Helen Whately
MP for Faversham and Mid Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Every holiday period, Kent and my constituency of Faversham and Mid Kent is brought to a standstill, and that has become much worse with the introduction of the EU entry-exit system, despite the fact that our ports and Eurotunnel have invested in the technology.”
“The situation could be horrific this summer: imagine people, including children and elderly people, and potentially pets, waiting in their cars in this heat for around 12 hours. It is a disaster. I implore the Minister to involve the Prime Minister—and, most likely, the right hon.”
“I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She is making an important point about the fact that we need not just the minimum but the maximum. We need really strong commitments. The Cleve Hill solar development in the village of Graveney in my constituency is huge. It has obliterated 900 acres of agricultural land and marshland.”
“On the point about considering the community benefit, what counts as a community is really important. In some circumstances—this has come up in my local area—a large geographical area is considered as a community, even though the number of households that are very substantially affected is very small.”
“I associate myself and those on the Opposition Benches with the Secretary of State’s comments about the outgoing permanent secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions. I am sorry that this may be my last exchange with the Secretary of State, as we await the coronation of the king in the north and the appointment of his new team.”
“I heard no commitment from the Secretary of State that the benefits bill was going to come down any time soon. Labour can change its leader, but it is still the same old welfare party. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) told us this morning that he is going to bring “Manchesterism” to the whole country.”
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Every one of 603 lines we hold for Helen Whately, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 13.
“What is left for us to vote for or against this evening? All of us in this House know that welfare needs reform and want to see more people helped into work. All of us in this House—surely most of us, at least—recognise that the country must live within its means. The remnants of this Bill will manifestly achieve none of that. In fact, the only purpose it will now serve is to etch forever into the statute book the moment when this Government totally lost control.”
“Ministers said, “Trust us, employment support is coming,” but why would anyone trust this Government on jobs when 100,000 were lost in May alone? None of us have seen the Government’s plan to get more disabled people into work, and apart from new red tape and making it more expensive to hire people, I do not think there is one. Thirdly, we said that we must not have more tax rises in the autumn. Given that the Chancellor had already committed to that, it should have been the simplest of those three conditions to agree to, but this desperate climbdown blows an even bigger hole in her Budget. She is pushing us into a doom loop of higher taxes, fewer jobs and more welfare. At this rate, the time is coming when our constituents will not even have a welfare system to call on in times of trouble.”
“We all know people whose lives would not be possible without the help that our welfare system provides. Each and every one of us in the Chamber wants a welfare system that is there for those who need it, but if the welfare bill spirals out of control, it puts that support in jeopardy. The Bill now makes no meaningful changes to a system that we all agree is not working, and I reckon it will now save less than £1 billion from a sickness benefits bill that will be rising to nearly £100 billion by the end of the decade. That is a total dereliction of duty by a Government who claim to want welfare reform and fiscal discipline. Secondly, we said that we would support plans that get people into work, but the Bill will not help a single person into work.”
“We have a Government with a supermajority who were voted in on a manifesto for change, a welfare system that everyone agrees needs reform, and public finances that simply must be brought under control, but the Government are now serving up a Bill with next to nothing in it. They had already U-turned once; it seems they cannot even deliver a U-turn. The Prime Minister told the country that he was distracted at NATO, and he flew back home on Thursday to sort the problem out. This is what sorting it out looks like. Once again, his calamitous negotiations are letting the country down. Last week, we offered the Prime Minister help in the national interest and set out three tests that he would need to meet to have our support on welfare legislation. The first was that the welfare bill must come down.”
“How could anyone justify voting for something that would not make a single disabled person’s life better? It is clear that many, many Members could not. I said that it “was” a bad Bill, because while we have been debating it, it has more or less disintegrated. Less than two hours ago, the Minister for Social Security and Disability told us, in an unprecedented intervention, that clause 5 of the Bill is to be removed in Committee. That takes out all the changes to personal independence payment, and with them almost the entirety of the remaining savings in the Bill. Describing it as chaos now feels like an understatement.”
