Liz Kendall, secretary of state for work and pensions.
Liz Kendall has been named as the new secretary of state for work and pensions
Kendall has been an MP since 2010 and was shadow secretary of state for work and pensions from September 2023.
She presents a mixed picture in relation to her support for incapacity and disability benefits claimants.
Kendall came fourth in the 2015 Labour leadership election, where she said that the party had to support welfare benefits reforms or face being out of power for decades.
She was the only leadership candidate to back the Conservative government’s benefits cap.
But in September 2023, when the conservatives proposed changes to make the work capability assessment harder to pass, Kendall argued that this was just “tinkering at the edges of a failing system”:
“But if you run your NHS into the ground for 13 years and let waiting lists for physical and mental health soar, if you fail to reform social care to help people caring for their loved ones, and if your sole aim is to try and score political points rather than reforming the system to get sick and disabled people who can work the help they really need, you end up with the mess we have today.
“A system that is failing sick and disabled people, that is failing taxpayers, and failing our country as a whole. Britain deserves far better than this.”
According to theyworkforyou.com, Kendall has a strong record in voting for paying higher benefits for those unable to work due to illness or disability and against a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
In April this year she challenged the then secretary of state for work and pensions Mel Stride to say “on what evidential basis he stated to The Telegraph on 20 March 2024 that GPs were signing people off work for feeling down and bluesy.”
In March, Kendall told the Demos think tank that Labour would recruit 8,500 more mental health workers and that the sickness benefits bill would fall under Labour.
“Under our changed Labour party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits,” she warned.
She argued that work is good for mental health, saying: “We know that if you’re in good work, your relapses can be cut by a third or even half. That’s better for you. It’s better for the NHS, it’s better for taxpayers.”
In June of this year, Kendall told the Guardian that the Labour would investigate the carer’s allowance overpayment scandal and that it would be an “absolute priority” for her.
Alison McGovern – DWP minister, role not yet revealed
McGovern has been an MP since 2010.
She is chair of Progressive Britain, a think tank on the right wing of the Labour Party.
She was the Shadow Minister for Employment and Social Security until the election and it is likely that this is the post she has been given at the DWP.
According to theyworkforyou.com, Kendall has a strong record in voting for paying higher benefits for those unable to work due to illness or disability and against a reduction in spending on welfare benefits.
In response to a Conservative plan to create “skills bootcamps” for unemployed people in order to reduce reliance on foreign labour, McGovern said in May of this year:
“It is Labour who have the plan to get Britain working by cutting NHS waiting lists, reforming job centres, making work pay and supporting people into good jobs across every part of the country.”
Sir Stephen Timms MP – DWP minister but role not yet revealed
Timms has been an MP since 1994. He was a minister under Tony Blair, serving in the DWP and the Treasury
He has also served as shadow minister for employment and shadow secretary of state for work and pensions.
Until the election was called, he was chair of the work and pensions select committee and was generally supportive of claimants on incapacity and disability benefits. His appointment as a DWP minister is probably the best news so far and there seems a strong chance that he will be minister for disabled people.
In January 2022 Timms used his power to publish a report “The uses of health and disability benefits” which deals in part with the unmet needs of benefits claimants and which the DWP had been fighting for years to keep secret.
In March 2022, Timms attacked the DWP’s “culture of secrecy” when it failed to support research into whether there is a link between benefits sanctions, ill health and even suicide.
In September 2022, Timms’ committee asked the DWP to help with the cost of living crisis by pausing deductions from benefits where a claimant owes the department money, perhaps because of an overpayment or loan. The DWP refused.
Timms committee also produced a report in April 2023, ‘Health assessments for benefits’, which thousands of Benefits and Work members contributed to. Amongst the report’s recommendations were:
Claimants should be paid an assessment rate of PIP if the DWP takes too long to carry out an assessment.
Claimants should be able to choose whether to have a face-to-face, telephone or video assessment.
The deadline for returning ESA50, UC50 and PIP2 forms should be extended to two months.
More weight should be given to evidence provided by carers and family members in relation to benefits claims.
Young people in receipt of DLA should not be required to claim PIP until they are 18.
The DWP should publish anonymized data every year on all instances of death or serious harm associated with health assessments and set out what steps it has taken to prevent them happening again.
