Helen Whately MP addresses Conservative Party Conference 2026

Today [Tuesday 6^th October], Helen Whately MP, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, delivered his speech at Conservative Party Conference 2026.

Please see the full text of the speech below:

Checked against delivery

Conference.

Let me take you back to January 1976.

ABBA's Mamma Mia is number 1 in the charts.

We are between the blackouts of the early 1970s,

and the IMF bail-out is soon to come.

Inflation is at twenty-three per cent.

The Leader of the Opposition stands up to warn the country,

that it's time to change our priorities in the face of a growing threat.

The Soviet Union, she says, put guns before butter. 

But in Labour's Britain,

We put just about everything before guns.

What Margaret Thatcher said then is true once again.

Our country is living beyond its means.

Our economy has stagnated

We're borrowing and taxing way too much.

Welfare has ballooned and we are failing, failing utterly, to invest enough in Defence.

Last week, Andy Burnham said everything is going to be okay, if we hope hard enough.

He told us his plans for more regulation, more state control and more public spending.

Well, Mamma Mia, here we go again.

The 1970s Britain was the result of decades of misjudgement.

We thought our victory in the Second World War meant we could reap the rewards of peace.

Countries we defeated, like West Germany and Japan,

invested in their heavy industries.

America invested in defence, science and infrastructure.

Here in Britain, we built Beveridge's welfare state.

A noble ambition, but what we created has grown far beyond anything he envisaged.

A welfare system intended to keep poverty at bay and help people dreadfully injured in war, now funds people to get free cars for acne and tennis elbow.

Let's talk about the size, and the sheer scale,

of today's welfare system.

We're spending £170 billion a year on working age welfare.

Two and a half times more than we spend on Defence.

And that's paying for the benefits of 6 million people who are not working.

Conference, 6 million.

We must, of course, look after people too sick, too disabled, to work.

We're a civilised society.

We're compassionate.

We want a safety net to be there for people in desperate need.

But that's not six million people.

It's simply not true that one in seven people of working age in this country is unable to work.

Adam Smith wrote that a nation's prosperity depends on the share of its people in useful work.

By that measure, we are in deep trouble.

Those millions of people on benefits,

absent from the workforce,

Mean our economy is billions smaller than it could be.

Instead of their contribution, we are racking up a massive welfare bill,

funded by borrowing and higher taxes,

taxes biting ever harder on fewer people.

Wealth creators are leaving the country.

Businesses are battening down the hatches.

Everyday people going out to work are asking themselves why they bother.

Instead of growing, our economy grinds slower.

We get poorer and weaker.

Day by day, less able to defend ourselves from the threats our country faces.

Just at the exact moment when we need to get stronger,

we have a Labour Party in charge who want to spend more on welfare,

and a Prime Minister who won't dare to take them on.

Just a few weeks ago at Prime Minister's Questions, Andy Burnham said one of the least prime ministerial things I've ever heard.

He told us, with pride, that he puts social security before national security.

He's wrong.

A government's first duty is defence of the nation.

National security starts with fixing welfare.

That's why I'm here today, on the stage, alongside Tom and James.

Because we know we can't have a strong country with a broken welfare state.

The cost of benefits means we can't afford to defend ourselves.

Millions of people not working means a smaller economy.

But it's more than that.

It's about the turn our society has taken and who we are as a country.

The decline of personal responsibility and resilience.

The expectation that your problem is the state's problem.

The growing belief that if you need something,

the state should provide it.

And if something goes wrong in your life, the state should fix it.

In my grandparent's generation, 16 years olds lied about their age to enlist and go to war.

It's a far cry from today, when TikTok sick-fluencers tell young people how to game the benefits system.

To have a stronger country, we must change this culture.

We will start our welfare reform with common sense principles.

Fairness,

contribution,

and welfare as a safety net, not a lifestyle choice.

A fairer system means people who are working are better off than those who choose not to work and claim benefits instead.

