Speeches by Abbott.

“Does my hon. Friend agree that far too many people do not have confidence in the face of authority, and that if a doctor raises assisted suicide with them—no matter how tactfully or professionally—they will feel that they are being steered in that direction?”

“It is indeed a political choice. I would prefer my Government to introduce a wealth tax or some taxation system that asks the very wealthy to pay a little more than take money away from the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. But the Government refuse to accept that there is anything wrong with cutting b…”

“The Minister has again repeated the line that the number of people claiming PIP has shot up and that there must be something dubious about that. I ask him to look at the New Economics Foundation report that came out today, which says that the reasons why the number of people claiming has gone up are a rise in the numbe…”

“We undoubtedly need more information before we can meaningfully vote on these proposals. Some of us are old enough to remember Mrs Thatcher and her poll tax, which was her undoing. It is not too late to drop the winter fuel tax and the cuts to PIP. I plead with my Government to do so.”

“I entirely agree, and I would add that if Ministers think that the recent local election results were bad, they should wait until next year’s council elections in Scotland, Wales, big city conurbations such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and every single London borough. There are people in No. 10 who believe …”

“There is no question but that my hon. Friend is correct. These cuts will put even more pressure on local authorities, which are already in difficulties. There is all this talk about getting disabled people into jobs—what jobs? The areas of employment where there are labour shortages tend to be minimum wage, like social…”

“I entirely agree. Furthermore, it seems to me that Ministers have not really looked into the costs that PIP is covering, otherwise they would not be talking about slashing it in this way. I wonder whether it ever occurs to the Government that voters will begin to notice that whenever they want money, they take it from …”

“Far from enabling the Government to put people into work, removing PIP will actually stop people working, because they depend on PIP for the extra cost of going to work. Perhaps the most preposterous argument for cutting disability payments is that it is the moral choice. This is obviously nonsense. In what universe is…”

“It is indeed a cruel and brutal system that needs reform. It does not need cuts. Elements of the Labour party seem to want to claim that the loss of the by-election in Runcorn and the fact that Labour lost two thirds of the council seats we were defending was all about immigrants. However, voter surveys show that, far …”

“PIP is certainly not an income, and I imagine that the Minister will be in contact with Leicester city council to try to understand what it thinks it is doing. The new points system that the Government are suggesting for people to qualify for the maximum level of PIP is particularly concerning. For instance, it will me…”

“I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We need an equality impact assessment now, and I cannot understand why the Government are introducing these random welfare benefit cuts without allowing MPs to understand fully what the consequences will be. The fact that the proposed welfare cuts come on top of the cut to the …”

“I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government insist that the rising disability benefits bill means that something must be done, but in a recent report, the New Economics Foundation revealed that the disability benefits bill has risen because there has been a rise in the number of disabled people and a rise in d…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered Personal Independence Payment and disabled people. I am proud to have secured this debate today, and to be able to stand up for the disabled in the light of the catastrophic effects that the proposed cut to personal independence payments will have on them. This is the week …”

“Just to respond to the point that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) has just raised, the guidelines did not pick out race and ethnicity. In fact, they listed a number of circumstances in which a pre-sentence report might be considered appropriate, such as someone facing their first custodial sentence…”

“My hon. Friend refers to blockages. How can he describe Members of this House, and people in the community who are trying to stand up for a fair and just criminal justice system, as blockages?”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“I entirely agree with Members who are making the case that we should all be equal before the law. The problem is that the figures show that that is not the case, and it has not been the case for decades. If we look at the statistics for the numbers of people in prison, black people make up 12% of the prison population,…”

“The Sentencing Council has at no point suggested treating defendants differently according to their ethnicity or religion. All it has tried to do is ensure that judges and magistrates have the maximum information.”

“Nobody is trying to stop judges sentencing in individual cases. All the Sentencing Council was seeking to do was ensure that judges and magistrates had the maximum amount of information before coming to a decision on the sentence.”

“I can say with confidence that the Sentencing Council is talking about issues to do with race and criminal justice because of a history, going back decades, of problematic issues in relation to race and criminal justice. I will come to those later. The independence of the Sentencing Council is crucial, and the idea tha…”