Department for Work and Pensions

[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.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, for the year ending with 31 March 2027, for expenditure by the Department for Work and Pensions:

(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,

(2) further resources, not exceeding £649,416,000, be authorised for use for capital purposes as so set out, and

(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.)

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.

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 framed in stark terms, but understanding people’s lives makes clear just how essential this support is. My Committee has consistently argued that, alongside efficiency, the system must treat claimants with dignity and respect, yet too many report experiencing the opposite. Improvements will only come if the Department is open, honest and willing to learn.

The estimate seeks nearly £14 billion of additional resource, with much of that reflecting demand led need. The central question is not just about cost, but whether the system is fair, timely and trusted. Reducing support at individual level is not cost free: cuts to disabled people’s support in 2017 increased poverty and poor mental health without improving employment outcomes, and of course there are wider costs to the NHS and public services. Investment matters. Evidence suggests that reducing inactivity among young and disabled people by 5% could yield £20 billion, and that there are strong returns from employment support programmes, such as Connect to Work. Preventive investment is key.

What should the House test? The Secretary of State has spoken of shifting from administering benefits to transforming lives, and we welcome that ambition, but delivery depends on cross Government action and effective local implementation. This is not just about the DWP.

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.

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 plans may support up to 90,000 young people into work, but that is still only a fraction of what is needed. The key test is outcomes—how many people move into sustained work.

The accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions remain qualified, due to fraud and error amounting to nearly £10 billion in overpayments. Service quality issues persist; there are communication failures, discrimination findings and serious backlogs. The carer’s allowance overpayment scandal caused profound distress, and Access to Work delays are unacceptable. These are not marginal issues; they affect whether support reaches people fairly and on time. For the DWP, value for money must include timeliness, accuracy and trust.

The most egregious failings relate to safeguarding. Last year alone, the Department undertook 90 internal reviews, including following claimant deaths and serious harm to claimants. Since 2010, there have been 10 prevention of future death reports from coroners warning that the systems must change. Our Committee has described the safeguarding approach as deficient. While some progress has been made, it remains too slow. Incremental change is just not good enough.

Machinery of government changes and local delivery models risk blurring accountability, so while local flexibility is important and place based approaches are essential, outcomes must be consistent. Parliament must be able to see clearly who is responsible for delivery.

The overarching issue is the lack of a clear link between spending plans and outcomes. While improvements have been made, scrutiny is weakened when Parliament cannot see how success will be measured. A clearer, strategic plan linking spending to measurable outcomes is essential.

The debate is not about whether social security spending is necessary—it clearly is—but whether a Department spending £300 billion is using resources effectively, fairly and transparently. I would be grateful if the Minister answered three questions in her response. What outcomes will this spending deliver? How will progress be measured? Who is accountable if delivery fails? The challenge is to show that the estimate is aligned with the scale of the problem, operationally credible and capable of delivering services with dignity and respect. Finally, I thank my Clerk and all his team for their excellent support for the Committee.

It gives me huge pleasure to invite the new MP for Aberdeen South to make his maiden 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 the trust that the people of Aberdeen have placed in me. The by election victory was the result of the hard work of hundreds of volunteers, without whom I would not be standing here. Unlike another recent by election, the campaign in Aberdeen South was not focused on one man’s job, but on the thousands of jobs in our oil and gas sector.

With almost 50% of the votes cast in my favour, the people of Aberdeen have made their voices heard loud and clear—clear enough to echo around the Palace of Westminster and Holyrood alike. The people of Aberdeen have had enough of the wilful destruction of the oil and gas industry, of their jobs and of the local economy. This win is a clear mandate from the people of Aberdeen to the Labour Government in Westminster and the SNP Government in Holyrood to act now to save our North sea oil and gas industry.

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to my predecessors in Aberdeen South. As an Aberdeen loon, for many years I was represented by the trailblazing Dame Ann Begg. In her maiden speech, she remarked on the transience of the Members for Aberdeen South, a seat held almost equally by Labour and Scottish Conservative Members throughout the 20th century. That transience is captured by another of my predecessors, Priscilla Buchan—Lady Tweedsmuir—who, like me, came to the House through a by election. She was elected in 1946. A pioneer of women in political office, she was the youngest MP in the House of Commons at the time. She was a formidable force, having initially lost in Aberdeen North, and then winning in South the following year. In her maiden speech, made in a debate on the economic situation, she warned of “the growing feeling of nationalism, due to the Government’s policy of centralised control.”—[Official Report, 11 March 1947; Vol. 434, c. 1194.] It says much that, almost a century later, the people of Aberdeen South are grappling with the very same issues. The divisive force of nationalism still seeks to set us apart, but we on the Conservative Benches know the enduring value of our United Kingdom.

