Liz Kendall

Joining up work and health support is essential. I have been to visit some of the projects in place, and they are making a really big difference. We are building on that with additional investment, quadrupling what we inherited from the Conservative party. Joining up work and health support is very important, because good health and good work are two sides of the same coin, but this needs to be available widely across the country. Let me turn to the specific measures in the Bill. Clauses 1 to 4 begin to tackle the perverse incentives left by the Conservative party, which encouraged people to define themselves as incapable of work by rebalancing the universal credit standard allowance and health top-up. I am very proud that we are delivering the first ever sustained above-inflation rise to the universal credit standard allowance—the largest permanent real-terms increase in the headline rate of out-of-work benefits since the 1970s. Some 6.7 million households—the lowest-income households—will benefit from the increase in the universal credit standard allowance, and it will deliver a £725-a-year increase in cash terms by 2029-30 for a single person aged 25 and over. Having listened seriously to concerns about our original proposals on the UC health top-up for existing claimants and future claimants with severe conditions and those at the end of their lives, we will ensure that for these groups, the combined value of their universal credit standard allowance and the health top-up will rise at least in line with inflation, protecting their income from these vital benefits in real terms every year for the rest of the Parliament. Alongside those changes, schedule 1 to the Bill will ensure that people with severe lifelong health conditions will never be reassessed, removing all the unnecessary and unacceptable stress and anxiety this brings, so that they have the dignity and security they deserve. Yesterday we published draft regulations on our new right to try, which will guarantee that, in and of itself, work will never lead to a benefit reassessment, giving people the confidence to try work—something many people have called for for years. I turn to clause 5 of the Bill, on personal independence payments. Yesterday I told the House that we have listened to the concerns raised by many Members, disabled people and their organisations about the impact of the new requirement for existing claimants to score a minimum of four points on at least one daily living activity to be eligible for the daily living component. Even though nine out of 10 people claiming PIP at the point these changes come in would be unaffected by the end of the Parliament, I know this has caused deep and widespread anxiety and stress, so we have changed our original proposals. The new four-point eligibility requirement will only apply to new claims from November 2026. This means no existing claimants will lose PIP because of the changes brought forward in this Bill, and anyone who currently receives any passported benefits, such as carer’s allowance, will also be unaffected by this change.