Danny Kruger

I shall be as quick as I can. I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions. I fully recognise and share all the concerns that people have raised on behalf of constituents facing the cuts that are coming down the line. Nevertheless, the Government are right in their overall objective of trying to tackle the challenges in our welfare system, which traps too many people in economic inactivity and presents an unsustainable cost to taxpayers. We have seen an onflow to both PIP and the UC health element, which doubled in the last Parliament. The PIP budget alone will rise by 50% in this Parliament, to £35 billion. Those figures are not affordable over the long term. Nevertheless, the Government’s plans are crude and cruel. The Government are effectively proposing to scrap the standard rate of PIP altogether. Some 87% of people on the standard rate of PIP will fail the four-point test, so we are effectively doing away with that benefit altogether. Mention has been made of the 14 years of the last Government. The fact is that this Government had 14 years to prepare for government, and—in response to a fiscal crisis that they created—they are having to rush through these crude and cruel benefit plans.