Kendall makes statement to MPs about welfare bill concessions
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is making a statement to MPs now about the welfare bill concessions.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
She started by making the case for reform. She said:
The welfare state must be fair, both for those who need support and for taxpayers, so it is sustainable for generations to come,
But the system we inherited from the party opposite is failing on all these fronts. It incentivises people to define themselves as incapable of work just to be able to afford to live, it then writes them off and denies them any help or support.
The result is 2.8 million of our fellow citizens now out of work due to long-term sickness, almost a million young people not in education, employment or training. That’s a staggering one in eight of all our young people.
Key events
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Kendall says Pip claimants who get reassessed after November 2026 will be reassessed under new rules, not current ones
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Kendall says Pip to be focused on those with ‘higher needs’ in future, as she again defends legislating before review concludes
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Kendall confirms DWP to press ahead with 4-point Pip eligibility rule for new claimants ahead of review
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Kendall suggests Tories hypocritical in talking about ‘two-tier welfare’ because they operated same approach too
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Kendall says Pip review proposals to be implemented ‘as soon as possible’ after it reports in autumn 2026
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Kendall makes statement to MPs about welfare bill concessions
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Labour DWP committee chair Debbie Abrahams says she cannot support welfare bill in current form
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DWP publishes terms for reference of Pip assessment review, saying it should be ‘single gateway to health-related benefits’
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Kendall says DWP to spend extra £300m on what she says will be biggest disability employment support package ‘in generation’
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Sadiq Khan says he still has ‘serious concerns’ about welfare bill
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No 10 says latest DWP figures on poverty impact of benefit cuts don’t ‘reflect full picture’
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Lisa Nandy to make Commons statement on ‘death to IDF’ chanting at Glastonbury
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DWP explains why its update does not say what impact bill will have on number of disabled people in poverty
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Benefit cuts will have ‘negligible’ impact on number of children and pensioners in poverty due to concessions, DWP says
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DWP says 150,000 more people pushed into poverty by benefit cuts – not 250,000 as forecast said before U-turn
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Plaid Cymru urges Labour MPs to vote against welfare bill
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UK’s sale of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel is lawful, high court rules
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Extra cost of being disabled in UK to rise by almost 12% in five years, says Scope report
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Pip assessment review to be ‘co-produced with disabled people’, DWP says, as new concessions being set out
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Minister refuses to rule out whip being withdrawn from Labour MPs who rebel over welfare bill
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Kendall steps up efforts to win over Labour welfare rebels, as Burnham tells MPs to vote against ‘unfair’ bill
Kendall says Pip claimants who get reassessed after November 2026 will be reassessed under new rules, not current ones
Vicky Foxcroft, who resigned as a Labour whip over the bill, asked if the Timms review would have the power to review the budget savings being achieved by these cuts. And she asked what would happen if someone requested a reassessment because of worsening health conditions. Would they be reassessed under the old criteria or the new one?
Kendall said that the Timms review was not being driven by the need to save money.
(That did not fully address the question. Foxcroft wanted to know if it would be able to recommend more spending.)
And Kendall said people can request a reassessment. If that happens before November 2026, that will be under the old system. After that, it will be under the new system, she said.
Kendall says Pip to be focused on those with ‘higher needs’ in future, as she again defends legislating before review concludes
Sarah Owen, chair of the Commons women and equalities committee and one of the MPs who signed the Hillier reasoned amendment, again asked why the government is legislating before the outcome of the review into the problem the legislation is supposed to address. She said:
What is the logic of making changes to future claimants before finishing the Timms review, now co-produced for disabled people? Could this lead to not just two tiers, but three tiers – those existing claimants, those new claimants who will lose out and those post Timms review?
Kendall stressed that existing claimants were being protected. In future, it wanted to aim Pip at those with “higher needs”, she said.
Kirsty Blackman (SNP) asked why Labour did not include these plans in its manifesto.
Kendall said reforming the benefits system was in the manifesto.
Marie Tidball (Lab) said she has been saying since April she could not support these plans. Having no public consultation meant disabled people were ignored. She said not doing that meant the DWP was not compliant with the Equality Act.
Kendall said Tidball was a powerful voice. She said the Timms review would be co-produced with disabled people.
Tidball, who is disabled, published this article for the Guardian yesterday on her opposition to the bill.
Labour’s Rachael Maskell said she welcomed progress, but she could not countenance disabled people being denied support, or 150,000 more people being pushed into poverty.
She asked why MPs were voting on the bill tomorrow when the Timms review of the Pip assessment might recommend changes.
Kendall said no existing claimants would lose out. There was clear evidence employment programmes can get sick and disabled people into work, she said.
Meg Hillier, the Labour chair of the Treasury committee, who tabled the reasoned amendment against the bill signed by more than 120 MPs, asked Kendall to justify the four-points rule being introduced. (See 4.06pm.)
Kendall said the government had to get more people into work, and focus the benefit on those with a “higher need”.
She stressed that existing claimants were being protected.
Debbie Abrahams has also told ITV that the government has gone back on the concessions it offered last week, Jessica Elgot reports.
