Budget Statement

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, I very warmly welcome this Conservative Budget. It is a balanced piece of legislation and I praise the Government for the practical position they have taken. The Chancellor said he wants to move this country from a low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare economy, to a higher-wage, lower-tax and lower-welfare one. This is a truly Conservative position, with which I wholeheartedly agree and which the British people voted for only a few weeks ago at the general election.

The best way for people to help themselves and their children out of poverty is through finding work. This Budget is clear that those who can work will be expected to look for it and to take it when offered. Through the measures laid out by the Chancellor, we will be moving the expectation held by people currently looked after by the state back to themselves. Surely this has to be the right way forward for a country which wants to have a healthy, growing economy and to provide a better future for our children and grandchildren. It is not fair to leave them with an ever-growing welfare bill. But, more importantly, it is not fair to leave vast swathes of the population on welfare, unable to escape the poverty trap, by providing benefits and a welfare system which does not encourage hard work or aspiration.

I am particularly pleased to see the replacement of the jobseeker’s allowance for 18 to 21 year-olds with a new youth obligation. This will mean that young people are either in work or in education and are not automatically entitled to housing benefit. This will mean that worklessness is not allowed to set in at a young age and will set the younger generation off on a journey towards a fulfilling career and gainful employment.

Likewise, I welcome the promises to reform employment and support allowance, to help increase employment among those with health challenges who are able and want to work. Where people need support back into work, it will be provided. The Work and Pensions Secretary has long been committed to this laudable aim. The welfare state should be there to support people when they need it, rather than a permanent source of income for those who choose not to work. This is true of all working families and parents. I was therefore delighted to see that lone parents, who at the moment can struggle with childcare costs, will be given the same entitlement to 30 hours’ free childcare, as introduced in the Budget for working parents of three and four year-olds. I hope this will encourage back into work people who can so often be put off by childcare costs.

Jobs are being created. The greatest legacy of the previous Government is the rise in employment and job creation. As we well know, 2 million jobs have been created since 2010, and we want to create another 2 million and beat the OBR forecast that 1 million more will be created in the next five years. Let us make sure that the majority of those jobs are filled by people who are currently on out-of-work benefits. Living standards are also forecast to continue growing, as they did under the coalition Government. This was mainly due to the increase in employment that we have seen.

There is no choice. Noble Lords opposite can continue to argue over cuts and the Budget but this should not be a political move but more of an economic policy. We cannot afford for the welfare budget to go back to increasing at the rate it did under the previous Labour Government. Gordon Brown said that tax credits would cost the country £600 million annually, yet today they cost a staggering £30 billion each year. This is unaffordable and we need to change it now.

The British people accept that the country needs to live within its means, with proper and generous provision for the elderly, the vulnerable and the disabled. We should not leave burgeoning debts for future generations to sort out. My views have been endorsed this past weekend while canvassing for a county council by-election. It is evident on the doorstep that people are looking for change, as the interim leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, discovered.

We have been given a mandate by the British people to sort the economy out, cut the welfare bill, lower taxes and increase the living wage. Now I believe it is up to this House to ensure that we listen to what people have asked for and give a wholehearted welcome to this Budget.