Recognising contribution means we will back people who do the right thing, who work hard and pay in.

But anyone can fall on hard times.

That's when the safety net comes in.

It's there to help you get by, and then get back into work,

not for welfare to become your way of life.

These principles underpin our plan to mend Britain's broken benefits system.

Two weeks ago, I announced our plan to tackle long term unemployment.

We will o longer allow people who can work to live a lifestyle on benefits, year after year.

After six months their benefits will be cut by a third,

and paid onto the Back to Work card, which can't be used for alcohol, cigarettes or gambling.

Some people say it's patronising to tell people how to spend their benefits.

It isn't.

The money we're talking about was earned by someone else.

Someone who went to work, and then paid their taxes.

Let's be clear.

if you sit at home,

choosing not to work,

claiming welfare,

it's not your money,

it's taxpayers' money.

But if you have worked and paid in, you will get your full benefits for longer because anyone can fall on hard times and your contribution should count.

Fairness also means putting British people first in our welfare system.

Over a million foreign nationals are on benefits, or living in social housing, or both.

For some, it's a reason to come here.

Migrants cram into boats on the channel because they believe the great British public will give them money and a house.

And they will keep coming unless and until we say no, no more.

So we will stop benefits for foreign nationals, saving billions, and freeing up 230,000 social homes. 

Britain must not be a cash machine for the world.

We will reform our sickness benefits system.

Claims have doubled since 2019, but the country is not twice as sick.

1 in 4 people now consider themselves disabled.

That's more than when millions of servicemen and women returned from the Second World War.

Too many people are being defined by a diagnosis, not by what they can achieve.

ADHD benefit claimants today outnumber soldiers.

How did Great Britain become this country?

That is an important question,

one that needs proper thinking.

The answer won't be on the back of a fag packet.

That's why we are doing a root and branch review of our sickness benefit system to design a new one.

Already, I can tell you now,

we will restore face to face assessments,

we will stop cash handouts for milder conditions, instead we'll offer treatment and support to work.

Parking people on benefits is neither kind nor compassionate, it's morally wrong,

and Conference, we won't stand for it.

We will confront the change in our culture.

That if others have it, then you are entitled to it too.

To me, that isn't the British way.

Don't look to other people to do the hard work to pay for your lifestyle.

If you want it, you should earn it.

Which brings me to the two-child benefit cap.

We want every child to have the best start in life.

Personal responsibility means providing for your family.

When working parents have another child, they don't get a pay rise.

They sit at the kitchen table and work out how they can afford it.

Families on benefits should face the same choices.

That's why we brought in the two-child cap,

and that's why Conservatives will bring it back.

These policies don't write themselves.

I'm backed by a fantastic shadow Work and Pension team

Andrew, Joe, Peter, Debbie, Amanda and Graham.

Last conference we found Kemi £23 billion of welfare savings.

Now, we have found, billions more.

Savings that mean we can cut taxes and our economy can grow,

we can bring down the deficit,

and we can fund 3% of GDP on Defence.

But it's not just about the savings,

this is about doing the right thing.

Our current system squanders the talent and potential of millions of people.

Every time the state steps in, it takes away something too,

independence, resilience and control of your future.

But work, that gives you purpose, dignity and money of your own in your pocket.

The chance to own a home, bring up a family, and make something of your life, because the best form of welfare is a well-paid job.

But Conference, Labour will not fix our welfare system.

They are, after all, the welfare party.

All they want to do is tax people more, to put up benefits.

The country has had enough of that.

We Conservatives know what needs to be done

Under Kemi our party has changed,

more united, more principled, more Conservative.

No more taxpayers being taken for a ride.

The load will be lightened.

The albatross of our inflated welfare bill will no longer hang round our neck.

Our economy will grow.

There'll be fewer people taking out and more people putting in.

We'll start to know what prosperity feels like again, 

and what it is to be a force in the world.

That is how we will get Britain working again.

Conference, thank you.