🚨 MP Debbie Abrahams said that one of the offers the government is making today is not what rebel negotiators thought they had negotiated.
Says there has been “row back” and tells ITV that “We’re not there yet.”
Kendall confirms DWP to press ahead with 4-point Pip eligibility rule for new claimants ahead of review
Debbie Abrahams, the Labour chair of the work and pensions committee, asked why the government is going ahead with a four-point rule for Pip eligibility in the bill before the Timms review concludes. She said the government should not settle on four points when the review should consider this. The review should look at the Pip assessment process, the number of points need to qualify, and the descriptors used to evaluate disability.
She was referring to the key change in the bill, which will restrict Pip to people who score at least four points on one daily living descriptor to qualify for the daily living component. This means someone needing help with washing their lower body, which currently scores only two points, would not qualify on this particular skill.
Kendall said the government was committed to a review. But she went on:
The four-point minimum will be in place for new claimants as we look to make changes for the future.
Kendall suggests Tories hypocritical in talking about ‘two-tier welfare’ because they operated same approach too
Kendall is responding to Whately.
She says in talking about a two-tier welfare system the Tories are showing some “chutzpah” because that is what they did, protecting people on legacy benefits when they introduced universal credit, and when they replaced DLA with Pip.
And, responding to Whately calling for the return of face-to-face assessments, she says that is what the government is doing – because the Tories ended them.
Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is responding for the Tories.
The government is “in chaos”, she says. And she says these concessions will create a two-tier welfare system.
The last government was able to control welfare spending, she claims.
But things went wrong during the pandemic, she says.
During the pandemic, we saw something new, the health and disability bit of our benefit system started to break. The bill is forecast to hit £100bn by 2031 – one in every four pounds of income tax will be spent on health and disability benefits, more than the entire defence budget. This is not fair for the taxpayer, not fair for people who are written off, and certainly not sustainable for the country.
Kendall confirms that people currently getting the health element of universal credit won’t have their payments frozen.
And she confirms that an extra £300m is being spend on employment support. (See 3.10pm.)
She says, overall, the concessions (she calls them “measures”) offered over the last few days will cost £2.5bn by 2029/30.
Kendall says Pip review proposals to be implemented ‘as soon as possible’ after it reports in autumn 2026
Kendall says the government is reviewing how the Pip assessment work. The terms of reference have been published, she says. (See 3.33pm.)
She says the review is expected to report by the autumn of next year, and that its proposals will be implemented “as soon as possible thereafter”.
Kendall says there were real concerns about the government’s original plans.
So it is making “positive changes”, she says.
She confirms that people currently getting Pip will not not affected by the new eligibility criteria.
Kendall makes statement to MPs about welfare bill concessions
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is making a statement to MPs now about the welfare bill concessions.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
She started by making the case for reform. She said:
The welfare state must be fair, both for those who need support and for taxpayers, so it is sustainable for generations to come,
But the system we inherited from the party opposite is failing on all these fronts. It incentivises people to define themselves as incapable of work just to be able to afford to live, it then writes them off and denies them any help or support.
The result is 2.8 million of our fellow citizens now out of work due to long-term sickness, almost a million young people not in education, employment or training. That’s a staggering one in eight of all our young people.
Labour DWP committee chair Debbie Abrahams says she cannot support welfare bill in current form
Debbie Abrahams, the Labour chair of the work and pensions committee and the second signatory on Meg Millier’s reasoned amendment against the welfare bill, has said she cannot support the bill, despite the concessions, ITV’s Romilly Weeks reports. She has posted on social media.
NEW: Debbie Abrahams one of 3 MPs to negotiate the welfare concessions with No 10 says they do not go far enough @ITVNewsPolitics
She says the government rowed back on what had been negotiated and in the current form she will not be supporting the bill
This is even more of a mess for the government than first thought. A costly u turn that might yet not get them off the hook
By contrast, Hillier, chair of the Treasury committee, welcomed the concessions on Friday, calling them a “good and workable compromise”.
DWP publishes terms for reference of Pip assessment review, saying it should be ‘single gateway to health-related benefits’
The Department for Work and Pensions has also published the terms of reference to for the Stephen Timms review of the Personal independence payment (Pip) assessment. It has been published at the bottom of the Liz Kendall written statement.
The document says the review is expected to conclude in the autumn of 2026, and that it will be “co-producced with disabled people”.
And this is what it says about the “scope” of the exercise.
The review will include consideration of:
-The role of the PIP assessment – as the future single gateway to healthrelated and disability benefits – in enabling disabled people and those with long term conditions to live independently and fully participate in society.
-The assessment criteria – including activities, descriptors and associated points – to consider whether these effectively capture the impact of longterm health conditions and disability in the modern world. The review will consider both the daily living and mobility elements of the Pip assessment.
-Whether any other evidence should be considered alongside the functional assessment to fairly reflect the impact of living with a long-term health condition or disability, including related to an individual’s personal circumstances and environment.
-How the Pip assessment could provide fair access to the right support at the right level across the benefits system.
-What role the assessment could and should play in unlocking wider support to better achieve higher living standards and greater independence.