Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Monday, the 21st of July, the Prime Minister was questioned by the senior MPs who make up

the liaison committee ahead of Westminster's summer break.

Because Sirkeir Stamer won a big landslide in the election last year, a lot of

chairs of key select committees are held by Labour MPs. So when those committee chairs all come

together to question the Prime Minister, he'll get an easy time from all those Labour people, right?

All nodding happily at his policies, yes? This was poor legislation. It was designed to save money for the Treasury by cutting support to sick and disabled people.

It was so far removed from labour values of fairness and social justice, let alone compassion and common decency.

I have to say, I felt ashamed.

The chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Debbie Abrams,

and one of those Labour MPs who forced the government into abandoning its plans

to restrict who can get the disability benefit PIP three weeks ago.

The Prime Minister replied in his own way.

I think this is a really important labour value.

I think the fact

that there are nearly a million young people out of work, not earning or learning, is a huge

challenge for our country. None of us should be accepting of a system that operates like that. It

is broken. It needs to be mended. But Debbie Abrahams had wanted to talk about disabled people.

The fear and anxiety that to talk about disabled people.

The fear and anxiety that this caused to disabled people currently in the system cannot be underestimated.

I just wondered what you like to say to them now and what you will be doing differently in the future.

PIP is paid to people both in employment and not.

...