The second reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill begins at 1.40pm today.
The vote is expected at 7.00pm
You can watch the debate live on parliament tv here.
We won’t be giving a blow-by-blow account of the debate, but you are welcome to comment on proceedings below the line.
4-point PIP rule is gone
The 4-point PIP rule is effectively dead as Labour makes its biggest concession yet. Timms has just told the House: "I can announce that we are going to remove the clause five from the bill at committee, that we will move straight to the wider review, sometimes referred to as the Timms review, and only make changes to Pip eligibility, activities and descriptors following that review."
Clause 5 is the 4-point rule, so that is now gone. Instead, the Timms review will decide what happens to PIP. And if, as Labour have promised, the review is genuinely coproduced with disabled people there is very little chance of such a rule ever happening. And if Labour did try to force it into the review decision they would be likely to face an even worse rebellion than the one they have just suffered,
This seems to mean that the main purpose of the bill is now to take money from future recipients of the UC health element and to introduce the severe conditions criteria.
Jessica Elgot of the Guardian is reporting on Bluesky that the government are considering more concessions whilst Arj Sigh of the i paper says crisis talks between Angela Rayner and the rebels on changes to PIP rules being put off until after Timms has carried out his review.
Rachel Maskell's reasoned amendment has been selected by the speaker for a vote. This is the rebel amendment which has 39 Labour signatures. It will be voted on at the end of the dabate. If it doesn't pass then MPs will vote on the main bill.
Debbie Abrahams, chair of the Commons work and pensions committee has confirmed this afternoon that she will "not be supporting the bill".
Given that the new amendment calling for the bill not to have a second reading got only 39 Labour signatures, most media commentators are predicting that Labour will get the bill though, though by a relatively narrow margin. More than just these 39 Labour MPs are expected to vote against or abstain.
But the reality is that nobody can be certain, because the rebels are not a unified group and much may depend on whether Liz Kendall makes a better job of today’s proceedings than she did of yesterday’s.