“This has been an extraordinary afternoon in the Chamber. Listening to the debate, we have surely all been moved by the stories we have heard of the experiences of hon. Members, of the experiences of their families, loved ones and constituents, and of how the welfare system has served its vital purpose of providing a safety net in times of desperate need, particularly for people whose disabilities or ill health have made it impossible for them to make ends meet on their own. It is clear that there is broad consensus across the House that the welfare system needs reform. There has also been consensus that what we were debating was a bad Bill. It was a rushed and chaotic compromise that would harm disabled people, create a two-tier benefit system, and barely make a dent in the overall welfare bill.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the light of the shambles this afternoon, with the Bill being ripped apart literally before our eyes in this Chamber and the Minister unable even to tell us how much it will now save, can you please advise me whether it should still be rushed through to be debated next week in Committee of the whole House, or whether the Government should in fact withdraw it?”
“Why did it take the Government a year to publish the terms of reference for their PIP assessment review, and when can we expect changes if it does not report back until autumn 2026? Could I try one more time to ask what the difference is between the Secretary of State’s right to try guarantee and our chance to work guarantee? Finally, is this it? Are there any more savings? Are the Government not going to get any more people into work? Is this the extent of their ambition for reforming the welfare system during their time in office? In five years’ time, will this be the Secretary of State’s legacy?”
“We agree on the need for reform and have set out the conditions under which we would support the Government: first, the welfare budget must come down; secondly, we need to get people back into work; thirdly, there must be no new tax rises to pay for increases in welfare spending. But with the welfare bill ever growing, unemployment rising and jobs disappearing, the Bill fails on all accounts. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the changes she is announcing today will be paid for through borrowing or taxation? Where are these good jobs she claims to be creating, when vacancies are going down and unemployment is going up? Has she read the impact assessment for the Government’s Employment Rights Bill, which makes it clear that it will be harder for people to find work as a result?”
“They could say today that they would make all sickness benefit assessments face to face. They could get a grip of the rising claims for common mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression. Claims for those and neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD are the main reason for the steep rise in the number of people on sickness benefits, making up more than half of all new claims. The Centre for Social Justice has found that the Government could save up to £9 billion by reforming those benefits. However, nothing that we have seen from Labour over the past couple of weeks suggests that it has the courage and conviction to grip that problem. In the meantime, our welfare bill will only continue to rise.”
“It is woefully unambitious about savings, conspicuously lacking in compassion and achieves no meaningful change of a system we all know is broken. Thanks to the Government’s latest climbdown, we are left with a plan that will save just £2.5 billion of a £100 billion bill by introducing a two-tier system. Two people diagnosed with Parkinson’s a week apart will now receive different levels of support—all to clear up an internal Labour argument. The Government’s own impact assessment shows that these plans will not get a single person into work. The idea that work is the guiding motivation for these changes is laughable. There are things that the Government could do. They could reform the fit note system, which sees 94% of people who apply told that they are too sick to do any work at all.”
“Some 800 jobs were created for every day that we were in office, giving millions of people the dignity and security that work brings. But then, during the pandemic, we saw something new. The health and disability bit of our benefits system started to break. The bill is forecast to hit £100 billion by 2030. One in every four pounds of income tax will be spent on health and disability benefits—more than the entire defence budget. That is not fair for the taxpayer, not fair for people who are written off, and certainly not sustainable for the country. Despite Labour having 14 years in opposition and now a year in government, they still do not have a plan to bring down the welfare bill or get people into work. What we have before us now is a rushed and chaotic compromise that is not reform in any sense of the word.”
“I thank the right hon. Lady for advance sight of her statement. This is a Government in chaos: open rebellion from their own Back Benchers, unfunded U-turns costing billions, and welfare plans that are not worth the paper they are written on. Their latest idea is a two-tier welfare system to trap people in a lifetime on benefits and deny them the dignity of work, while leaving the taxpayer to pick up the ever-growing bill. It is a long-held Conservative belief that those who can work, should work. Work provides security and purpose. That is why we launched universal credit, simplifying complex benefits and ensuring that work always paid. And it works. In the decade up to the pandemic, we got the number of people on benefits and the benefits bill itself down.”
