A significant portion of my time this month has been devoted to dealing with the fallout from the Government’s Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. 

My constituency team and I have been working hard to answer the many concerned emails we have received and have tried to provide guidance for those affected as the Government scrambled to give their final verdict leaving thousands of vulnerable people in the lurch all the while. I found this immensely frustrating, and it should not have taken a major rebellion for the Government to realise that these cuts would cause significant damage to some of the most vulnerable and risk creating a false economy by forcing some people out of work.

The Government should still pull this bill and go back to the drawing board. This chop-and-change approach is no way to run our country or reform the welfare system. The Government must scrap this flawed legislation and work cross-party to actually bring down the welfare bill by getting more people into work and fixing our broken health and care systems. 

It is clear that the welfare bill is too high, but if the Government was serious about cutting welfare spending it would get serious about fixing health and social care, to tackle chronic ill-health at its root.

Now is the time for the Government to take their fingers out of their ears and realise the country is in desperate need of a change of course, taking the bold and ambitious steps needed to break with years of decline under the Conservatives. That does not start by trying to cut funding from carers and some of the most vulnerable and we will continue to oppose this approach every step of the way. 

I have submitted several Written Questions to this effect and will continue pressuring the Government to introduce fair reforms to sustainably and effectively support more people into work without leaving thousands of Britons around the country out in the cold.