Helen Whately MP
@Helen_Whately
MP for Faversham and Mid Kent. Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Keir Starmer reckons rising unemployment is a good thing. Try telling that to someone who just lost their job because of Labour’s jobs tax.
Rising unemployment a sign people are looking for work, Starmer claims on.ft.com/4lNcQ2w
Surprise, surprise... Labour eying up pensioners to fix their financial mess. Encouraging people to save more is something the @Conservatives back. But if Rachel Reeves hikes taxes on pensions and savings in the Budget, how will that help? dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
Unemployment is up again. Wage growth slowest for 3 years. This isn’t just stats. This is people’s lives we’re talking about. When Keir Starmer says he’s only just started, what will unemployment look like when he’s finished? ➡️ telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/…
After 2010 we helped millions off welfare and into work & fixed the public finances. Then Covid hit and disability & sickness benefits soared. We were bringing in reforms to fix it - but Lab have abandoned reform and we’re back to the doom loop of welfare, tax and debt.
Only @Conservatives stood up for fairness with the two-child cap today. We believe in living within your means. There has to be a limit to how much working people pay for people who have more children than they can afford.
After today's vote, yes. Sign the petition if you agree with the cap keepfairbenefits.com
Are the @Conservatives the last ones standing on the two-child benefit cap? Rumours are that Keir Starmer will ditch it in YET ANOTHER broken promise. And Reform would scrap it with their fantasy economics. Here’s my 2 minute take on what’s going on - and why the cap matters.
This is a crisis. We are becoming a welfare state with an economy attached. 28 million people working to support 28 million others. If we don’t fix this, our economy could collapse. Only the @Conservatives believe in living within our means. 🧵👇
WorkWell…designed by @Conservatives Sick note reforms…ready to launch last year. What will @wesstreeting do when he runs out of our ideas?
GPs in England will be told to send people to job coaches or to the gym, in a bid to reduce the number of sick notes issued. The WorkWell Primary Care scheme from the Government is designed to get more people back to work and will run in 15 regions of England with high levels…
Pilots for doing sick notes differently were ready to launch last summer… I know because I set them up. What took Wes Streeting so long?
GPs told to send patients to gym in bid to end 'sick note Britain' gbnews.com/news/gps-told-…
1 in 4 people describe themselves as disabled. That can’t make sense and it’s definitely not affordable. Time to draw a line in the sand on benefits for common mental health issues. Grateful to @spectator & Patrick West for picking up on a conversation which needs to be had.
Britain’s mental health crisis isn’t what you think ✍️ Patrick West spectator.co.uk/article/britai…
This was the week Keir Starmer tried to grasp the nettle of welfare cuts, but he got stung and gave up. That might seem funny if it wasn’t so serious. Labour, Reform, Lib Dems, Greens…all backed more spending. Only the Conservatives are serious about living within our means.
We’ve got “sickfluencers” selling scripts to game the system —and soaring approval rates to match. Welfare should be for those who truly need it, not those coached to game it. It’s time to restore integrity and get welfare under control.
If you can’t say what the problem is, you’ll never fix it. Labour and Reform won’t, so I will: Welfare spending is too high. It must come down.
None of the other Party leaders have the guts to fix Britain’s broken welfare system. @KemiBadenoch does.