“Two weeks ago, the hon. Gentleman’s Government told people they were U-turning on winter fuel payments because the economy is on a “firmer footing”. The next day, the unemployment figures were released, showing that a quarter of a million jobs have been lost since the Chancellor’s job-taxing Budget. The country is now losing 100,000 jobs a month. These figures are worse than even the most pessimistic forecast. Is that what a firm footing looks like to the hon. Gentleman?”
“Honestly, who does the Minister think he is fooling with this spiel? Growth forecasts have been slashed and inflation has surged. What world is he living in? The Government have been in office for a year and people are losing their jobs because of the decisions that they have made. How does he think his “everything’s fine” mantra actually sounds to one of the people who have lost their jobs or to a business facing a tax bill that it cannot afford? Has the Secretary of State even told her Back Benchers, who will be strong-armed into voting for cuts next week, that the welfare cuts Bill that we will be debating will get a grand total of zero people into work, according to the Government’s own impact assessment?”
“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?”
“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?”
“Is the Minister sure that they have thought it through, or will this unravel, too? What happens if a pensioner earns over £35,000 a year through non-taxable income? Will they have to register for self-assessment and start filling out a tax return in their 80s or 90s? [ Interruption. ] You didn’t cover that. Why should someone earning taxed income be disadvantaged? Is it fair that a millionaire pensioner and their spouse might receive a payment, but two people earning £36,000 will not? What happens if someone dies in the period between receiving the payment and having to pay it back? Will the Government go after the deceased person’s relatives? I have two final questions. After all this, the savings for the Treasury for this coming year may be as little as £50 million. Does the Minister think it is worth it, and will he apologise?”
“Did they think they could try out new policies like trying a new mattress—unwrap it, see how it feels, sleep on it for a while, but if it causes a political backache, send it back? This rushed reversal raises as many questions as it answers. It is clear that when the Prime Minister stood up and made his big U-turn announcement in PMQs, he had no plan and no idea how he was going to pay for it. It is a totally unfunded spending commitment. Where is the £1.25 billion needed to pay for this U-turn coming from? I note that the Minister has kicked that can down the road until the Budget. The Government claim that the change will not permanently add to borrowing, so does that mean it will permanently add to taxation? On the plan itself, is this really the best system of means-testing that the Government could come up with?”
“According to the Government’s own analysis, 50,000 pensioners were plunged into poverty this year and 100,000 extra pensioners ended up in A&E this winter. Their mistake has hurt people, and it is cowardly not to own up to it. Just like their personal independence payment reforms, there were no consultations or proper assessments—just a self-righteous insistence that what they are doing should not be questioned. There is certainly no thought for those affected or concern for the anxiety that their government by press release is causing. This is what happens when a Government come into office with no plan, no principles, no idea what they want to achieve and no idea how to achieve it. They just bumble from one mistake to another, breaking promise after promise.”
“It is outrageous to claim that the economy has somehow improved from the day they made the cut, and they know it. In fact, by almost every metric, the opposite is true. Inflation was at the 2% target—now it is 1.5 points higher; 150,000 more people are unemployed; and growth forecasts have been slashed in half by the Office for Budget Responsibility. In the meantime, the Government have gone to town with the country’s credit card. Borrowing is up. Debt is up. Who is the Chancellor trying to fool when she suddenly says she can afford this when before she could not? The fact is that last winter she gave pensioners’ fuel money to the unions. Now she realises how unpopular that was, so she is pretending that everything has changed. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that she thinks anyone is taken in.”
“I feel for the Minister, sent here by his bosses to complete what must be the most humiliating climbdown a Government have ever faced in their first year in office. For nearly a year, the Conservatives have campaigned against this cut, and for nearly a year, the Government have tried to hold out. Just four weeks ago, I stood here and asked the Minister how long this tone-deaf final stand could go on for. Loyally, he held the line. He defended the cut one final time. He said their plan for pensioners was right on track. Well, today he has been sent to end that “courageous” last stand, and—unless it is coming next—he has been sent without the one thing that pensioners up and down the country deserve: an apology. Let us be clear: the Government made a choice to cut the winter fuel payment.”
