Department for Work and Pensions
29 Jun 2026 · Commons Chamber · 28 speeches · Official record
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It now gives me huge pleasure to invite the new MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry to make her maiden speech. I call Lara Bird. Full speech
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) on his maiden speech. I may be new to this Chamber, but I stand here as a young woman whose adult life has been shaped by the politics of this place. I marched against Brexit. I protested in Dundee against the Conservatives’ cruel policies and, in 2014, as an outspoken 16-year-old, my whole world focused around advocating for Scottish independence. I have never been the type to keep my op... Full speech
I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee to open the debate. As we are very short of time, I would be incredibly grateful if your speech was short. Full speech
Speaker
[Relevant documents: First Report of the Work and Pensions Committee, Employment support for disabled people: Connect to Work, HC 77; Oral evidence taken before the Work and Pensions Committee on 17 June, on the Work of the Department for Work and Pensions, HC 317; Correspondence from the Department for Work and Pensions Permanent Secretary to the Work and Pensions Committee, on Department for Work and Pensions Supplementary Estimate 2025/26, reported to the House on 15 April, Session 2024-26.] Full speech
Speaker
Debate interrupted, and Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54 ). Full speech
Right now, it is hard to get through a day without someone, somewhere, saying that welfare spending is ballooning out of control. For example, the Conservatives’ alternative King’s Speech tells us: “For the first time ever, the total welfare bill is now higher than total receipts from income tax.” Western civilisation is at an end, it seems-until we realise that it is not the first time at all. It has been that way for 13 years, most of them under the Conservatives. Then we discover that the rat... Full speech
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to make my maiden speech today. I thank all hon. Members from across the Chamber for their best wishes. I give my best wishes to the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird) for her upcoming maiden speech. The people of Aberdeen South have once again chosen a Conservative and Unionist to represent them here in Westminster. It is an honour to be here, and a responsibility that I take very seriously. I am grateful for and humbled by ... Full speech
There are 96,000 civil servants working for the DWP; it is very much a leviathan. Most of those that I have come across are incredibly committed individuals who are professional and want to do the best for their community. What a sad thing it is that it feels like they are lions led by donkeys. When the Work and Pensions Committee has engaged with senior civil servants and the Secretary of State, it feels as if they are trying to wrestle a greased pig; there is a lack of grip and engagement with... Full speech
Our social security system acts as the bedrock of our welfare state, but for years, the safety net it was meant to provide has developed more and more holes through which some of our most vulnerable citizens have fallen. For our older generation, the state pension is absolutely the foundation on which a decent retirement can be built. The interim report of the new Pensions Commission explains that 50% of working age adults are under-saving, that pensioner poverty is persistent and that the state... Full speech
I wonder whether my hon. Friend would like to touch on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes). She was right to say that the Child Maintenance Service- Full speech
Speaker
(1) further resources, not exceeding £107,094,729,000, be authorised for use for current purposes as set out in HC 1855 of Session 2024-26, Full speech
I thank the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for securing this debate. I offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) on a great Conservative gain and to the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird) on an SNP hold, and I congratulate them both on their maiden speeches. I welcome the opportunity to challenge the Minister on her Department’s spending policies and... Full speech
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. The Department for Work and Pensions supports nearly 23 million people and spends around £300 billion each year-around £1 in every £5 of Government spending. Some £164 billion is spent on pensions and pension-age benefits-a third more than the more-frequently-criticised spending on working-age benefits and on children-which has come under growing pressure from an ageing population. Debate about that spending has at times been fra... Full speech
I congratulate both hon. Members who gave their maiden speeches a few moments ago. We know that the outgoing Prime Minister wanted to cut welfare spending-or at least he did a year ago when he brought forward some pretty rough and ready proposals to cut it by £5 billion-but, of course, his plans withered in the chill winds of the Labour Back Benches and the Minister literally tore up the proposals at the Dispatch Box during that debate. The messiah from Makerfield may be here in just a few weeks... Full speech
I am grateful for that intervention; long may that work continue. About one in eight young people are not in work, education or training. That is more than a million young people. It is the first time since 2013 that have we seen figures on that level. Ill health, and especially mental ill health, is a major driver of that. While programmes such as Connect to Work are welcome, with funding of around £820 million, they appear to be modest, relative to the scale of the challenge. The Government’s ... Full speech
Speaker
That, for the year ending with 31 March 2027, for expenditure by the Department for Work and Pensions: Full speech
Speaker
(2) further resources, not exceeding £649,416,000, be authorised for use for capital purposes as so set out, and Full speech
I do agree with the hon. Member. Indeed, it is in the tourism sector that a lot of young people in my constituency and, I am sure, in his-and in constituencies up and down the country-find their first job. It is the flexibility in the tourism sector and the fact that there is work to do when young people have the time and want to do it that make it such an enabler. The changes to the rate of national insurance and the fact that it now applies to part-time working are major disincentives to work,... Full speech
The hon. Member is talking with great clarity about the number of young people who are no longer accessing the world of work, which we know can define people for the duration of their working career. Does he lament, as I do, the catastrophic changes that the Chancellor has made to the hospitality sector, taxing them out of business and taxing young people out of a job? Does he agree that that will have a very long tail for an awful lot of people in the world of work? Full speech
Back Benchers now have a time limit of two and a half minutes. Full speech
With the leave of the House, I congratulate the hon. Members for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird) and for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) on their maiden speeches. I thank all the Back Benchers who have contributed to today’s debate. I wholeheartedly support what my right hon. Friend the Minister has said about how we can transform people’s lives, and that is not necessarily by cutting individual support for vulnerable people. We must make sure that employment support provides an impetus... Full speech
As my hon. Friend is talking about local implementation, I will pay tribute to what is being done in Harlow, and particularly at Harlow college, through programmes to support people who are not in education, employment or training. That is really paying dividends. Full speech
I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), on securing today’s debate and on all the work that she and her Committee members do. It has been a pleasure to hear not one but two maiden speeches this afternoon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) on his excellent maiden speech. As a spokesperson for his party across several briefs during his time at Holyrood and as a former co-leader ... Full speech
That is the end of the Back-Bench contributions, so we now come to the Front Benchers. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. Full speech
It gives me huge pleasure to invite the new MP for Aberdeen South to make his maiden speech. Full speech
I pay huge tribute to our two new Members of Parliament, the hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) and for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird), for their maiden speeches. I will talk about something that makes up a relatively small part of the DWP’s operations and its spending, but that has an enormous impact on children’s lives. One of the four core aims for the Department set out by the Secretary of State, and clearly stated in the main estimates, is to “Tackle child poverty an... Full speech
I am not going to give way, because I have very limited time-my apologies. When it comes to fraud and error in the DWP specifically, the Department’s own statistics estimate that around £9.9 billion is overpaid in benefits each year. Two thirds of those overpayments are for universal credit claims, so I hope the Minister will explain why fraud and error are particularly high for universal credit claims and what steps are being taken. In 2017, there were 7,840 convictions for benefit fraud; last ... Full speech
Speaker
(3) a further sum, not exceeding £107,012,572,000, be granted to His Majesty to be issued by the Treasury out of the Consolidated Fund and applied for expenditure on the use of resources authorised by Parliament.- (Mark Ferguson.) Full speech