Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I am afraid that I cannot, because I am subject to the time limit.

We concluded that it should not be possible to earn more on welfare than a person who had gone out and worked every single day could earn after tax. We also concluded that it should not be possible to leave school and immediately start claiming benefits. I think that those are fair principles, and I think that principles are better than mere salami slicing.

All this has given rise to a need to change the measure of child poverty. It was absurd when Gordon Brown spent huge amounts of time and money showing people one side or the other of an arbitrary line. We are looking at more fundamental principles and measures of what drives poverty. Living in a workless household is one of the biggest drivers of poverty, and I think it right to take account of the massive reduction in workless households that has taken place under our Government. Lack of educational attainment is another huge driver of poverty. I know that such opportunity-based measures are dismissed by Opposition Members—including, as was clear from his speech,. the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms)—but I think that they are vital if we are to establish whether we are merely putting a sticking plaster over poverty, or addressing the fundamental causes.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I have some time left, so I will.

[Drew Hendry]

That is very gracious of the hon. Gentleman.

In my constituency, 3,900 working families will have lower incomes as a result of the Government’s changes, and 7,100 children will be pushed into poverty. Can the hon. Gentleman tell me how that encourages people to think that working is a good idea?

[Oliver Dowden]

First and foremost, we are introducing a national living wage, which will deal with the current problem and give people a massive pay rise. Ultimately, however, there is a wider point to be made. Opposition Members are decrying every single measure in the Bill, but if they oppose our welfare reform measures, they must be able to tell the House and their constituents what measures they themselves plan to introduce. Which other welfare costs do they intend to cut, and which other taxes do they intend to increase—or do they intend to continue to borrow, thus forcing our level of national debt ever higher?

That is the contrast between Labour and the Conservatives, who are willing to make difficult decisions. None of us enjoys making those decisions, but we make them in a principled fashion that sets the economy and the country on the right track.