“I suspect that the hon. Members on the Government Front Bench are now surrounded: I suspect that they are the only people left in this Chamber who are prepared to defend the cutting of the winter fuel payment. Dozens of their own MPs have now joined a long list of people telling the Government that they have got it wrong, including the Welsh First Minister—talking about learning lessons from Wales—the money-saving expert Martin Lewis, and voters up and down this country. The Conservatives have led this campaign from the start, but if the Government will not listen to us, will they now listen to everyone else and think again?”
“That is not something that the Leader of the Opposition said. To the point in hand—the winter fuel payment—I wonder for how much longer this tone-deaf final stand will go on. Every time the Government talk about winter fuel payments, they make out that they had no choice, but that is simply not true. To govern is to choose. At best, this policy was only ever going to save £1 billion or so, but they are spending £8 billion on setting up an energy company, and the cost of asylum hotels will rise to £15 billion under Labour. This has always been a choice, and it is the wrong one. Can the Minister guarantee that next winter, every single one of the 750,000 poorest pensioners who missed out on the winter fuel payment this year will receive it?”
“The number of job vacancies is falling month on month under this Labour Government, but the number of people employed is also falling. Could the right hon. Lady admit what this means is happening in the economy?”
“I am disappointed that the Secretary of State did not answer the question. I can answer it, if she will not. It means that businesses have stopped hiring, the growing economy that we left is being hammered by the Government’s jobs tax, and thousands of young people are leaving school and university with worse prospects than this time last year. Businesses need a Government who understand them and back them—that is what jobs depend on. She needs businesses to hire people so she can hit her employment target. What is her message to them?”
“Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) today and in Committee. I look forward to seeing the Bill improved before it may become law.”
“Why should we tolerate people using social media platforms to help others commit fraud, and to help them cheat the tests that are there to ensure that support goes to those who need it? Why should someone who has committed fraud be able to keep their high-end television or luxury car, just because they spent their ill-gotten gains before the Department got to them? We are clear that both those things should be tackled, but sadly Labour has shown itself to be on the side of the fraudsters. As I said at the outset, we back the overall purpose of the Bill and much of its content, but I hope that the Secretary of State’s colleagues in the other place will take note of the constructive approach we have taken and the arguments made, particularly those made so articulately by my hon.”
“That is why, in government, we did the groundwork for the clauses of the Bill that enable banks to help crack down on fraudsters, recognising that while the state should never be able to see what someone spends their money on, it should be able to check whether they are entitled to the money that they are claiming. The amendments we have tabled to the Bill are constructive, so I am disappointed that the Government have chosen not to support them. Videos from sickfluencers are hard to avoid when searching online about benefits, but rather than helping people to claim something that they may need and should rightly receive, the videos tell people how to game the system. We want taxpayers to get their money back, even if it has already been spent.”
“Every penny of taxpayers’ money lost to fraud or error is money wasted, so we Conservatives support many of the measures outlined in the Bill, not least those that continue the hard work done by my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions prior to the general election. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that every penny they raise in taxation is spent well. That is fair to taxpayers, who have worked hard to earn that money. When it comes to welfare, at the heart of our system must be the principle that Government support should go only to those for whom it is intended. Every penny that does not undermines the entire system. It erodes public trust and support. That has put support for some of the most vulnerable people in society at risk.”
“To help get the winter fuel payment cut past Labour Back Benchers, some of whom do have consciences, the Government claimed that they were going to protect the most vulnerable because those on pension credit would still get it, but let us look at what that really means in practice—at the facts. Pension credit tops up a pensioner’s weekly income to £218.15 if they are single or, if they have a partner, to £332.95 jointly. Someone with an annual income of £11,500 could be ineligible for pension credit. They may be just £1 or £2 over the threshold, but because of the cliff edge, they do not get pension credit and, as a result of the Government’s cut, they would not get the winter fuel payment either. So we are not talking about rich people.”
