Published: 2025-07-01 14:43:12 | Views: 9
The debate on the UC and Pip bill – or welfare bill, as some are calling it – is starting.
Lindsay Hoyle says he has selected the reasoned amendment tabled by Rachael Maskell.
That means it will be put to a vote at 7pm.
If it passes, the bill will fall.
If government MPs vote it down, there will then be a vote on the main motion, that the bill gets a second reading.
Key events
Maskell says even at this 11th hour she would still ask the government to withdraw the bill.
She says there should be a proper consultation instead.
There is a reason why we are a dystopian state of excessive wealth and abject poverty. It is because governments focus on what they value most, and for these [disabled] people, they never get the attention.
She says disabled people want reform. But not by this bill.
She ends:
As Nelson Mandela said, may your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.
Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP who has tabled the rebel amendment, is speaking now.
She says 138 deaf and disabled people’s organisations have backed the reasoned amendments that would kill the bill.
She recalls a constituent visiting her, with his young daughter. He could not work because of his mental health condition. He said, if is benefits were cut, “it would be better that I wasn’t here”.
She says people with fluctuating conditions are particularly worried.
(Liz Kendall tried to address this point earlier – see 2.01pm.) She goes on:
These Dickensian cuts belong to a different era and a different party.
They are far from what this Labour party is for – a party to protect the poor, as is my purpose for I am my brother’s keeper, these are my constituents, my neighbours, my community, my responsibility, and I cannot cross by on the other side for one, let alone for the 150,000 who will be pushed further into poverty.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is responding for her party.
She started by saying
We are staring down the barrel of a crisis that no serious government can ignore. The welfare system no longer works as it should. What was once a safety net has become a trap, a system designed to protect the most vulnerable is now encouraging dependency and dragging this country into deeper debt.
She accused Liz Kendall of perpetrating the “fiction that all of this was caused by the last government”.
The last government reformed welfare by introducing universal credit, she said.
Kendall says the government wants to complete the Timms review by next autumn. And after that its recommendations will be implemented “as soon as is practically possible via primary or secondary legislation”.
And she says that, once those recommendations are in place, any people already getting Pip can ask for a reassessment.
(That means, if the Timms rules are more generous than the rules coming in in November 2026, people can migrate to the Timms rules by asking for a review of their case. This point in part addresses the “three-tier system” claim made yesterday.)
Esther McVey, a former Tory work and pensions secretary, says it is morally unacceptable for the government to treat claimants differently depending on when they claim. And has the government taken legal advice about whether this is lawful.
Kendall says this is what happened under the Tories.
Kendall confirms that the government has abandoned the original plans to apply the new Pip eligibility rules to existing claimants.
Clive Betts (Lab) asks why the government is changing the eligility rules in November 2026, when the Timms review of the Pip assessment may not have finished.
Kendall says she will cover that in a moment.
Toby Perkins (Lab) asks Kendall to give more detail of the Timms review.
Kendall says it will be co-produced with disabled people. She says she has been a longstanding champion of co-production.
She says protecting existing claimants, while changing the rules in future, “strikes the right balance”.
She says any existing Pip claimant will be reassessed under the currrent rules wheneveer their claim is reviewed.
Kendall is talking about the detail of the bill, starting with clauses 1 to 4.
She says the government will deliver the first sustained, above inflation rise to the standard rate of universal credit.
This will benefit 6.7m households, she says.
Kendall says the government is bringing forward an extra £300m employment support for sick and disabled people, on top of the £1bn in support previously announced.
In response to an intervention from Jim Shannon, a DUP MP, Kendall says that, even if a Pip claimant has a fluctuating condition, they can still qualify as being covered by the severe conditions criteria, which applies to people whose disability is so bad they can never go back to work. Under the bill, people in this group will not face regular reassessments.
Polly Billington (Lab) intervenes, asking about the poverty figures published yesterday. They do not take into account the impact of employment measures. Will the government publish a fresh assessment taking into account the impact those programmes will have.
Kendall says there is evidence that the government’s employment programmes work. She says before the committee stage next Wednesday she publish “further updated impact assessments … spelling this out in more detail”.
A Tory MP asks Kendall why the DWP’s own figures show the bill will put an extra 150,000 into poverty.
Kendall says that shows chutzpah from the Tories, given they put 900,000 more children into poverty.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is opening the debate.
She starts by making the case for getting more sick and disabled people back into work.
The debate on the UC and Pip bill – or welfare bill, as some are calling it – is starting.
Lindsay Hoyle says he has selected the reasoned amendment tabled by Rachael Maskell.
That means it will be put to a vote at 7pm.
If it passes, the bill will fall.
If government MPs vote it down, there will then be a vote on the main motion, that the bill gets a second reading.
