Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

This is the first Government who have ever spent more than £1 trillion in a Parliament on social security. That is an extraordinary rise, and it has happened on the watch of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

In this Bill we are seeing the Government break their promises repeatedly. They are breaking their promises to older people, for example. Before the election, the Conservatives’ manifesto said they would “maintain all pensioner benefits”, but after the election it appears that there is a different story. Some senior Conservatives have talked about this being a “great opportunity” for deep cuts to pensioner benefits. The Minister for Community and Social Care said that pensioner benefits should not be cut immediately, but that raises the question: when are they going to cut them?

The answer appears to be that the Government are cutting pensioner benefits now, in this Bill, because 70,000 pensioners are being hit by more than £1,000 a year through the changes to support for mortgage interest. That support is a vital lifeline for many, but through this Bill the Government are chipping away at pensioner benefits and charging a 2.9% interest rate—profiteering from pensioners. By refusing our amendment 24, the Conservative party is breaking its promise to our pensioners. We will act as the watchdog for our older people on that, as we will on pensioner freedoms. A scathing report from the Work and Pensions Committee has warned that the next great mis-selling scandal will be coming soon, after the Tories introduced pension freedoms. We will be watching that, as we are watching tonight.

Just as with older people, the Conservative Government are tonight letting down young people and our children. Before the election the Conservative manifesto spoke of

“boosting the self-esteem of young people”,

but after the election the Government are failing our children, failing young people and failing the next generation.

This Bill will push 600,000 children into poverty over the course of the Parliament while fiddling the figures and hiding the Government’s shame by abolishing the child poverty target. It is a scandal that any Government can seek to withdraw income—the money people have—from a measure of poverty. If it were not so disgraceful, it would be laughable. They are stripping housing benefit away from 18 to 21-year-olds, patronising our young people with “earn or learn” boot camps and introducing a so-called living wage that kicks in only when people are 25, and the Business Minister is running down young people, saying that they do not deserve a living wage because they are not as productive.

What about the Tory promises to the sick and disabled people of Britain? Before the election the Tory manifesto said that the Conservatives would

“aim to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform policy…so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment.”

But what is the truth? After the election, they are cutting support for sick and disabled people. Half a million people in the ESA WRAG are set to lose £1,500 a year. That will reduce the likelihood of a return to work, increase the number of long-term unemployed and act as a work penalty for sick or disabled people seeking to get back into work.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I was told today by Homeless Link that 50% of the charities providing specialist housing services say they will be forced to close services within one to five years because of the changes in the rent arrangements for housing associations and housing benefits. Does my hon. Friend know what will happen to the vulnerable who depend on those services?

[Owen Smith]

I suspect that their lot will be far worse, as with so many of the groups that I am talking about tonight. We know that young people, older people, disabled people and vulnerable people in our communities are going to be worse off under the Tories, because they always are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I agree with the powerful point that my hon. Friend makes. In fact, I am about to talk about the benefits cap that the Bill quite rightly introduces. The New Statesman, by any measure the house journal of the Labour party, states:

“Most voters regard a cap of £26,000 as unacceptably high and the move draws a sharp new dividing line with Labour. By pledging to use the money saved to fund apprenticeships, Cameron sends out the message that the Tories support work, not welfare.”

[Alex Cunningham]

rose—

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I will not give way, as we are short of time.

Let us look at what happened when the £26,000 cap was introduced: 16,000 households moved back into work, and capped households are 41% more likely to move into work. When asked, 38% of those who had been capped said that they were doing all they could to find more work and being supported by the Government in doing so. Those are important statistics that we must not forget.

I want to talk briefly, if I may, about some of the measures in the Bill on the help that will be given to people with disabilities. I am pleased to see on the Front Bench my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People. An SNP Member asked earlier where he was, and at that very moment he was in Westminster Hall speaking up for the people he represents, so we will take no lessons about that. I am working with the Minister to hold a Disability Confident event in my own seat of North Devon, because I want to ensure that people with disabilities can get closer to employment.

I am aware of the time, so I will conclude my comments. [Hon. Members: “More!”] I am very happy to provide more. We are moving from a high welfare, high tax, low wage economy to a society where work pays, where people earn more, and where the Government will help them to keep more of the money that they earn. That is the purpose of the Bill. That is why it is important that the House passes it; why it is right for the country; and why we should all support it in the Lobby tonight.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford]

I will keep my remarks brief. This Bill has been the centrepiece of the Government’s austerity agenda, but the Government’s package of proposals was holed below the waterline by the vote in the House of Lords yesterday. The Bill’s measures are characterised by their arbitrary nature, by a total lack of evidence that they will achieve their intended aims and, above all, by the fact that low-income working households and the sick and disabled have been put on the frontline and are shouldering a wholly disproportionate share of the cuts.

Cuts to tax credits are at the heart of that agenda, with 7 million families set to lose an average of £1,300 each.

[Alex Cunningham]

rose—

[Dr Whiteford]

I will not give way, because time is very short.

Those measures will drive disincentives to work and will compromise economic recovery. Above all, they will push hundreds of thousands of bairns into poverty. The benefit cap fails to tackle the underlying issue of an out-of-control housing market and a lack of affordable housing, and it hits those living in our most expensive urban areas. Cuts to employment and support allowance penalise people with serious and long-term illnesses and disabilities, and, to add insult to injury, stigmatise people for their own poor health. On sanctions, we have heard that the Government’s U-turn fails to address the need for a proper review of the sanctions regime. Those are the wrong choices to make. There is a responsible path to deficit reduction. There is a responsible alternative to austerity, and this Bill is not it.

However, we did not get a chance to debate the amendments in the third group this afternoon, so I wish to put it on the record that I welcome Government amendments 2 to 16, which take into account the concerns raised by the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations.

This is a deeply regressive Bill. It harms low-income households and makes disadvantaged people carry the can of the Government’s economic failure. The SNP will oppose the Bill tonight.