Most recently, I succeeded the right honourable Stephen Flynn, who I am delighted has chosen to take up a seat in Holyrood. Without his decision, and his dedication to his career, I would not be standing here today. We were councillors together on Aberdeen city council, and we have both now sat in Westminster and Holyrood. I sincerely wish him well. Stephen understands the value of oil and gas to Aberdeen, and I am sure that, now in government, he will press the First Minister to get off the fence and finally defend our oil and gas industry. I have known Stephen for a number of years. He now has the tough job of Scottish Transport Secretary. I look forward to firing off the letters asking for updates on transport projects that affect my constituents in Aberdeen South.

It was while I was at Aberdeen city council that I learned the cut and thrust of politics. I remember my time fondly as the co leader alongside Jenny Laing, the daughter of the former Member for Oldham East, Jim Lamond. I am grateful to her and to all those I worked with on the council. It serves as a reminder of the importance of building bridges and consensus to deliver for our constituents.

Aberdeen has a rich history of reinvention, from fishing to textiles to oil and gas. The silver city with the golden sands has been a cornerstone of Scotland’s success for centuries, and it has changed and evolved more than most. Today, energy plays the critical role in the city’s prosperity, with thousands of my constituents being among the most highly skilled workers in the industry. I am immensely proud to represent them. So too is it a privilege to represent so many distinctive parts of the city, from the great south harbour at Torry to Hazlehead Park, where the Piper Alpha memorial stands. That memorial is a testament to the dangerous, demanding work that our oil and gas workers carry out, week in, week out, for the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom—because energy security is national security. It is too easy to forget the sacrifices, large and small, made by the sector so that the rest of us can enjoy the benefits of modern life.

I am sure that my time here will be judged not just on the basis of how I can help constituents with their issues, or the quality of the legislation that we pass. My time here will be judged by how loudly and firmly I can make the case for our oil and gas workers. It is the privilege of my life to represent my city—a city that thousands of oil and gas workers call home—and I will spend every day repaying the trust of the people of Aberdeen who have placed me here.

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.

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 opinions to myself, so I became a voice for the youngest generation who were able to vote in that referendum. It was that campaigning in Dundee that taught me to have confidence in myself and conviction in my beliefs, and to stand up for the future that I wanted to see. Twelve years on, the Yes city is still very much alive and kicking—a city where the old, the young, the loud and the quiet all continue to champion our cause of independence.

In fact, it was in Dundee, in Douglas, where I recently met a young SNP activist who reminds me a lot of my former self. Erin Nicholson is 16, and when I met her, she was so excited to vote for the first time in the Scottish parliamentary elections. Motivated by independence, angry about Brexit and deeply invested in our nation’s politics, Erin is exactly who I am standing here for today: for the young people who have grown up in the shadow of Tory austerity and Labour’s broken promises, and who have a vision of hope for Scotland; for the young women who deserve to take up space in our nation’s conversation; and for the new generation in Scotland who now deserve to have their say. Erin and her peers, despite voting in the last Scottish parliamentary elections, were only four at the time of the independence referendum. If the Secretary of State for Scotland is listening, that sounds like a generation to me.

My constituency might be called Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, but our community is so much more than that. It is Douglas, Whitfield, Fintry, Monikie, Letham, Friockheim, Carnoustie, Monifieth and everywhere in between. And it is not just Dundee that made me who I am today. I am proud to have grown up in Angus with a Scottish father and an English mother, and I think it is a little more than ironic how much consternation that fact seems to have generated from some so called Unionists this week. Growing up in Angus, none of my friends ever cared about my accent. We were only concerned about what flavour ice cream we would get from the famous Visocchi’s in the Ferry, and about whether we chose to go swimming in East Haven or Lunan Bay. As we got older, the decisions centred around whether we preferred the Ship or the Fisherman’s Tavern, which is a hard choice, as the Ferry has unarguably the best pubs in Scotland.

