Speeches by Kendall.

“I am determined to put transparency at the heart of the DWP, so I have today published 31 reports that were sat on by the previous Government—something that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability has long campaigned for. Under this Government’s leadership, the DWP will be honest about the …”

“I know that the hon. Gentleman has focused over many years on health and healthcare issues, and I would say to him that we are in this situation because his Government left a £22 billion black hole in the public finances. Unlike Conservative Members, we take our responsibilities seriously, and I would urge him to work …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I welcome her to her position as Chair of the Select Committee. Alongside our work to increase pension credit uptake, the household support fund is available for those just above the pension credit level. My own council has done a lot of work to make sure that pensioners jus…”

“My hon. Friend raises a very important point. This is not just about urging people to come forward and claim. We are writing to pensioners on housing benefit for the first time ever, and I am determined to bring forward the merger of housing benefit and pension credit, which the former Government delayed for years. I v…”

“I would urge all hon. Members in this House to work with their local councils, as I am doing, to make sure that those on housing benefit and other pensioners know what they are entitled to, and to make sure that their councils know that the household support fund—the £421 million we have set aside this year, despite al…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would make that point in response to the faux outrage of Conservative Members, who left 880,000 pensioners, the very poorest, not getting the pension credit they are entitled to. I urge all hon. Members to work with us that their local councils to ensure pensioners get the money to…”

“This has been a really important debate about a serious issue, with many heartfelt contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the new Chair of the Treasury Committee, forensically set out the delayed and deferred decisions by the former Government that have put such pr…”

“I will give way to the former Chair of the Treasury Committee.”

“I could not have put it better myself: there is faux outrage from Conservative Members about those just above the pension credit threshold, when it was their former Tory Chancellor, George Osborne, who took a red pen to it, meaning its value decreased, creating some of the problems we are now having to deal with. There…”

“I will come on to extra help for those just above the threshold in a moment, but I want to spell out what we are doing on pension credit. We have done more to increase pension credit uptake in the last two months than Conservative Members did in 14 years. We have written to all local authorities to ask them to identify…”

“I will not. But the truth we had to confront coming into office was that up to 880,000 of the very poorest pensioners are not even claiming the pension credit that they are entitled to. That is a national scandal, and we are determined to make that change. The previous Government did nothing to tackle this issue proper…”

“I know the right hon. Gentleman will care about the increase in uptake in pension credit that we need, and that he will also care about those just above the threshold, which I will turn to later on. That is a really important issue and I will address it head on, but first I want to spell out the principle underlying th…”

“Is that the reason why Conservative Members never took the action needed to increase pension credit uptake? We take a different approach. All the savings the Chancellor has announced take into account the increased uptake that we want and intend to achieve. When money is so tight, it cannot be right that all pensioners…”

“I have never seen the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) do a comic turn quite like that. Opposition clearly suits him, but if he wants to lead his party out of its catastrophic defeat, he will have to do a lot better. I am honoured to close today’s debate, not only as I am speaking from this side of the …”