Welfare Reform Bill

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, and I strongly suspect that our exchanges in the House are being replicated across our country, such is the importance of this matter. People rightly care passionately about Britain’s welfare system, as has been evident from hon. Members’ contributions, but I cannot quite agree with the most recent comments made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies).

A society’s willingness and ability to help its most vulnerable individuals is a measure of its compassion and its economic and social well-being. Ensuring that Britain has an efficient, fair and caring welfare system is key. We do not necessarily have that at the moment, which is why radical and bold change is badly required. I am delighted to support the Bill, as it is radical and bold.

To accept the need for such reform, we must wake up to the facts. Over the past 10 years the welfare budget has grown disproportionately, by more than £56 billion. Despite that huge increase, almost 1.5 million people have been on out-of-work benefits for nine of those 10 years. Despite years of economic growth, job creation and increases in the welfare budget, a whole group of people have never worked at all. It is therefore time to review this broken system. After all, the simple truth is that Britain’s welfare arteries are clogged up. Too little support is reaching those truly in need and too much is being lost in bureaucratic incompetence—even more worryingly, it is being lost on people who should not be in receipt of such support at all.

In essence, the whole culture of our welfare system is wrong; the cost of maintaining it is out of control and the decision-making processes within it are woefully inefficient. The Bill is therefore right to focus on incentivising pathways back to work by ensuring that employment always pays more than benefits. That is fundamental to the Bill and, as a simple Yorkshire man, I feel that it is basic common sense.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the fact that his Government are cutting 1 million jobs in our economy—500,000 in the public sector, with a further 500,000 to go in the private sector as a consequence? If he genuinely believes that work is a pathway out of poverty, why does he support measures that will cause greater unemployment rather than enable people to get back into work? He has expressed concern about people who have been out of work for a long time, but they would be more likely to get an opportunity of employment in the public sector if his Government were not forcing through so many cuts.

[Julian Sturdy]

I agree that this Bill offers an important pathway back to work. We have to get more jobs in the private sector and restore the balance between public and private sector jobs, which was skewed by the previous Government—certainly in my region and in the north especially. The measures that this Government are introducing—I hope we will see more of them in the Budget—will incentivise private sector growth and job creation which, alongside the Bill, will get more people back into work.

It is a sad but well-known fact that the current system discourages those in low-paid jobs from increasing their hours, as rates of tax and benefit reductions often leave them worse off. This ridiculous situation helps only to dampen aspiration while increasing dependency in the benefits system as a whole. In addition, hard-working, taxpaying families, who are feeling the squeeze in these difficult economic times, should not subsidise the small but still significant number of people in our society who see the welfare system as a career choice. That must stop. By annually capping benefits, withdrawing support from those who refuse to work and increasing the financial incentives for those who do work, the Bill includes specific measures that will make work pay.