Helen Whately

Of course I know that, but if the hon. Lady had talked to as many people who receive PIP as I have, she would know that many people worry that if they go into training or work, they will then, when they are reassessed, lose their PIP. Even though in theory, yes, you can work if you can while you are getting PIP, people worry that because they are working it will be then be seen as them not actually needing it and that they do not actually have that level of health problem. That is why at the moment it is acting, in the way in works, as a barrier and a disincentive to work, and that is why it needs reform. Reforming welfare is not cruel to people on benefits—quite the opposite. What is cruel is ducking the challenge, accepting the status quo and continuing to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on keeping people on benefits, but that is exactly what the Labour party is doing. Just a few months ago, the Prime Minister and the former Work and Pensions Secretary did have a go at doing something about it. They set out some welfare cuts—rushed and poorly thought-through, as I said at the time—but their Back Benchers were having none of it. We have never seen anything like it. It was the very definition of shambles in this Chamber. Right in the middle of the debate, their savings Bill became a spending Bill, with the Government frantically making concessions that we still live with, such as the Timms review into PIP. I have a great deal of respect for the Minister for Social Security and Disability, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), but what hope can we have for his review when it was conceived as a bargaining chip to buy off angry Back Benchers? It has taken months to even kick off the review and months to come up with the terms of reference. Now we have them, we see that welfare savings are off the table. And yes, I said “savings”, a word the Secretary of State was careful to steer clear of in questions last week. What a situation this is. The Chancellor keeps talking about welfare savings; she did so again this morning. However, the review by the Minister for Social Security and Disability ruled out making any savings. The Secretary of State will not even utter the word. Who will win this argument? Will it be the hapless Chancellor with her back against the wall or the wily Welfare Secretary playing a longer game? While Ministers spar behind the political scenes, the clock is ticking and the benefits bill keeps heading up and up towards £100 billion, with no prospect of the Government slowing that trajectory, let alone actually getting it down. Instead, as the Chancellor as good as told us this morning, the Government will turn to tax rises to fund welfare and more job-destroying, growth-killing policies, reducing opportunities and saddling future generations with the bill, leaving them to pay it off for decades to come. The Government have not only given up on saving money; they have given up on millions of people across Britain.