Welfare

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I have known Stephen Crabb for a time. He was a Whip for the department and then he was in Wales, where he dealt with welfare issues. I have high hopes for him in pursing the reform agenda. He is up for it and he will be pretty effective at it. I look forward to providing him with all the support that I possibly can in this agenda. Clearly, in getting this reform going, the conversation has to be balanced with the speed. He is conscious of that and will look to get something going at the fastest possible speed, commensurate with making sure that we get it right and get the views of quite a complicated set of constituencies.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, as my noble friend said, I think the whole House recognises the honourable way in which the Minister has behaved over recent days. I would like to associate myself with her remarks to that effect. However, I want him to return to the answer that he gave to one of her questions: she asked whether he would accept that the original decision to cut PIP was wrong. Listening to the Minister, I think he appeared to suggest that what was wrong—he used the word “wrong”—was its conjunction in the Budget with reduced wealth taxes for the better off. Do I understand from that that according to the Minister, had it not been conjoined with those Budget changes benefiting the better off, he would have supported, welcomed and gone ahead with the PIP changes?

[Lord Freud]

The noble Baroness deals me a compliment with one hand and a blow with the other in the way that I enjoy so much, as a masochist. I am not sure it is worth chewing over what I thought last week. We could do it, but I am not sure that it would be a valuable use of Hansard inches.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

To clarify, it was what the Minister said—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, this is not a debate; it is a Statement. The noble Baroness has asked her question and my noble friend is responding to it. He will respond to it in one go and then we will move on to the next question.