I loved growing up in Angus, not least because Angus is famous for its centrality to Scotland’s proud history. It was here that the immortal words of the declaration of Arbroath were written: “As long as a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself”.

The declaration is one of the subjects that I remember being most excited to study in primary school, so perhaps I was inclined to a politics of independence and freedom from a young age.

I could not speak about Angus without mentioning our world renowned farmers and fishers, who are famed not just for Arbroath smokies but for creating the berry capital of these islands. And with apologies to my Aberdeenshire colleagues, Angus beef is the best quality in Scotland, which obviously means the best in the whole of the UK. To me, Angus is defined by the generosity and hard work of the people who live here—traits that you see as soon as you step foot in Arbroath. A community that has faced economic adversity but remains optimistic, Arbroath is a place where businesses like the Bell Rock and Lord Rubin’s are daring to do something different and willing to bet on Arbroath, where the community is resilient and the people are open.

Before I finish, I must pay tribute to my predecessor, Stephen Gethins. Anyone who had the privilege of working with Stephen will know that while there were many causes that he championed, there was one matter that he spoke about more than most: a quick search of Hansard tells me that Stephen Gethins said the word “Brexit” more times in this Chamber than almost anyone else. As I once overheard someone describe him in the Ferry, “He’s that lovely, smiley lad who really cares about Ukraine.” Stephen was a phenomenal representative for our community. Committed to public service, he came to each debate with grace, grit and a fierce determination to see Scotland back in the European Union. As a proud believer in Scotland’s place in the EU and as a member of the international community in its own right, I intend to carry on that part of his legacy.

I am here to show young people in my community that they should not to be afraid of the backlash or resistance that they might be met with. If you believe in a better future for Scotland, for our home, whatever that belief might be, there is a place for you. Regardless of what you look like, how you sound, and no matter your background or accent, your voice is valid and important. It can be daunting, but you should never be afraid to be who you are—your hair, tattoos, clothes or boots do not define you. There will always be those who look for an easy opportunity to tear you down, so you must have courage in yourself and stand your ground. Find others who lift you up, and be proud of your differences. Be proud to speak your mind, and do not be afraid to do things your own way.

To all the folk in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, to the young women in particular, and to Erin, you have my word that I will always stand up for you. I will lift you up. You are an inspiration to me, and I hope to do you all proud.

Back Benchers now have a time limit of two and a half minutes.

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 and hardship, ensuring financial security for all”.

The Child Maintenance Service exists to ensure that separated parents have enough money for their children, but all too often it does not manage to do that. Being a child of divorced parents myself, I know how upsetting and difficult the issue of maintenance can be and how it can be scarring for children, making the separation of parents even harder. That is why I back the Government’s plans to improve the service, so that it does a better job of bringing children out of poverty.

The Government have promised to move everyone from direct pay to collect and pay, as well as to cut the fees on collect and pay, allowing more families to transition to a system in which a third party ensures that the parent who looks after the child actually gets the money. Stronger enforcement on non payment and better systems to accurately assess income, including when the paying parent is self employed, would save the Government money.

The changes that the Government want to make require minimal funding, but would lift 20,000 children out of poverty. That would help us to make meaningful progress on two of the Government’s core commitments: tackling violence against women and girls and ending child poverty.

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 ratio is about to go into reverse: for the next few years, welfare is forecast to be lower than income tax receipts—panic over, then. Remarkably, as a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on welfare today is roughly the same as it was under Maggie Thatcher 40 years ago. Today’s welfare bill is simply not the cause of our economic problems, and neither can it be the sole solution.

Although moral panic is an overreaction, we should not relax. Cost control is always crucial, so long as we understand that today’s budget pressure is less to do with welfare and more to do with NHS demand and a general weakness in the economy. “New benefit claimants are suffering from mild anxiety,” we are told, “The need isn’t real. Why don’t they just man up?” The neat thing about this angle is that we can be mean to people in need but still feel good about ourselves. But this is a misreading of the data. Most claimants have more than one condition. If a claimant who cannot walk also has mild anxiety, they are counted only in the mild anxiety column. It is a false characterisation of a scrounger culture, and that itself is part of the reason we never fix things. Most attempts to cut the benefits bill fail. They hardly ever save as much money as they were supposed to and they can even end up costing more than they save.

