Helen Whately
MP for Faversham and Mid Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her important speech. Recently, a development in my constituency for 8,500 homes that was due to go to the local planning committee was suddenly taken away from it, having been called in by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna).”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend agree that it is completely wrong to take those powers to influence local planning decisions away from local councillors, and that it is absurd that a Government who talk about increasing devolution are the ones taking these powers away from local councillors?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those numbers are extremely uncertain; the care service could well cost more—demand tends to grow for something that is free—but scrapping the triple lock could save less. At the very least, Labour’s policy creates a £15 billion black hole in the public finances.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many could and should be, but instead they are spending decades of their lives on benefits; it is unaffordable and morally wrong. However, the Secretary of State has done nothing of substance about it, and now his party’s refusal to bring down the welfare bill is putting the state pension in jeopardy.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Government scale back its social care plan or push taxes up even higher? The Conservatives introduced the triple lock to give pensioners dignity in retirement after the humiliation of Labour’s pension rise of 75p a week, and we have backed the triple lock ever since.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Listening to the Secretary of State’s statement, it is clear that he is branding this plan as the Pensions Minister’s idea. It is not his first rodeo. I suspect he can see that this is a U-turn in waiting. How long has it got? And all this before the Government’s own Pensions Commission has even reported.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions during the passage of this Bill. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), who has argued with true passion against the Bill, drawing on her own experience as well as her sound principles. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) and for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), my right hon. Friends the Members for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) and for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), who spoke on Second Reading, and my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), who spoke in Committee this evening, and pointed out with customary clarity the flaws in the reasoning of Labour Members.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Bill asks them to shoulder even more.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us be clear about what the two-child cap is and what it is not. The two-child cap restricts the additional universal credit a household can get to the amount for two children, with carefully considered exceptions, such as twins or non-consensual conception. It does not apply to child benefit. It says that there is a limit, and a point at which it is simply not fair to make taxpayers fund choices that they themselves cannot afford to make.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Every week, millions of people up and down the country sit at their kitchen table and do the sums to work out what is coming in, what is going out, and what simply is not affordable. Sometimes the conversation may take a more serious turn to one of life’s biggest decisions: “Shall we start a family?” or “Can we afford another child?” Though romantics might love that to be a decision about whether people want the joy of bringing new life into this world, the reality is that many ask themselves, “Can we afford it?” They are not looking to someone else to help them make ends meet or pick up the bill; they are just doing the maths. That is a difficult conversation, but Members have to ask themselves a simple question before we vote: why should people on benefits get to avoid the hard choices faced by everyone else?”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Benefits for individual households will rise by thousands. Nearly half a million households will receive around £5,000 more on average. A single parent on universal credit with five children could get an extra £10,000 without doing any work, taking their household income to more than £45,000, untaxed—people have to earn about £60,000 to get that income from work! Around 75,000 households will get between £10,000 and £21,000 extra as a result of this Bill. For some households, the extra money will be more than a full-time income, after tax, for someone on the minimum wage.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure that all of us in this House care about poverty and children’s prospects, but the answer is not to spend more, to hand out more money and to trap people in worklessness; the answer is to support people to work, and that is exactly the opposite of what the hon. Lady’s Government are doing. We all know that bringing up children is expensive and important, but when working couples are having to make tough decisions about whether they can afford to start a family at all, they should not be asked to pay higher taxes to fund someone else to have a third, fourth or fifth child. Someone who is in work does not get a pay rise because they have another child. If we are serious about avoiding a benefits trap, whereby it pays more to be on welfare than in work, we should be honest about what happens if we lift the two-child cap.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is exactly as my hon. Friend says. The extra money that some families will be receiving—without even working—would require such a high income to achieve through work. This simply exacerbates the poverty trap.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that a declining birth rate is a cause for concern, but falling birth rates are driven by many factors, including changes in people’s aspirations, the poor jobs market, the cost of housing and childcare, the penalties that motherhood imposes on careers and the changing nature of 21st-century relationships. Children are important and we need to have more, but the answer to that complex problem is not, “Here’s some cash for having a kid.””
