Pat McFadden's speech to Labour Party Conference 2026

Pat McFadden, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, speech to Labour Party Conference 2026

"Thank you Conference, and it's great to be back in Liverpool, a city that has given so much to this country and to the wider world.

And I want to begin today by thanking my Ministerial team at the DWP for the hard work that they do every day on an agenda that is so important to the country.

Now, many years ago we had a Labour Prime Minister from the North. And he said the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing. Harold Wilson, 1962. And today, with another Prime Minister from the North, our crusade for these times is to give hope and opportunity to the young. And that means asking ourselves what we owe one another and what we expect from one another. It's a question that goes to the heart of the kind of country we want to be.

Labour has always believed it is the mark not only a decent society but a strong one that help is there for those who need it. We will always believe that. And we showed that this year with a rise in the new state pension of £575 for the pensioners of this country.

And we will show it next year when the Pensions Commission reports on how to secure dignity in retirement for tomorrow's pensioners. And we will show it again as we make sure the welfare state meets the challenges of new times.

Because as well as cherishing the welfare state,  from enacting Beveridge to the Open University to the New Deal with New Labour, we have always renewed it to make it fit for the future. 

And today we must do so again - to put work and opportunity at its heart. I want us to change the question that the system asks from what benefit are you entitled to, to how do we help you live the fullest life?

This is the question for today's times. It's a bigger question. It's  a deeper question.  And most of all, Conference, this is the Labour question to ask when it comes to the welfare state. 

Now, almost a million young people are not in education, employment or training. Young lives with whole futures in front of them. £25 pounds spent on inactivity for every £1 spent on getting people into work. It is the wrong way round. In fact, it's shameful, it's unacceptable and we will change it.

The best way to bring the welfare bill down is to put work and opportunity at the heart of the system, to give people the chance of education, of training, of a decent job, of a full life and that's what we will do.

We do not discharge our governmental responsibilities, let alone fulfill our progressive ideals, simply by giving people enough money to keep body and soul together. That is not enough. Our ambition must be higher than that. We don't just owe people an income.  We owe them a future too and that is what the system should be built around. This is the cause of our times a national cause, yes for Government but for business, for unions, for the whole of society, right across generations.

Tell me, what parent and grandparent does not want the best for their children and grandchildren? What better goal is there to rally around? What is more in the national interest than empowering young people to take the country forward?

And we have made a start. A Youth Guarantee £2.5 billion pounds invested in opportunity in the coming years; £3000 for businesses that give a young person their first job; 50,000 more youth apprenticeship starts; 300,000 more work experience places for the many young people who have never had a job. And for the long term young unemployed a Jobs Guarantee  -  a real, paid job often for the first time in their lives.

I met the first young people hired under the scheme at Boots in Nottingham a few weeks ago. Young people who had been on the dole for two, three ,sometimes four years. Imagine what that does to your sense of yourself, your confidence, your belief. Would you even believe in the future at all? But within weeks in work, through Labour's Jobs Guarantee, the people I met did believe. They were full of optimism, they were  full of confidence and most of all  they were full of hope for the future. That's what work can do, Conference.  It's not just about earning a wage, vital though that is. It's about pride and purpose. It's about your identity. It's about knowing you earned that money, you went out there and you worked for it. This is what Labour has always believed and what we believe today. 

Now, I hear a lot of talk from our opponents about Broken Britain.  But let me tell you, when I met those young people in Nottingham; when I met the apprentices at Cammell Laird a few miles from here building the first new ferry across the Mersey for 60 years; when I met young people with learning disabilities at Mencap a few weeks ago - every single one of whom wanted to work; when I met all of them I did not see Broken Britain. I saw a Britain full of promise, full of possibility and full of ambition. And that's the Britain that we believe in. So, don't let them tell you, don't let them tell you that this great country is broken. Don't let them tell you the young people of this country are a generation of snowflakes and shirkers. Tell them instead that we believe in the young people of this country that's the message from this conference and this party. 

What kind of patriotism is it that attacks your own younger generation?  Our belief in our country says we will lift you up and give you a chance we won't blame you for the challenges you face.

And also tell our opponents this, that the current system they rail against every day is the one they built, they designed and they failed to reform for 14 years when they were in office. 

The Youth Guarantee is a good start but there is more to do. Young disabled people are often told the kindest thing that Government can do is sign them off and write them off. Well, not any more. 

Today I can tell you that from next April we will make the Jobs Guarantee available to young disabled people after just three months. Guaranteed paid work for six months at guaranteed living wage rates. Paid work with the support to hold on to it. Not signed off not written off.  But backed by us to work, to earn, to build a life. That is the change that we are making.

And let me tell you why all of this is so urgent. It's not just about the financial cost of where we are - although that is too high but even more urgently it's about the human cost.

A young person who signs on for sickness benefits when they are twenty years old is now more likely to reach the age of thirty and still be on them than to have held down a steady job in any one of the intervening years. 

A young person under twenty-five on the health element of Universal Credit is now less likely to find work than someone over fifty-five on the very same benefit.

And worse of all a young person left out of work is far more likely to die before their time than the friends they sat beside in school.

We should not accept it.  We have to change it.

Conference, this status quo is not a system around which to circle the wagons.  It's a system to change so that we can give a chance to life for the people it too often signs off and writes off. Now, let me tell you, for those who can never work a life of security and dignity should always be there. That is the mark of a decent society. And with us it will always be there. But for those that can, a job is one of the best things that can happen to them. And that's not just an economic policy.  It's a statement about what we believe and value.

I know that growing up can be hard.  And I know that parents out there are sometimes struggling.  But we should never allow our understanding of that to slide into the low expectations that says the best we can offer you is a life on benefits. 

We owe people so much more than that.  We have two impotant reviews in place from Alan Milburn and the Timms Panel.  And they will report shortly.  And when they do, there will be decisions to make and responsibilities to take.  How we have a new system focussed on opportunity. How we move from asking what are you entitled to to asking how do we change your life. And how we offer you not just an income but a future too.

That's what the welfare state must do in this century. And it falls to us, the party which did so much to create it, the party that holds it dear, to embrace the change needed. And when we do it is not because this is some tough decision forced on us by necessity.  It is because it is the right decision driven by our beliefs and values.

Because it is the moral crusade of our times. And because on it depends the future of so many people in our country. 

So let's get on and do it.

Thank you very much."