Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Lord Adebowale

Monday 11th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I do not know that I agree. I arrived in this country and knew nothing about it. I had no job or anything else. Particularly if you have come from another country, it really does not much matter where you settle provided that you have the school that you want. Wales has always had a marvellous reputation for literacy, and I am quite sure that the schools would be good there. You want to be able to live in a safe, clean environment. Again, Wales is a beautiful country. I am a New South Welshman myself.

I do not want to be frivolous in this very serious debate. The one thing that we all have in common in this Chamber tonight is that none of us wants to see restrictions on anything. However, we just have to be realistic and look at the common sense of it. If we do not have the money to afford things, we cannot attempt to do it. It is all very well to think that you can do everything for everyone. I read in the statistics, which I think someone else quoted, that there was a 60% welfare increase under the previous Government between 2003 and 2010. Every household had to pay more than £3,000 a year to meet that extra increase of 60%, and the fact that we went too far and spent too much then is of course catching up with us now. It would be lovely if these things did not happen. However, this has happened and we have to try to put a stop on it, at least to be sure that we do not go on for ever.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, spoke early on about how we denigrate people as being workshy. Again, when I was in dental practice we had only a very poor catchment area near us because the only way people could get to work was by bus. There was absolute overemployment in the country, but we would go to the jobcentre and get nice young people to come and start work. We made the mistake originally of giving them keys to the surgery. That was a big mistake because most of them did not last a week. Then you would phone and say, “Where is Joanie? We were expecting her at work”, and someone would say, “Oh no, she never gets out of bed before midday. We can’t do anything with her”. So this is not a new problem. There have always been people who did not want to work, but there are others who do. That is the tragedy today; plenty of people desperately want to work but cannot find the work, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, suggested about Wales. It really is a major problem.

However, the more difficult the world and the more difficult these situations, the more we have to address them. We cannot go on believing that it will all work out all right in the end, just keep your fingers crossed. I was very impressed with the speech by the noble Lord, Lord German. I have never heard him speak before, but he clearly understands all the technical terminology, which I cannot claim to understand at all. The noble Lord said that at the moment all these taxes hit the richest hardest. That is true, because they are paying the biggest bit. Someone else, who I think was on the other side—no, it was that marvellous noble Lord in the back row here. I cannot pronounce his name; it is a bit too difficult for me—

[Lord Adebowale]

It is Adebowale, an old Yorkshire name meaning Adebowale.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Thank you very much. The noble Lord said that some are hit harder than others and that to be hit hard if you are rich is not nearly as difficult as if you are poor. Every one of us would agree with that statement, so these things are not simple.

There was talk about food banks. The other day we had a question about food banks, which are a good idea. It is a disappointment that you might have to use a food bank but at least there is something there. When people talk about the difficulty of having to choose whether to warm the house or feed their children, surely food banks are better than leaving your child hungry. I can see someone disagreeing with me, but whatever I say, someone will disagree with me because there are two definite views on this. However, we have to be realistic.

I noticed that the right Reverend Prelate—was it the same Lord Bishop who is in his place? No, I think it was the previous one—the Bishop of Leicester said that it was just a short-term saving and that people were having to pay some element of council tax for the first time. Again, I think that council tax is perhaps one of the better forms of tax and that councils take into account where people really need help. I notice that even in business rates there is a provision whereby you can apply to have your business rates reduced, and that might enable you to stay in business and go on employing people who are working for you. Things are not that easy. The internet is destroying lots of shopping centres. There are issues there.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, made points that I agreed with strongly. He talked about the deserving and the undeserving. That seems to be the tag that they are giving us today. I remember Keith Joseph, in the days when he was very involved, talking about the cycle of deprivation. I have always thought that that still exists. If you do not know how to live frugally and do things for yourself, you cannot teach your children the same things because you do not know them to pass them on. This is very important. When times are hard for some people, they tend to buy food that is expensive and not necessarily nutritious. We get all the talk about obesity even in the very poor, and that is because the food that they can buy that is cheap is the worst for health. All these things are difficult.

The noble Lord referred to the climate of uncertainty and fear that we are trying to create—I do not know whether he said that we were trying to create it or whether we had done so—but that is certainly not the intention. There are things that we could do. I am strongly supportive of old people having bus travel passes or of transportability for people. Again, we did a great survey when I was chairman of social services and we discovered that the best thing possible was for people to continue to be mobile and to get around. If they could not afford the fares, they could not do that, and that added to the national health bill. If we are looking for a good economic thing, one of the good things is to keep people mobile and moving around as much as possible. The other things that are much more difficult are how to occupy them.

We have created a culture of dependency. As I said, those benefits went up 60%. This is the realistic situation that we have to bring back into line. The Bill has been demonised today in a way that is not fair. This side cares very much about people. It is simply that the answers are not easy. We would all like to do everything to help everyone, but you just cannot have it all ways. For that reason, I support the Bill.