“It was a promise so easily made and so carelessly broken. Labour Members may not like hearing this, but let us pause for a minute to think about what this means in human terms. I remember well my grandmother in her 90s in layers of jumpers, shawls and blankets in winter, even when she had the heating on. In fact, I remember well giving her a woollen shawl as a Christmas present, because she was always cold. I would describe myself as someone who feels the cold, but I know that what I feel on a winter’s day is not a patch on how someone in their 80s or 90s feels, especially if they have health problems, and I know from my time as a Health Minister about the connection between being cold and ending up in hospital.”
“However, for many pensioners turning up the heating was not an option, because one of the Chancellor’s first acts in her new job last year was to scrap the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners—something of which she gave no hint before the election, a time when voters rightly expect political parties to spell out their plans. As a result, millions of older people, many with fixed and far from substantial incomes and many living in draughty homes, missed out on £300 this winter. That money makes all the difference. In fact, for some it is literally a choice between heating and eating. At the same time, energy bills went up. Before the election, the Government did not say they would cut the winter fuel payment, but they did promise to bring our energy bills down—by £300, in fact. Instead, they are up by about £170.”
“I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to publish data on the number of eligible pensioners it estimates did not receive the Winter Fuel Payment in 2024–25; further calls on the Government to publish data showing the impact of changes to the Winter Fuel Payment on levels of pensioner poverty and the number of hospital admissions; also calls on the Government to set out how it intends to ensure that those eligible for Pension Credit receive it before winter 2025-26; and calls on the Government to apologise for the misery caused to vulnerable pensioners in winter 2024–25. Now that the sun has come out, I suspect that many of us will quickly forget the chill of the winter—the evenings when it was freezing outside and we reached for our jumpers, and perhaps the switch on our central heating too.”
“My hon. Friend makes exactly the important point I am making, which is that if the Government thought what they were doing would affect just the very wealthiest in society, they were very wrong.”
“My right hon. Friend is exactly right. As I said a moment ago, I do believe that some Labour Members have consciences, but I am not sure which ones. Are those with consciences the ones who are hiding away from the Chamber because they feel guilty and do not want to hear this debate, or the hon. Members here who are actually going to stand up in support of pensioners and join us in the Lobby later.”
“One of the things we would very much like to see is a full set of figures from the Government, but my hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Government said they wanted everyone who was eligible to sign up for pension credit and therefore be able to access the winter fuel payment, but if everyone had actually signed up for pension credit, the Government would not have saved the money they set out that the policy would save.”
“Yes. My hon. Friend makes a really important point. He has been every effective in his use of parliamentary questions to scrutinise the Government and get data from them—they do not like to give it willingly. He identifies the long delays for pension credit approvals and therefore access to winter fuel payment. Some will have applied before the deadline for pension credit and got the whole way through winter without getting money, or even knowing whether they were going to get any money. We know well from charities such as Age UK, which represents pensioners, that pensioners are very reluctant to get themselves into debt. If they did not know whether they were getting the payment, they would have been very reluctant to spend money in the hope that they might.”
“Their officials would have told them, but it was easier for them to assure the press, the charities and their Back Benchers, “Don’t worry,” just as we have heard their Ministers do about the welfare reforms in the last 24 hours. For them, it was easier to wait for the spring to come and hope that everyone would simply forget. Well I say to them, “We won’t let you forget.” Nor will millions of pensioners and their families: 10 million pensioners are missing out on help with their heating, among them around 1 million of the most vulnerable people in our country, quite literally left in the cold by this Labour Government. That will not be forgotten in a hurry.”
“Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds), assured us that the Government would get on top of that. In fact, she told us that her target was to have 100% of those eligible for pension credit claiming it. But here we are many months later, and still around three quarters of a million eligible pensioners are not on pension credit. That is another promise easily made but easily broken. There has been a woeful failure by the Government to close properly that gap, despite all the coverage the winter fuel payment received. Of course, we knew that this would be hard. We, too, had pension credit uptake campaigns in Government. More people signed up, but still many did not. I expect the Government knew that they would fail, too.”
