Michael Payne

It would be really interesting to hear why it is not correct, because I have read the proposals referred to in the speech in detail. It is absolutely clear that that is who the Opposition are referring to when they use the phrase “foreign nationals”. If they want to bank made-up savings on the backs of refugees, they should come out and say so. The next category is people with indefinite or limited leave to remain; the shadow Secretary of State mentioned them in her speech. As mentioned earlier, many of these people will simply seek British citizenship, meaning the Opposition’s claimed savings are illusory at best. It is also worth pointing out that 110,000 of these people are in work, so their benefits will likely be lower than the Opposition’s figures imply. That fact also completely blows a hole in their argument that contribution should be the basis of our welfare system. Those people contribute. They are our care workers, our nurses, and our NHS staff. This is where the Conservatives’ argument becomes particularly difficult to understand. They tell us that welfare should reward contribution, and that people who work hard, pay taxes and contribute to our country should be recognised, yet they propose restrictions that could penalise people who are already doing precisely that. They cannot stand at the Dispatch Box championing contribution on Monday, and then propose taking away support from the people who contribute on Tuesday. Surely the test of a welfare system is not simply where somebody was born, but whether the rules are fair, whether a person is contributing where they can, and whether they receive the support to which they are entitled. Finally, the remaining categories are “other” and “no immigration status recorded”. According to the Department’s spreadsheets, to which the Opposition have linked in their report, the “other” category includes “individuals no longer receiving UC payments”, so any savings attributed to that category are highly questionable. As for the “no immigration status recorded” category, there is as much chance that these are British nationals as not. So what does that all mean for the £9.5 billion identified in savings? After accounting for the fact that the figure is likely to be inaccurate, accounting for those who seek British citizenship and accounting for the fact that the final two categories either contain no one claiming benefits or may not even contain foreign nationals, any remaining savings come from cuts to support for refugees, Ukrainians we have found homes for, Afghan interpreters we have an obligation to, and care workers, nurses and NHS staff we rely on. Let us be clear about what we have established: the Conservatives have announced £9.5 billion in savings, but their own assumptions need rigorous scrutiny. Some of the people affected are refugees, some have supported our armed forces, and some are already working in our public services. Some may not even fall within the category that the Conservatives claim to be targeting. This is a very long way from the Conservative party of old, which used to be credible when delivering savings. Let me turn to their proposal to move disabled people from the personal independence payment on to attendance allowance when they hit pension age. My word—a disabled person who worked their entire life, having assiduously saved, will finally reach the age at which they can retire, only to find that the Conservative party has ripped their personal independence payment away. I wonder how many Conservative Members have explained that proposal to the older disabled people in their constituencies. This is the problem with the Conservative welfare policy. The savings are announced in billions, but, as the Minister said earlier, the consequences are felt in individuals and families. The nasty party is truly back. Let me be clear and unequivocal. I believe in welfare reform. I believe that those who can work should be supported and expected to work. I believe that taxpayers deserve a system that is fair, sustainable and protects public money, and I believe that fraud and abuse should be tackled robustly. Ministers should be commended for the work that they are already doing in that regard. I also believe something equally important—that people who are genuinely sick, disabled or unable to work deserve dignity, security and compassion. Those principles are not contradictory; they are the foundations of a decent welfare state built by William Beveridge and people whose shoulders we in this House sit on. They are precisely why I support the approach of this Labour Government under the leadership of this Prime Minister. Rather than simply announcing make-believe cuts and hoping for the best, this Government are reforming the incentives within universal credit and investing £3.5 billion in employment support by the end of the decade. We are providing personalised help to people who have too often been abandoned by the system. We are increasing the standard universal credit allowance above inflation while protecting existing recipients of the health element and those with the most severe lifelong conditions. We are supporting people into employment, not simply pushing them into poverty, and we are recognising that welfare reform cannot be separated from fixing the NHS, improving mental health services, investing in skills and creating decent jobs. In Gedling, I meet constituents who want nothing more than the opportunity to work, contribute and build better lives for themselves and their families. They include people living with disabilities who face enormous barriers to employment, people with long-term health conditions who desperately want treatment so that they can return to the jobs that they love, and parents who work hard, pay their taxes and still struggle to make ends meet. They do not need another round of political finger-pointing or simplistic slogans like those we heard today from the shadow Secretary of State. They need a Government prepared to do the difficult work of reform. That is what this Labour Government are doing. The Conservatives had 14 years to build a welfare system that works. Instead, they left behind a system that too often trapped people in inactivity, failed to provide the support that they needed and left taxpayers facing an increasingly unsustainable bill, as the Minister set out earlier. Now, from the comfort of opposition, out of office, they have produced a plan built around £36 billion of cuts, with serious unanswered questions about whether their figures add up. Perhaps the most revealing part is that even their own former Work and Pensions Secretary warned nearly a decade ago that welfare cuts had gone too far. The lesson seems to be one that the Conservatives have chosen to forget. Welfare reform is not simply about how much money can be taken out of the system or somebody else’s pockets. It is about whether we can help people into work, protect those who cannot work and build a system that is sustainable for the long term. They failed to fix the system when they had the power to do so. Now they want the country to believe that they have all the answers. Well, the British public have seen the Conservatives’ record, and this Labour Government will take absolutely no lectures from the architects of the very crisis that Ministers are now clearing up. We will vote for welfare reform. We will protect those who need protecting. We will support those who can work into good, secure employment, and we will build a welfare state that is fair to taxpayers, compassionate to those in need and worthy of the country that we all aspire to be. That is the Labour difference, and it is one I am proud to defend.