I fully recognise the need to control costs and that a healthy economy is the root of a healthy benefit system, but basing national policy around the minority of claimants who do not want to help themselves is the surest way never to fix our benefit system.

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 pension represents three quarters of income in retirement for the lowest income groups, and that is set to grow. The fact is that if someone is low paid when they are at work, they will have an inadequate pension in retirement. That is why we need to acknowledge the importance of the triple lock, which has been key to raising the incomes of some of our poorest pensioners, and why we need to see it continue. I cannot talk about pensions without calling again for those women born in the 1950s who were unaware of the changes to their state pension age to receive some form of compensation.

Much has been said about the need to get young people into work, but the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper proposed removing eligibility for work related disability benefits, known as the universal credit health element, from disabled people who are under 22. We know that 94% of households with a young person claiming UC health would be in poverty if that support were cut. Abandoning the cut would make it clear that this Government are here to help people get on, not punish them for the barriers they may face.

The protection offered by our social security system should be there to ensure that no one in need falls through the gaps. That is the mark of a compassionate society and something we should be proud to advance.

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’ time, but he faces the same Back Benchers in this place, and that same environment within the Labour party exists even if the new Prime Minister actually wants to do something about the welfare bill.

The situation we find ourselves in today is that youth unemployment—among those aged 16 to 24—is over 16%, which is 729,000 people. Those not in employment, education or training stand at nearly 1 million. That is not good for them, it is not good for the economy and, crucially, it leads to the welfare bill that we have today.

The Government’s response to their failure to get their legislation through their own Back Benchers a year ago was to put the questions to the Timms review. But of course, the Timms review is there to consider, in the words of the Prime Minister and the Government, “fair and fit for the future”

funding for personal independence payment. It does not have a remit to look at future savings and reductions in the spending on PIP, so the aspiration has gone. The Milburn review into youth unemployment makes it clear: we are not talking about getting young people back into work—six out of 10 are not in work and have never had a job.

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?

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, as are the cliff edge incentives for young people and, frankly, people of any age to remain on welfare.

Of course, the Government came into office without a plan to deal with those cliff edges, which inevitably develop over time. Any Government will bring in welfare reform—they should plan for it in opposition—but over time, loopholes and cliff edges emerge that were unintended. When a new Government come in, we expect to see them implement their plans for welfare reform. Of course, this Government had none. They tried to develop plans on the hoof, but failed to do it.

It is not just young people; more than 2 million people over the age of 50 but of working age are now not working either. Most of those people would like to work—they are looking for the opportunities and the Government support to help get them back into work.

That is the end of the Back Bench contributions, so we now come to the Front Benchers. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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 some of the challenges, and there are many moving parts in the DWP. When they come to wrestle the pig, it is disturbing that they then discover that the Chancellor has set them up to fail with the national insurance hike, which has sabotaged the opportunities for many young people who then end up NEET. It is also disturbing that there has been a failure to properly reform business rates and manage utility bills, which continue to be an issue, particularly for our hospitality sector.

There is much that I had hoped to cover in this speech, but I will cover just a couple of areas. Access to Work is a scheme that can result in real opportunities for people with disabilities or long term illnesses. The Public Accounts Committee published a report on 12 June which highlighted that the target date for dealing with new Access to Work claims is five weeks, but it now takes up to 37 weeks. That puts people with disabilities and their employers in an invidious situation. Again, we need better tech to process claims, simpler systems and, as the Public Accounts Committee said, a firmer grip on the situation.

At the other end of the spectrum are the WASPI women—women who the Labour party campaigned with before the general election, made promises to and then promptly dropped like a hot potato. Labour Members said all the right things when the report came out—they even apologised—but they failed to deliver the compensation. WASPI women have again resorted to judicial review, but there need to be safeguards around the cost challenge that they face. The Government are failing to give those assurances. While it does not interfere with the judicial review, will the Minister give some assurances about the cost limitation for those campaigners? WASPI women deserve their day in court.

I would welcome the Minister commenting on what appear to be 130 job cuts at Cotswold House in Torquay, which were announced last week by the Department for Work and Pensions. There are alternative locations elsewhere in the country for those people, but there are none in Torquay. That is disturbing. The DWP took on new, young people at entry level jobs only in March, yet a few short weeks later they are effectively on notice. They either have to move to Exeter or Plymouth to work or be out of a job. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

I call the shadow Minister.