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will give way to Members on the Government Benches in a moment. I just ask them to think about the implications of the extra money that people will be receiving. Some people will—frankly and factually—calculate that they can boost their income far more by having children than by working. The best way out of poverty will not be work— [ Interruption. ] Government Members do not like to hear this, but I am afraid it is just rational. The best way out of poverty will not be work; it will be having babies. I want to address the argument that lifting the cap is necessary because women are not having enough babies.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The fact is that people do the sums. That is the reality of the world we live in. The hon. Gentleman indicated that he is a member of the Treasury Committee, so he must be interested—even though he is looking at his phone—in these unavoidable questions. Where will the £3 billion to fund this Bill come from? Where will the £14 billion over a five-year period come from? We all know where it will come from: taxpayers—either today’s or tomorrow’s—and the men and women who get up every morning, go to work, pay their bills and do the right thing. In the last Budget, as she knows, the Chancellor made a deliberate political choice: to raise taxes on people who work and save, so that millions who do not work will receive more in benefits. Working families already make hard choices. Many already strive and struggle to live within their means.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Unfortunately, the hon. Lady does not seem to understand that hypothecated taxes are not a thing. What she has said simply does not make sense. The fact is that this Bill will cost the Government money, so it will cost taxpayers money, either now or in the future. That is simply the way it works.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Contrast that with our record, Madam Deputy Speaker. From 2014 onwards, the number of children in workless households fell year on year. We lifted a million people out of absolute poverty, including 100,000 children, and we drove unemployment down to historic lows. Under this Labour Government, unemployment is rising month after month, so, sadly, the number of children in workless households will continue to increase. Inflation is up as well, to almost double the level that the Government inherited. Higher inflation means that the money in your pocket is worth less: in other words, you are poorer. Fewer jobs, more unemployment, a higher cost of living—that is what the Government are doing to people. I say this to them: you do not lift children out of poverty by making the whole country poorer.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Throwing money at one flawed metric is not a strategy. In fact, it risks doing the opposite of what Ministers claim to want, trapping families in long-term dependency rather than lifting them out of it. There is a proven way in which to improve children’s life chances, and that is work. Work allows parents to provide for their families, to pay the rent or mortgage, to put food on the table and clothes on their children’s backs, to set an example to their children, and to create structure and routine in their households. The Centre for Social Justice has found that children in workless households are four times more likely to be materially deprived, but under this Government the number of children growing up in workless households has risen at the fastest rate on record, and has now reached 1.5 million.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend has indeed made a significant point about the strange position in which so many Labour Members find themselves. Having previously voted against lifting the cap, here they are now, delighted about lifting it. Labour Members say that the Bill will end child poverty. They have read that increasing handouts will decrease the metric called relative poverty. However, relative poverty is a deeply misleading measure. It is not an accurate measure of living standards. It tells us nothing about whether people have enough to live on, or whether children will have better life chances. It can get worse when the country gets richer, even when living standards for the very poorest are rising, and it can look better when people are getting poorer. That is not progress; it is levelling down.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend has made the important point that no other party in the Chamber seems to realise what a serious financial position the country is in. We have to ask ourselves hard questions about what the country can afford.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They should back people who do the right thing, back jobs and work and lower taxes, and back living within our means and raising the standard of living for everyone, rather than backing a policy that will add billions to the benefits bill and trap parents in a downward spiral of dependency. This Bill does not end poverty. It entrenches it, so we oppose it.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Labour claims to be compassionate, but there is nothing compassionate about making welfare the rational choice, nothing compassionate about rewarding dependency over work, and nothing compassionate about saddling working families with higher taxes to fund political U-turns. Outside this place, people can see what is happening. They know when a system is unfair. They know when a Government have lost their way. They know when a Prime Minister’s time is up. Members should not be enticed by his final throws. They should step back and do what is right for the country.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Health and disability benefits alone are set to reach £100 billion by the end of the decade—more than we spend on defence, education or policing. The benefits bill is a ticking time bomb. We have to start living within our means. Other parties are simply in denial about the situation that we face in our country. The Conservatives are the only party that recognises how serious this is. We would not be spending more on benefits; in fact, we have explained how we would be saving £23 billion. We would stop giving benefits to foreign nationals, stop giving benefits for lower-level mental health problems and milder neurodiversity, stop the abuse of Motability, and bring back face-to-face assessments. We would get the benefits bill under control, and back people to work.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“You will have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have not tabled a reasoned amendment today, not because we think that the Bill is perfect—I hope that is clear—but because any amendment would still leave us with a watered-down version of the cap. Other parties have got in a right muddle on this—one in particular—but to us it is clear and simple: the cap should stay. Anything else is a worse policy. Amending the Bill is not the right answer; the House should just vote it down. First and foremost, I have argued against the Bill on the grounds of fairness, but there is another reason to vote against it. More than 50% of households now receive more from the state than they pay in. The benefits bill is ballooning.