Speeches by Kendall.

“I will always write to you. As soon as we can, we will let you know the timetable for that.”

“It is unacceptable that £10 billion pounds a year is being wasted on fraud. I think it is unacceptable for taxpayers. I also think it is unacceptable to the people who desperately rely on the social security system, because we should be focusing help on those who need it most. Peter will say more about this as well, bu…”

“I am only too well aware of the impact that it has had. I have one in three kids growing up poor in my constituency. In 2017, way before Covid, we did a survey of all our kids and young people in Leicester and one in five said their biggest worry was not having anything to eat every single day. I know the impact it has…”

“We have had the debate in the House about this. We will be looking at relative poverty after housing costs as well as absolute poverty. I am very concerned about deep poverty, which again is a big shift from when we were last in Government—over 800,000 children in households forced to rely on foodbanks—as well as the m…”

“We will look at everything. Maybe everybody says this but I want to be evidence based. I have my strong values but—as one great man once said—what matters is what works.”

“The Child Poverty Strategy across Government will look at all of the things that cause child poverty and that, crucially, can get kids out of poverty. We are looking at people’s incomes, from social security and work, because the only long-term way to tackle this issue is to have more people into better paid jobs. It w…”

“I have already met with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, their chair, chief executive, head of enforcement, and the lead on the investigation. Because it is an investigation going on, I cannot share all the specific details about it but I am absolutely engaging with them, as is the Permanent Secretary. We want…”

“Yes, you have to come at it from every level. We are a huge organisation; over 85,000 staff all over the country, contracted-out provision, in-house. We have to get everything right. We have nothing to fear from that knowledge and information and going through everything with a fine-toothed comb.”

“No, I am open to the suggestion. As the Secretary of State—and I know the Permanent Secretary agrees—I do not just want people to be safe, which is the bare minimum, I want the best possible standard of care and support for people who rely on us. I am glad that the Committee is continuing its work and I look forward to…”

“I cannot give you any more. If I gave you a date then I would have sorted it, and it needs to be sorted, but I will do it as soon as humanly possible.”

“I want to respond to this as soon as possible. I know how long this issue has taken. I think even the Ombudsman took six years to do his report. It was not responded to by the previous Government. I know that some of the WASPI women are here today in the Committee, I met the WASPI campaign when I was a shadow Secretary…”

“You rightly push me to say things, but I am not into wink-and-nudge politics; if I am going to do something I will say I will do it and I will show how I will afford it. What I am absolutely determined to do, along with the rest of the Government, is to increase the amount of housing in this country including affordabl…”

“There are many changes that I and people across Government would like to make after 14 years of a Conservative Government, but we will only make promises that we know we can afford and that we know we can keep. Some difficult decisions and priorities taken. I am only too well aware of the implications of that continued…”

“Lots of organisations have called for things like an essentials guarantee—Joseph Rowntree, Trussell Trust and others. You will know very clearly from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that we will only set out policies when we can show how we can afford them and how we can pay for them, but we have made a start on …”

“I agree with the first part of your question. The increase in the national living wage announced in the budget that will benefit 3 million low paid workers is a huge step forward. We are currently—certainly in this budget—uprating benefits in line with inflation. There are no plans to change to that at the moment but w…”

“That is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. He is acutely aware both of the need to transform social care in this country, to better support paid carers and unpaid family carers. If you are interested in respite care, that might be something the Chair would be able to ask the Chair …”

“Just because you change jobs does not mean you stop caring about the things you care about. I have been a lifelong champion of family carers, from my time as a shadow Minister for social care and as a human being as well, seeing how many more people, family, friends and constituents, are caring for an elderly or disabl…”

“Thank you, and, Chair, I will try to be shorter. I apologise. As you know, we have a very clear manifesto commitment to review Universal Credit to tackle poverty and make work pay. Those are the two absolutely central tenets of Universal Credit. I think 15 years on from when it was originally brought in is a good time …”

“If you invite me I would like to come back after our White Paper, because there will be so much more in that and I do not want to get even more on the wrong side of Mr Speaker by divulging details here. The big picture here is that we need to move our Jobcentres away from the sort of overwhelming focus on monitoring an…”

“It has to be turbo charged and I believe much more led locally because that is the place you really join it up, not here. Q23            David Pinto-Duschinsky: I will just ask a very brief question—I realise we are short of time—picking up some of the earlier them…”