Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised this matter. The reality about universal credit is that it is aimed at those who cannot take on full-time work, or those who are transiting back to full-time work having been out of work for a little while. It will help everybody take up work for a number of different hours that suit their own particular conditions. It is particularly good for lone parents, and they will benefit for each hour they take better than they do at present.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Government’s benefit cap will force many of my constituents to leave their home of many years, uprooting families, jobs, schools and communities. According to the right hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), on LBC just now, such people are making lifestyle choices. Is that the Government’s view?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The position on the benefit cap is very straightforward and simple: those who are on benefit should not receive more money than those who are working and paying their taxes. There are exemptions, of course, such as for those who are making the right efforts to get back to work—those on working tax credit, for instance—and those who are disabled, as well as for widows and war widows. They are exempted from this, but for the rest of them the following simple principle holds: “If you can, you should be helped into trying to work”, and £26,000 a year seems a reasonable sum of money to me.