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Just six months ago, the Government even suspended the whip from MPs who voted to lift the cap, but now that the Prime Minister’s leadership is under threat, it is the end for the cap. How long will it be before he goes the same way? That is the real reason we are debating the Bill today: we have a weak Prime Minister, running scared from his left-wing Back Benchers. Talking of the left wing, I expect that Labour will be joined in the Division Lobby later by some of the Opposition Members sitting to the left of me. No doubt the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru will also be competing to see who can be the most generous with other people’s money. Reform UK has jumped on the welfare spending bandwagon too.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the hon. Gentleman listens to what I am about to say about the back and forth on this policy on his side of the House, he will see that he should think a bit harder before talking about “consistency”. So what is this Bill really about? If Labour truly believes that lifting the two-child limit is essential to tackling poverty, why did it take the Prime Minister 18 months to do it? Years ago he called the cap “punitive” and promised to scrap it, but then, once he had secured the leadership of the Labour party, he changed that tune. He said that Labour was not going to abolish the two-child limit. His Chancellor, who is sitting on the Front Bench, said that it was unaffordable.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are getting knocked back again and again, and signing on to benefits because they see no other way. They are missing out on the chance to have money in their pockets that they have earned themselves, on the first step towards independence, and on the experience gained in the early years in work, on which future working lives are built. Forget saving to buy a first car or home; dreams and ambitions are being shot to pieces. These people are becoming Britain’s lost generation.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Not a squeak—and that is in the bustling and vibrant economy of the south-east of England. She told me that it can be lonely being stuck at home all day applying for jobs, but she is not alone; she is in the company of many thousands of young people. Over 700,000 young people are unemployed—more than the entire population of Sheffield—and the figures are getting worse. Our youth unemployment rate is rising faster than that of any other G7 country. Nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training, and over 700,000 university graduates are on out-of-work benefits. Those are not just statistics; they are lives knocked off course—young women and men putting in hundreds of job applications and getting hundreds of rejections.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This afternoon we are here to talk about young people—the young people who wake up every morning with nowhere to go: no classroom, no workplace, no sense that today will be different from yesterday. It is part of our job to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Today, those are the shoes of a young man or woman who has just left school, college or university, and is setting out on real life in the world of work. That should be a moment of liberation, trepidation and excitement because the world is at their feet, but right now, for hundreds of thousands of young people, it is not. Just a few days ago, I was with a constituent who has just finished school. She is great; she has GCSEs and A-levels, she has done work experience, and she is charming and presentable. She has been applying for jobs day after day, but can she get one?”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House regrets that both youth unemployment and the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training are rising as a result of the Government’s policies, such as increasing the rate of employer’s National Insurance contributions, reducing business rates relief for 2025-26 for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses, and passing the Employment Rights Act 2025; notes that these policies have heavily impacted the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors where young people often have their first job; further regrets that the Government’s inability to reform the welfare system will mean that young people struggling to find work are more likely to become trapped in welfare benefits dependency; and calls on the Government to back business, scrap business rates for pubs and high street shops, and back job opportunities for young people.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am glad that the hon. Lady has some sympathy with the position of young people who are struggling to get jobs. My party halved unemployment; her party’s record is of unemployment going up and up. Since Labour has been in power, unemployment has gone up every single month. What is going on? What is going on is them: the Labour Government. Same old Labour—in they come and up go taxes and up goes unemployment, every single time. They put taxes up by £36 billion in their first Budget, and not just any old taxes. Their national insurance hike was specifically a tax on employment—literally a jobs tax. If you tax it, you will get less of it. That is not rocket science; it is basic economics.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Have they any idea how hard it is to break even, let alone to make a profit; any idea how hard it is for people who have started a business to bring in enough to cover the payroll each month, never mind pay themselves; or any idea how hard it is for business owners to make their staff redundant because they cannot afford to keep paying them? Of course they do not, because how many Labour Front Benchers have worked in a business—I am not counting union officials—let alone run one?”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Summer and holiday jobs are important ways for young people to gain experience before they leave education and seek full-time jobs, but there has been a shocking decline in the availability of such jobs because of this Government, who have increased regulation and the cost of employment—that is exactly the problem. On exactly the point about regulation and red tape, the Employment Rights Bill is making it harder for businesses to employ people. Labour says that it wants to achieve growth, but its policies are obviously going to achieve the exact opposite. The problem is that Labour Members do not understand business.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By hitting hospitality—all those pubs and cafés where people get their first jobs—the Government are hitting young people again. The simple fact is that there are fewer jobs for young people under this Government. This unemployment disaster for young people is not something that has just happened on this Labour Government’s watch—it is a disaster of their making.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She was backed up by her colleague, Allen Simpson, who said recently that if the Government continue their approach, “we will only see job losses and business closures accelerate.” That sector has shed over 100,000 jobs under this Government. Jane Gratton, from the British Chambers of Commerce, said that Labour’s policies are “deeply worrying for employers. They will increase employment costs, complexity and risk for firms, particularly SMEs…Government needs to help not hinder businesses”. That is the crux of the matter: Labour sees businesses as a cash cow, not as the engine of the economy, and young people in particular are suffering as a result. Before businesses start letting people go, they generally stop hiring, and that is what they are doing. And when they stop hiring, who gets hit hardest? Young people.