Speeches by Whately.

“The sad fact is that the country went through a pandemic and we had to get the country’s finances under control. This Chancellor promised that she would not increase taxes on working people, but that is exactly what she has done. Who can trust her? I know that people out there do not. If all we heard about this Budget …”

“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…”

“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 Britain’s welfare system by restricting welfare for non-UK citizens, stopping be…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. As he says, we have earmarked potential savings of £23 billion, and housing benefit is one area. There is the other set of savings that I have just gone through. I am very happy to go through some of our sums and how we have got to those figures with him. As I have sa…”

“The hon. Gentleman thinks he is so clever, but I am sorry to say this is a whole lot more serious than that. [Interruption.] I am glad Labour Members liked that. The fact is, if the hon. Gentleman looked a little further than his time in politics, back to 2010, he would know that the welfare bill and unemployment figur…”

“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 month. Nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training…”

“No surprises there, Mr Speaker; the Prime Minister can put new faces on the Front Bench, but they still do not have the answers. The right hon. Gentleman criticised the previous Conservative Government, but we got unemployment down to a 40-year low—a record Labour could only dream of. The Government do not want to be h…”

“I cannot help but notice that the Secretary of State continues to attempt to deflect from his job of answering the questions. The fact is, we just heard that he will not commit to making the welfare savings that his Prime Minister and his Chancellor have said they need to make. I thought the Prime Minister was meant to…”

“Indeed, questions are to be answered by the Government on this occasion. The right hon. Gentleman has an important and not always easy job. I am sure that we all remember the fiasco before the summer when the Government tried to make welfare savings and ended up legislating for welfare spending. Since then, the Prime M…”

“I welcome the right hon. Lady back after the summer. She said recently that it had been “a bumpy…few months”—an understatement, in my view. Last time we stood here, she had just completed a rather humiliating climbdown on her welfare savings plans. She set out to save money, but ended up spending it. You couldn’t make …”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to see you back after the summer recess. The hon. 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 young people, and rising, are not in work or education, including over 40,000 more young…”

“I asked the right hon. Lady a simple question, but I fear that she does not know the answer; she certainly did not reply to it. What is clear is that Labour wants to spend more on welfare. So do the Liberal Democrats, and so does Reform. Only one party here is telling the truth about the welfare bill: the country canno…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important and thoughtful point. Many families, whether they are living off benefits or in work, would like to have more children but have to make these difficult choices about what they can afford. This is a point about fairness. I know that many Labour Members passionately believe that the limi…”

“If I could take the hon. Lady back a bit, she might remember when we came into office in 2010, and we had to bring down the deficit year after year to get the country’s finances under control. Giving children the best start in life is not as simple as handing out more money. It is about giving parents the community sup…”

“I could not put it better than my right hon. Friend. We know that bringing up children is expensive and important. When working couples have to make tough decisions about whether they can afford to start a family in the first place, they should not be made to pay more in taxes to fund their neighbour to have a third, f…”

“I will first make a little progress, but then I will be happy to give way to the hon. Lady. Last week’s welfare fiasco saw a Bill that was meant to save money become a Bill that will cost money. We have also seen the fiasco of the winter fuel payments cut, with the Government having to row back on their tough talk beca…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the problem of a welfare trap, where people would better be better off on benefits than working full time on the minimum wage.”

“I do not agree with the hon. Member. I am going to talk about poverty in a moment, so if he will just hold on, he will hear my view on that point. This is a ticking time bomb. If we do not solve this problem, our economy will collapse, yet opposite me sit members of this Labour Government who have just shown us, with t…”

“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 funding, because those who receive benefits should make the same decisions abou…”

“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 hon. Members, of the experiences of their families, loved ones and constituents, and of how the welfare system has served its vital purpose of providing a sa…”