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 performance.

We cannot pretend that welfare reform is not difficult to achieve. As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said recently: “When I speak to former Welfare Secretaries, I hear the same thing again and again. Welfare reform is hard. You will be hated.”

That is why we offered our support to the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), when she attempted to bring down the benefits bill, because it was the right thing to do.

Everyone is paying more in tax to pay benefits to others. That is not fair, and it needs to change. When it comes to our welfare system, we need to be clear what we want from it. The system should be there to help people when they fall into difficulty; at the same time, it should help the most vulnerable people in our society. There are many people who simply cannot work, and they must be protected. However, we have got to a state in which too many people are reliant on the benefits system.

Let us take a look at where we have got to today. When we left office, inflation was at 2%. Unemployment was at 4.1%, and youth unemployment was at 14%. Some 6.8 million people were claiming universal credit, and 3.5 million people were claiming personal independence payments. Twenty months later, after Labour came to power, inflation has risen to 2.8%. Unemployment has risen to 4.9%, and youth unemployment has risen to 16.2%. Some 7.9 million people are claiming universal credit, which is 1.1 million more people, and 3.9 million people are claiming PIP—that is 400,000 more people. That is unsustainable.

How have we got to this position? Part of it is down to the Government’s policies around employment. The increase in employer national insurance contributions to 15% has added more costs to businesses. That means that many businesses have had to make redundancies and are hiring fewer people than before. That is especially affecting young people, hence why we now have higher youth unemployment than the European average. That is not a good thing after 20 months in power. At the same time, the Government introduced the Employment Rights Act 2025, adding even more costs and complexities to businesses. These costs to businesses are estimated at £5 billion.

When the Minister closes the debate, I am sure she will talk about the increased funding in apprenticeships, which is of course welcome. It is all well and good increasing funding for apprenticeships and employment, but it is ultimately pointless if there are no jobs available. That is what this Government seem to fail to understand. This is a crisis of their own making, and they are putting their head in the sand and pretending it is all fine. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, if it is all fine, why is the Prime Minister resigning?

When it comes to welfare specifically, we are at a point where more than half of all households are net beneficiaries of benefits. Again, that is unsustainable. The Government had the chance to reduce the benefits bill, and the Leader of the Opposition pledged our party’s support in doing that. However, the Government could not face down their own Back Benchers, so we are left waiting for the Timms review of PIP to report in the autumn, which may not even suggest making the necessary savings we should all make on PIP.

In this year alone, PIP will cost the Department an extra £3.5 billion, and universal credit will cost nearly £9 billion extra. If we stay on this trajectory, the health and disability related benefits bill could reach nearly £100 billion by the end of this Parliament. We should be acting now; instead, we are left with dither and delay.

Finally, we need to talk about fraud, which is becoming ever more pervasive—the National Audit Office found that it cost the public sector between £55 billion and £81 billion in 2023-24. That figure continues to increase year on year, so there is a real need to tackle fraud and ensure that public money is allocated correctly.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

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 year, there were 461. That is a 94% decline in convictions, and fewer than 600 individuals have been convicted in total since the general election. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) that we should be making an example of benefit cheats in the courts to disincentivise others.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be delighted to hear that I am coming to the end of my speech. Under this Government, hard working taxpayers are being asked to pay more. Many people would hope that that money would be going towards—for example—increasing the defence budget, but as this estimates day debate has highlighted, it is going to the DWP budget instead. The Government know that this is not right; indeed, the previous Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was right when she said that the Government “must not…duck the big challenges facing this country”.—[Official Report, 1 July 2025; Vol. 770, c. 164.] However, when it came to making the tough decisions, they bottled it every time. Maybe the next Government, led by the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), will do better. In his speech yesterday, he said that he would control the welfare bill, and told us to “imagine”. We on the Conservative Benches hope that his promises do not turn out to be imaginary.

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 of Aberdeen city council, he brings extensive local knowledge to this place, and I wish him well in his career at Westminster. The hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird)—who has already made a splash at Westminster—made a powerful speech today, including telling us about her choices of ice cream and pubs in her constituency and of course referencing the famous Arbroath smokies and Angus beef. Despite the limited time I have available, I will try to address as many as possible of the points Members have made, but I apologise in advance if I do not get to them all. Of course, I will respond in writing if need be.

