My speeches and debates in Parliament - Alison McGovern MP

Here are my most recent appearances in Parliament, including my speeches in the Chamber and other debates, as well as questions I’ve put to Government ministers.

To see my latest news, including my work here on the Wirral, click here.

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

The hon. Gentleman has obviously missed the fact that working age benefits have been frozen for four years. That is a real terms cut. Will he just explain to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing that report to the House. Does she not agree that, contrary to what the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland said, life is full of unforeseen...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

The hon. Gentleman is being characteristically generous with his time. Will he answer a simple question? How does the two-child policy provide an incentive to work when children, by definition,...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

To be clear, not one thing that I or any Opposition Member said criticised the work of the people on the frontline for the DWP. It is the Conservative party’s policies relating to the DWP...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

Does my hon. Friend agree that this poor decision making fatally undermines the relationship between the citizen and the state, and that it must make his constituents wonder what kind of country...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

I thank the hon. Lady for making that important point, and that is the entire point of the welfare state at all: our circumstances can change overnight through no fault of our own. And the idea...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

Let me try this another way. The people whom the hon. Gentleman has mentioned who are suffering from addiction deserve our sympathy, empathy and solidarity, and they deserve help, but so does the...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

If the hon. Gentleman really wants to argue with me, then be my guest.

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because he has illustrated exactly the point that I am making. I have every sympathy and every empathy with people who suffer from addiction and...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

My hon. Friend has made his point well. We all know that the DWP is failing because we see it every day, but why is that failure happening? I think it is pretty obvious from the DWP’s...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

The hon. and learned Lady will know that I believe in the pooling and sharing of resources across the United Kingdom. If the Scottish Government have found evidence that there is a way of aiding...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

I thank my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that intervention. He brings me to the point that I was just about to make, which was what Beveridge might have thought of what we have...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

The hon. Gentleman is a fellow member of the Treasury Committee and I thank him for his intervention. That is an interesting forecast. I do not think that dealing with the injustices would cost...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

The hon. Gentleman asks about the 2017 manifesto. I simply remind him that before the publication of the manifestos in that election most people expected the Conservative party to get a stonking...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Conservative leadership election feels like the reversal of politics as I had come to know it. I had always expected that Labour would be on the...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

My hon. Friend makes an effective point—which I will come to—about the position of the WASPI women, born in the 1950s. They dealt with challenges in the labour market that I have...

Department for Work and Pensions

Commons debates

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to lead this debate on the Department for Work and Pensions public spending estimates. In so doing, I shall explain what I think are the...

Poverty: Social Security

Oral Answers to Questions - Treasury

Alison McGovern made a speech in the House of Commons

The Chancellor has been brave recently, speaking out on how no deal will impact our economy. Poverty will only get worse if we face no deal, so will the Chief Secretary be as brave as the...