From personal experience I know the welfare system is slow, it is expensive, it is inefficient, and it is riddled with private profit taking advantage.
This all needs to change. We can and must do better.
There are a number of good things in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill debated today in Parliament which will address many of the challenges that currently exist, but it does not go nearly far enough to tackle systemic problems.
We should be helping more people into work, supporting businesses to do more and improve the efficiency of the welfare system to drive down costs. We should be doing all this – but we should not be making changes to eligibility before we’ve done all those things.
I recognise concessions were made which I very much welcomed, and I hope we end up with a Bill that achieves the right balance. There is further to go in the Parliamentary process as yet.
But the proposals before us today were in my view, rushed, they had not been consulted upon and had not been co-produced with disabled people and their advocates.
I am fully prepared to make difficult choices to rise to our challenges that exist in our country, but I will not vote for the wrong choices.
As a result of these concerns and to honour the pledge I made when elected to support disabled and vulnerable people, therefore, I voted against the welfare proposals this evening.
Terry Jermy MP
Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk
