Richard voted against the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments Bill on Tuesday.
Richard Fuller MP said:
This Bill was the wrong way to tackle the country’s ballooning welfare costs. The Bill lacked any coherent logic about why these particular changes are the right ones and there is little confidence across all political parties that the Bill - even its amended form - will achieve any savings.
The truth is this Bill was “rushed for Rachel” - a desperate effort earlier in the Spring to find £5 billion in savings because the Chancellor had lost control of the public finances.
But Labour then caved into their backbenchers whilst the debate was still going, gutting the savings, by removing Clause 5 of the Bill, relating to the PIP eligibility reforms.
Don’t get me wrong. Both I and the wider Conservative Party want more significant rollbacks in the benefits bill. Under the coalition and under Prime Minister David Cameron we made significant changes. They were difficult to implement but they were based on years of preparation and with a guiding mission to get people into work. We didn’t get everything right but this Bill is just a bad Bill that lacks any public purpose and is not a serious attempt to reform and reduce benefits payments in our country.
Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride MP, has written to Rachel Reeves to set out the Labour Government’s U-turns, including on the Winter Fuel Payment and their row back on welfare reform.
Scrapping changes to the PIP eligibility criteria will cost £4.5 billion in 2029-30. The Government's original concessions to the bill had already created a £2.5 billion black hole and the reversal of the winter fuel payment will cost £1.25 billion a year.
These U-turns are entirely unfunded and if Rachel Reeves is sticking to her fiscal rules, fears are growing that she will be back in the Autumn with more tax rises to pay for her mess.