This debate has underlined that the DWP is a really important Department, supporting millions of people, and is the bedrock of our welfare state, which is the cornerstone of a civilised society. However, the welfare system must constantly change and adapt to the challenges and circumstances we find in this day and age. That is why we are recasting the welfare system to put work, skills and opportunity at its heart.

I will start by addressing some of the recent changes to the Department. First, as hon. Members know, the DWP has taken on responsibility for adult skills from the Department for Education. This change strongly links skills and employment support to create genuine pathways into rewarding careers, supporting economic growth. We have already seen the benefits of that; the youth guarantee and the growth and skills levy demonstrate the DWP’s priority of tackling youth unemployment and investing in young people’s futures.

Secondly, the DWP now hosts the child poverty unit, which was moved from the Cabinet Office in March, reflecting the Department’s role as the centre of expertise for poverty policy and analysis. I reassure the House that we have ensured continuity of the cross Government ministerial oversight of this important policy via the interministerial group on child poverty, which I am proud to co chair and which will oversee delivery of the child poverty strategy. That strategy is all about maximising opportunity for young people and giving them the best start in life. That is why, as the centrepiece of our child poverty strategy, we have already removed the two child limit in universal credit, which will lift more than half a million children out of poverty.

Thirdly, we have seen the introduction of our new crisis and resilience fund, which is about getting people help before a crisis hits, not just afterwards. We retain the policy responsibility in the Department and have worked hard with all our key partners, including councils, the Local Government Association and community and voluntary sector organisations. As has already been said, the funding has been transferred to the local government finance settlement in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. We think that is the right approach to make the funding process simpler and easier for local authorities, which are ultimately entrusted with deciding how best to provide this financial support to their communities.

Supporting young people is the Department’s top priority. More than a million young people are not in work, education or training, and the Milburn review estimates that for every £1 that the DWP spent on employment support for young people in 2024-25, around £25 was spent on benefits for young people. That is a bad deal for young people and for the taxpayer. By 2031, that number is already expected to reduce from £25 to £10. That is what more investment in opportunity looks like. We are creating a total of half a million opportunities for young people, backed by £2.5 billion of additional investment, including our youth guarantee to ensure that every young person gets the chance to earn or learn.

I will say a few words about employment support more generally. We are investing £3.5 billion in employment support for disabled people and those with long term health conditions through our pathways to work offer. That includes Work Well and Connect to Work. I was pleased that the Select Committee recently produced a report on Connect to Work, and I was pleased to be in the Chamber for the Chair of the Select Committee’s statement on it last week.

We are partnering with employers through the “Keep Britain Working” review to build healthier and more inclusive workplaces. We are building a new jobs and careers service, and I know that the Chair of the Select Committee in particular is following that development closely. I noted her comments on safeguarding and vulnerable customers. Alongside all that, we are rewiring the welfare system by changing the law so that claimants on sickness and disability benefits have the right to try work without the fear of automatically triggering a benefit reassessment. We also have the Timms review.

I want to put things into context on welfare spending. Since this time last year, we have 400,000 more people in employment and welfare spending as a percentage of GDP continues to be broadly stable, as it has been for many years. We have slowed the increase in the number of people coming into health and disability benefits, but that is where spending is increasing most. As the Secretary of State has said, we are not circling the wagons around the status quo; we are reforming the system. We are putting work, skills and opportunity at the heart of the system. We are building not just a welfare state, but a working state that is active, efficient and fit for the times in which we live; that rejects wasting talent and potential and writing people off; and that always asks how we can help people to move into good jobs and fulfil their potential.

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 for people, including young people and disabled people—there is still a 30% disability gap—and gives them opportunities. We can reduce social security spending by £20 billion by the end of this Parliament if we have some innovation and can do things at pace. [Interruption.] This has been a wonderful debate. I thank those who have contributed. The changes that were introduced in 2017 actually caused harm, and we do not want to introduce harm that will make things worse for people; we want to make things better, and much more supportive. Do I need to keep going, Madam Deputy Speaker?

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—

Order.

Debate interrupted, and Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).