“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every holiday period, Kent and my constituency of Faversham, Kent, is brought to a standstill and it has become much worse with the introduction of the EU entry exit system. Despite the fact that our port and Eurotun…”
“Well, there we heard it a moment ago: a Labour Back Bencher calling for yet more money to be spent on benefits. What we should be doing is talking about all the households who are avoiding the cap, when 100,000 households get over—…”
“We have had a few days of hot weather, and yet again we have had water outages in my constituency and across Kent, on top of what we saw earlier this year and last year. Residents, businesses and livestock owners are frustrated, but they ar…”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the publication of the Milburn report on young people and work.…”
“I respect the Secretary of State. He has talked at some length about what is wrong with the welfare system, but the fact is that there is no welfare Bill in the King’s Speech. I reckon he is stuck between a rock and a hard place: he knows t…”
“Let me begin by welcoming the Minister back to his place—we missed him last night, and it is good to see him back in the Chamber. Throughout our many debates, we have broadly agreed on the policy intent behind most of the Bill, but as I hav…”
“First, may I thank the honourable Gentleman for opening this evening’s debate, and for setting out the latest Government amendments, in place of the Pensions Minister? These ping-pong sessions with the honourable Member for Swansea West (To…”
“I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not answer the question put by my honourable Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), so let me help him. Unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds is at 14.3%—that means that one in seven you…”
“What a difference a week makes. When the honourable Gentleman rose to conclude our debate last Wednesday, he delivered from the Dispatch Box what I can only describe as a tirade. Serious and considered concerns—not just from me and my honou…”
“Who knew that the Pension Schemes Bill would become so controversial? It is a Bill on which there was so much consensus; a Bill begun by one party in government and now being continued by another; a Bill that could have sailed through Parli…”
“The Government have lost control of welfare. The benefits bill is ballooning. Sickness benefits alone will cost us £109 billion by the end of the decade. Working-age benefits are costing £161 billion right now and rising. But instead of bri…”
“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and for his communications with me. Juliette was a schoolgirl in year 13 at Queen Elizabeth grammar school in my constituency. She died of meningitis this weekend. Her headteacher said of he…”
“The working-age benefits bill is set to reach £171 billion by the end of this Parliament, yet the Government are doing nothing to get it under control. In fact, by scrapping the two-child cap, they have added another £3 billion. It is time …”
“I thank my honourable Friends for their contributions during the passage of this Bill. In particular, I thank my honourable Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), who has argued with true passion against the Bill, drawing o…”
“Every week, millions of people up and down the country sit at their kitchen table and do the sums to work out what is coming in, what is going out, and what simply is not affordable. Sometimes the conversation may take a more serious turn t…”
“I beg to move, That this House regrets that both youth unemployment and the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training are rising as a result of the Government’s policies, such as increasing the rate of employer’s Nati…”
“Since the right honourable Gentleman became Disability Minister, half a million more people have gone on to PIP, and the sickness benefits bill is heading up to £100 billion a year by the end of this decade. We know that his review is not d…”
“I offer the honourable Lady my condolences on the loss of her father. About 5,000 homes in my constituency were without water this weekend. That on its own is bad enough, but then we have how South East Water responded—failing to deliver wa…”
“I will start with something we can all agree on: none of us wants to see children grow up in poverty. We all know something of what that looks like: some honourable Members have lived it themselves; for others, it is part of the bread and b…”
“In the Budget last month, the Chancellor put up taxes in order to spend £16 billion more on welfare. The Government chose to make working people worse off in order to spend more on benefits. The sickness benefit bill is now set to skyrocket…”
“To govern is to choose, and the Chancellor has chosen. She has chosen spending over saving, higher taxes over welfare reform, and benefits Britain over working Britain. She would rather raise taxes by £26 billion than shave a single penny o…”
“I beg to move, That this House regrets the failure of the Government to get people off welfare and into work; believes that reforming the welfare system is a moral mission; and therefore calls on the Government to take urgent action to fix …”
“I welcome the Secretary of State to his new job and wish him luck in it—especially because, with every day that passes under this Government, we see fewer people enjoying the chance to start a new job. Unemployment has gone up month after m…”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to see you back after the summer recess. The honourable Lady can fling around the stats all she likes, but the facts are clear and bleak. Under her watch, youth unemployment has gone up; nearly a million yo…”
“I beg to move, That this House believes the two-child benefit cap should remain in place and that households with a third or subsequent child born from 6 April 2017 claiming Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit should not receive additional…”
“This has been an extraordinary afternoon in the Chamber. Listening to the debate, we have surely all been moved by the stories we have heard of the experiences of honourable Members, of the experiences of their families, loved ones and cons…”
“I thank the right honourable Lady for advance sight of her statement. This is a Government in chaos: open rebellion from their own Back Benchers, unfunded U-turns costing billions, and welfare plans that are not worth the paper they are wri…”
“Two weeks ago, the honourable Gentleman’s Government told people they were U-turning on winter fuel payments because the economy is on a “firmer footing”. The next day, the unemployment figures were released, showing that a quarter of a mil…”
“I feel for the Minister, sent here by his bosses to complete what must be the most humiliating climbdown a Government have ever faced in their first year in office. For nearly a year, the Conservatives have campaigned against this cut, and …”