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am perfectly well aware of the policy on national insurance. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that some Labour MPs do have business experience, but if we look at Labour Front Benchers, particularly those in the Cabinet, we will see that they are few and far between. If he has been talking to businesses—he clearly knows some—he will hear them say, as they have said directly to me and many of my hon. Friends, that it is the Labour Government’s policies that are making it so hard and so expensive to employ people, particularly young people. Even if Government Members do not have business experience, they could and should listen to what businesses have been telling them. For instance, Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality said that Labour’s 2024 Budget did “unthinkable damage” to the sector.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course there is part to play for training programmes and work placements in helping people to bridge the gap between school and work, but Government programmes are not the answer to the fundamental problem. Young people want jobs, and this Government are killing jobs.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend makes the point so clearly. It is so obvious to the Conservatives, as the party of business, that if the Government keep taxing business, there will be fewer jobs—but they just do not seem to get it. Labour Members do know that they are in trouble, though. That is why they are talking up their youth programmes, youth hubs and youth guarantees— [ Laughter. ] Labour Members are laughing, but they should listen. The hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race) says from a sedentary position that it was our programme —exactly that! Most of these things are just rebrands of programmes that the Conservatives started. We started youth hubs. Changing the name of the youth offer to the “youth guarantee” does not solve the problem.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now, with the Government’s failure to reform welfare, young people are stuck in a benefits trap—they are better off on benefits and fearful of losing them if they get a job. Let us add to that the stress and misery of trying and failing again and again to get a job, because jobs are fewer and farther between. Most young people I have spoken to do not want to be on benefits, but that is where they are ending up.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not argue that we got everything right. Some of the graduates struggling to get jobs have degrees that are not actually of any help to them, and they took those degrees when we were in government. Under us, through the pandemic and afterwards, the number of young people dropping out of work and on to benefits because of their mental health went up. We wanted to end the stigma around mental illness, but the consequences have been far-reaching. Our welfare system was not designed to support people with milder mental health problems or milder neurodiversity, or for a time when a quarter of people report themselves as disabled. The system is not working; instead, it is funnelling people off work and on to benefits.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I enjoyed the way in which the hon. Gentleman led into his question with a bit of flattery, but I will not be drawn on his attempt to make me talk about the minimum wage or down the routes that he asks me to take, as much as he may love me to do so. However, I will talk about our record in government. We halved unemployment. We got record numbers of people into work. We backed businesses to create 800 jobs for every day that we were in government. We reformed welfare to make work pay. We brought down the benefits bill. None of those things are on the cards under this Labour Government. They are crushing businesses with taxes and red tape, destroying jobs and driving up unemployment. They U-turned on welfare savings and put up taxes on working people by £26 billion at the last Budget to pay for the ballooning benefits bill.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We do not have to have a lost generation, but we need a Government who will make different choices—who will back businesses to create jobs, scrap degrees that do not pay back, reform welfare so that it pays to work, help this generation make their way in life, and get our country working again.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Government’s U-turn on probation periods—many businesses told me that that policy would have deterred them from taking a chance on a young person. I also welcome the Government’s latest U-turn on business rates for pubs How many U-turns are we on? Is it 13? What about the rest of hospitality? Why not adopt our policy and scrap business rates, not just for pubs, but for high street shops too? I ask the Minister not just to send young people off on more training courses or work experience schemes. What young people want now is jobs. Why not adopt our policy to double the number of apprenticeships and end debt-trap degrees, too?”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right way to solve the problem is to back businesses to create jobs, not take some kind of socialist, communist or even Marxist approach and create a job with taxpayers’ money so that somebody is in work. The situation is looking pretty bleak. That is a disaster for a generation of young people and our economy, but it does not have to be like this. Even in a world of artificial intelligence, there is another way. It starts with backing businesses, because they are the ones that create jobs, and cutting taxes, cutting red tape, scrapping the swathes of regulation that stop businesses giving young people a summer job or a Saturday shift, and getting government out of the way so that young people can get on.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me say that there is a place for programmes that support young people into work, particularly if they find that they do not have the skills needed to do the jobs in their area. When we were in government, we had programmes like that, and those programmes are being continued under this Government. However, there is a fundamental problem with the idea and concept of a youth guarantee, which has wobbled a bit at different announcements and different times. The problem is that the Government are trying to guarantee somebody a job, but destroying the jobs that businesses are creating.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Since the right hon. Gentleman became Disability Minister, half a million more people have gone on to PIP, and the sickness benefits bill is heading up to £100 billion a year by the end of this decade. We know that his review is not due to serve up any savings, but there must come a point where even he would say that the country cannot afford this. Does he have any ambition to make welfare savings?”
