and disability benefits claims are now for mental health, yet under the Government’s welfare cuts Bill the personal independence payment could be stripped from three quarters of claimants with arthritis and two thirds of those with heart disease but fewer than half of those with anxiety. Does the right hon. Lady believe this is the right decision?
I have great personal respect for the hon. Lady but she really needs to make up her mind: first she says our proposals are too late, then she says they are rushed; she criticises us for being cruel, and then says the Opposition are going to vote against our Bill because it does not go far enough. But her deputy, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), has let the cat out of the bag, saying in a recent Westminster Hall debate:
“I am not able to tell…exactly what we would do.”—[Official Report, 7 May 2025; Vol. 766, c. 301WH.]
The truth is that the Conservatives are a broken party with no ideas, let alone a strategy—and, unless they change course, they have no future either.
Goodness me; I asked the right hon. Lady quite a serious question, so that was a very disappointing answer. However, she and I are in agreement that the benefits bill needs to come down, and that will need real reform of the system, so why is she pressing ahead in a panic with her half-baked cuts rather than doing the job properly? We would support a proper rethink of which conditions should get what help, and a better system for people struggling with mental health or neurodiversity, who would be better off in work than parked on benefits. Why did not she make that part of her plan?
Let me tell the hon. Lady what we are doing to improve mental health support for people in this country and to make sure that it is treated with equal importance to physical health: we have made significant progress towards recruiting the additional 8,500 mental health workers we said we would recruit in our manifesto to reduce delays and provide support; we have confirmed funding to help an extra 380,000 patients get access to talking therapies; and we are investing the biggest ever amount in employment support for sick and disabled people. I say to the hon. Lady, who left 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness and 1 million young people not in education, employment or training, that it is about time she apologised to the country and made up her mind about whether she will back our reforms.
T2. My constituent, Nicola Smith, works for NHS Fife. Like many people across the country, she is not paid on the same date each month. This leads to incorrect calculations for her husband Steven’s universal credit, often leaving the family without a payment or being sanctioned before the system catches up the following month, and I am aware of thousands of others in a similar position. What reassurance can the Minister provide that he is addressing these issues, ensuring smooth and fair payment for NHS workers and their families on universal credit, and will he meet me to discuss this issue in more detail?
We are reviewing universal credit to ensure that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and we are looking at exactly the kind of problem that my hon. Friend highlights. I would be delighted to meet him to discuss it, because Nicola, Steven and all 7,000 households claiming universal credit in his constituency will benefit from the standard allowance increase proposed in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, which we will be debating next week; it is the biggest increase in the headline rate of benefits since at least 1980.[Official Report, 26 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 6WC.] (Correction)
In her March Green Paper, the Secretary of State promised to provide an additional £1 billion in funding to help benefit claimants back into work, but only £400 million has actually been allocated, and even that will not come until 2028-29. We have heard some talk of efficiency savings, which is practically the definition of a magic money tree if ever there was one, so will the Minister confirm that the promised £1 billion for employment support will be all new money, and not cannibalised from other vital DWP services?
Yes. Already this year, we are rolling out £300 million of support through our Get Britain Working plan and Connect to Work. That will rise to £600 million next year and build to an additional £1 billion. This is the biggest ever investment into employment support for sick and disabled people, because we believe work is the route out of poverty. We want to build dignity and a better life for those who can work, while protecting those who cannot.
T3. Child poverty in my constituency grew from 12.4% in 2015 to 15.5% in 2024: huge growth under the last Government. With the child poverty taskforce due to report soon, can the Secretary of State assure me and my Dartford constituents that child poverty at the end of this Parliament will be lower than it was when it began?
Yes, I can. That is a firm commitment from me personally, and from the Prime Minister. We have made a start on that work: our expansion of free school meals to children in all households on universal credit will benefit, I think, around 6,500 children in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and we are helping more people into work, which is the best way to tackle poverty in the long term. We have a long way to go, but we are absolutely committed to bringing those numbers down.
T4. Some 40% of people in West Dorset who are in receipt of a personal independence payment receive the highest level of support. Many are extremely anxious about PIP assessments being carried out over the phone rather than in person, particularly those with complex or fluctuating conditions. Will the Minister guarantee that anyone who wants an in-person assessment will receive one?
Yes, we absolutely want that to happen. Indeed, we want to record the assessments as standard to ensure that claimants have confidence in what is being done. This is an issue that causes huge anxiety among my constituents. Too many decisions take too long and are overturned, and we want to deal with these problems head-on.
T5. When the under-25 universal credit rate was first introduced, the justification for it was that young people were more likely to be living at home, but there is a group—care-experienced young people—for whom that is often not the case. A transformational decision by this Government would be to build on and go further in the work that we are already doing with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and decisions at the spending review by making this change for that very important group of young people.