“Let me make a little progress and then I will be delighted to take more interventions from colleagues. The Chancellor has previously argued that winter fuel payments should be means-tested and cut for the richest pensioners, but who here thinks that someone on an income of £11,500 is rich? Age UK estimated that over 80% of pensioners living below or only just above the poverty line would lose their winter fuel payment. The issue is not just that low-income vulnerable pensioners miss out on help with their heating because they are just above the pension credit threshold—the problem is worse than that. Last summer, the Government knew that over 800,000 people may be eligible for pension credit but did not claim it, meaning that they, too, would miss out on the winter fuel payment. The Pensions Minister at the time, the hon.”
“I was indeed extremely shocked by that statistic; that is one reason why we need to have this debate today and try to get some of the data out of the Government. They were at the time, and continue to be, incredibly reluctant to share whatever they know about the impact of this cut on people, including the terminally ill.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point about transparency, and he recognises that this policy has had an impact not only on pensioners, but on other parts of Government, and therefore on other constituents. It is another thing that I hope the Government Back Benchers in the Chamber are taking note of, to pass on to their colleagues who, for some reason, have chosen not to be present to discuss this topic this afternoon.”
“My right hon. Friend, given his experience in this area, will know very well the connection between heating and health, particularly for older people. The Government must surely ensure that they understand the knock-on impact of the cut to the winter fuel payment on older people’s health, and therefore on admissions to hospital and on hospitals’ ability to cope. As we know, there are then the consequences for older people, who, when admitted to hospital, often end up having long hospital stays, with significant loss of independence and reduction in quality of life as a result.”
“Their own report from 2017 found that cutting the winter fuel payment could cause nearly 4,000 pensioners to die. Did Ministers ask if that was likely to happen this winter? I would be happy to give way to him if he wanted to answer my questions right now, but, given they have not been answered for months, I fear he will not.”
“I will continue, because I know that many Members wish to speak this afternoon—at least on the Opposition Benches. From the moment the Government announced this policy, we were deeply concerned about the impact it would have, which is why we led the opposition to the cut, and why we forced a vote on it back in September. The vote was a chance for Labour MPs to make a stand. Instead, 348 Labour MPs chose to support the winter fuel payment cut. We then saw the Government trying to avoid telling people the impact the cut would actually have, so we are trying again today. I put it to the Minister that now is his chance to be straight with people. What did the Government know when the cut was announced? Did they know how many pensioners would miss out? Did they know how many would end up in hospital?”
“It is time to tell us how many eligible pensioners did not receive the winter fuel payment this year; time to tell us how the cuts have hit pensioner poverty; and time to tell us what those cuts did to hospital admissions. Ministers need to know this information so that they can prepare responsibly for next year. Back Benchers need to know this information so that they can represent their constituents effectively. And the public deserve to know the consequence of the actions of the Government they elected.”
“Thanks to a freedom of information request, the Government were forced to publish their equality analysis, showing that 71% of people with a disability would lose their winter fuel payment, while official NHS data shows that the number of over-65s attending A&E this winter soared by nearly 100,000 compared with last year, despite this being a less cold year. And now, as I have said, it feels as if spring is here. It is time for the Government to be honest with the public and tell us what this policy has done in practice. I hope they will not tell us that they did not monitor the results, because that surely is not credible.”
“I will in a moment—I was hoping the Minister might have answers, but he does not. To this day, the Government have not published a full impact assessment setting out the truth about their policies. Is that because they do not know themselves, or because they do not want to admit the harm that they were willing to do? Thanks to the effort of colleagues and the public, we have, however, been able to glean some information in the months since. The Secretary of State admitted to the Work and Pensions Committee that she had seen internal modelling showing that 100,000 pensioners would be pushed into poverty because of their political choices.”
“I do not want to fall into the same trap as the hon. Lady did when she made those accusations. What she has just said does not describe the position of the Leader of the Opposition. I also remind her that today is an opportunity for the Government to answer questions, and that is what she should be looking to the Minister, rather than the shadow Minister, to do.”