House of Commons26 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Under this Labour Government the number of people on benefits is soaring, with nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training, and over 700,000 university graduates are now out of work and on benefits. Many young people are putting in hundreds of job applications and getting hundreds of rejections. This Government are killing their jobs and their dreams by taxing job-creating businesses into oblivion. What does the Secretary of State have to say to those young people?”
House of Commons26 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Young people hearing that answer will not be reassured, but that is no surprise—what else can the Secretary of State say? The Prime Minister is too busy blocking rivals for his job, while a generation of young people pay the price for his weakness, and so are taxpayers, who are footing a ballooning benefits bill. Now is not the time for another review, scheme or slogan; what young people want is the chance to get a decent job and to get on in life. Surely he agrees that it is time to scrap the job-killing red tape in the Employment Rights Bill and cut taxes for businesses, so that they can give young people the chance to get off welfare and into work.”
House of Commons26 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I offer the hon. Lady my condolences on the loss of her father. About 5,000 homes in my constituency were without water this weekend. That on its own is bad enough, but then we have how South East Water responded—failing to deliver water to vulnerable people; sending elderly residents on a two-hour round trip to get bottled water, sometimes only to find that there was no water left; and ignoring the pleas from livestock owners for water for horses and other animals. This is a disgrace, and not for the first time. The chief executive of South East Water has shown us he is not up to the job. I urge the hon. Lady to use all and any powers she has to move him on and to get South East Water to appoint somebody who is up to the job.”
House of Commons12 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the Budget last month, the Chancellor put up taxes in order to spend £16 billion more on welfare. The Government chose to make working people worse off in order to spend more on benefits. The sickness benefit bill is now set to skyrocket to more than £100 billion by the end of this decade. The Secretary of State likes to blame us, but his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), cancelled our reforms, and Labour Back Benchers stymied the Government’s. Working people are saying to me, “Why bother? I’d be better off on benefits.” The country cannot afford that. The Secretary of State must know this—he is no fool—so when is he going to come up with some welfare savings?”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was sorry that the Secretary of State could not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) earlier. Fortunately, there are people who can help. For instance, UKHospitality has told us that 100,000 people will lose their jobs because of the Budget. That is on top of the 150,000 jobs already lost since Labour came to power. At this rate, there will be queues forming outside jobcentres. Can she tell me what preparations the Government are making to cope with the influx of benefit claimants from all these job losses?”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister not agree that the Government should get out of the way and reduce the burden on businesses so that they can create jobs, opportunities and economic growth?”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Businesses are cutting jobs at the fastest rate since the pandemic and unemployment has gone up every month under this Government, but clearly they are not ready to deal with the consequences. The number of jobcentre work coaches has actually fallen since they took over. No doubt the Minister will proudly tell us that they have just announced millions of pounds of spending on Government-created jobs for young people, but may I ask her to reflect for a moment? After hiking taxes on businesses so that they cannot afford to employ young people, the Government are spending a load of that tax on state-subsidised jobs for the same young people. Some are calling this the economics of the madhouse, but I simply call it Labour economics.”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Tackling poverty is about decent jobs, lower taxes and a stable foundation for every child. Throwing money at the problem to improve the statistics is not the answer, and they will certainly not lift children out of poverty by making the whole country poorer. The policies in the strategy and the Budget risk trapping families in long-term dependency instead of lifting them out of it. This strategy is so far from the bold action that Labour is making it out to be and that this country needs to break the cycle of worklessness for families on benefits, give children the best start in life and give taxpayers a fair deal—fair to those who pay in, as well as those who get help. The fact is—”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why do the Government insist on using the misleading metric of relative poverty instead of measures that reflect real living standards? With Labour’s Budget slapping thousands of pounds of extra taxes on hard-working and hard-up families, how many families are going to be plunged into poverty because of their tax rises? How many more households will now be eligible for universal credit? If the Government truly believe that lifting the two-child benefit cap is essential to reducing poverty, why did it take the Prime Minister 18 months to do it, and why did he remove the Whip from his own MPs who voted for it? Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us the real reason. Was it actually about the Prime Minister saving his own skin? I know that the Government are well meaning, but this strategy is all wrong.”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