Oral Answers to Questions

David Hamilton Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right; those people keep harking back to the future jobs fund. Let me give the House a simple comparison. The future jobs fund resulted in about half the participants getting into work, at a cost of between £5,000 and £6,000 per placement. The work experience scheme is resulting in more than half the participants coming off benefit and going into work at a cost of about £300 per placement. Which one do you think is better value for the taxpayer, Mr Speaker?

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

12. What estimate he has made of the number of children who will be living in poverty in 2015.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

The Government do not forecast in the way that the hon. Gentleman’s question suggests. Child poverty is dependent on a number of factors, and we know that the most sustainable way of reducing it is through parents going to work. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take this opportunity, when asking his supplementary question, to show his support for the benefit cap, which will be one of the best ways of ensuring that work pays, for families throughout our country.

[Mr Hamilton]

The Minister will have a long wait. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that child poverty, as measured by the Child Poverty Act 2010, will rise by 400,000 by 2015, and that 200,000 children will be forced into absolute poverty. That means that the Government have no chance of meeting the targets set out in the Act, which both parties supported. Does the Minister believe that those forecasts are wrong? Also, will she make a commitment not to overturn amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill passed in another place when the Bill comes back here?

[Maria Miller]

As I have already said, the Government are not really into the forecasts that the hon. Gentleman is looking at, but we are firmly committed to eradicating child poverty. The IFS projections do not tell the whole story; they do not take into account fundamental things such as behaviour change, or our significant investment in early intervention, our education reform policies and our policies in other areas.