Deirdre Costigan

The Conservatives are sat here today criticising welfare spending when we all know it was their Government that created the very system they are now complaining about. Universal credit was dreamed up by the Conservatives, and it created a system where people were better off on welfare than in a job. For under-25s, the choice was a poverty-level standard rate of £317 a month or a far higher disability rate of £747 a month—more than double. This of course created a massive incentive for young people to go on the higher rate, and because they got zero support, they were effectively consigned to never getting a job. Since being elected, Labour has already changed this. We have cut the disability rate from £747 to £556 for those young people who may be able to work with the right support. We have made the higher rate only for those with a severe health condition or disability that is unlikely to change. This is the Labour way to reform welfare: looking after those who will never work and helping them, while encouraging those who can work to get into a good job by removing the perverse incentives that were created by the Conservatives. The Conservatives also came up with the personal independence payment, although from the way they talk about it in this place, anyone would think it had nothing to do with them. It is a benefit that helps with the additional cost of being disabled, so it is supposed to be paid to those in work as well as to those who are not. In fact, over 80% of recipients are not working. A Unison report found that assessors routinely used the fact that a claimant was employed as justification to reduce or entirely withdraw their PIP award. As a result, disabled people left jobs or went part time to keep their PIP. This was yet another perverse incentive created by the Conservative benefits system, which made people better off not working. Those perverse incentives are why, in the Tories’ final year in government, the welfare bill rose by £33 billion and almost 3 million people were not working because of long-term sickness. For over a decade, the Conservatives presided over a system that meant people were better off on benefits, and it is only now that they have been kicked out that they have decided it needs to change, but their answer is to slash benefits crudely in a way that would only see massive increases in child poverty and homelessness. It is a false economy, as the money will only have to be spent again on other public services.