Business of the House

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The motivation behind the introduction of the universal credit, which I hope is supported by Members on both sides of the House, is to ensure that it always pays to work. My hon. Friend will know that the relevant legislation has gone through, along with a benefits cap and a serious approach to benefit fraud. The current system costs the taxpayer £1.5 billion a year. We hope to make progress on that and introduce new measures to tackle fraud, tougher rules and a benefit ban of three years for people who offend repeatedly. The Welfare Reform Act 2012 is an Act of historic importance. We have taken bold action both to make work pay and to protect the vulnerable.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Before the end of the Session, may we revisit the changes to the feed-in tariff regime, given the astonishing figures produced today by the Government which show that solar panel installation has fallen by more than 90% since the Government’s changes were made, damaging industries such as Kingspan in my constituency, installers and ultimately consumers, and not making this Government the greenest Government in history, as they claim?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern. I would be misleading him if I said I could find time for a debate, but after Prorogation and when we have a debate on the Queen’s Speech, depending on what is in it, he might be able to draw to the attention of Ministers the concern that he has just expressed.