Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I would hesitate to give advice to any Member as to how they should conduct themselves, but this is an emotive area and these decisions affect vulnerable people. A balance has to be struck between fiscal responsibility, looking after the most vulnerable and changing the incentives so that we get people aligned with the best opportunity in the long term as well as the short term. These are sensitive issues, and I agree with my hon. Friend about the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth referring to the Government demonising the disabled and the poor in a way that she did not substantiate at all. One mention in an autumn statement two or three years ago of the fact that some people abused the system is not an effort to demonise the poor and disabled, and suggesting that undermines the other arguments—and there are strong arguments to be made in this area and questions that need to be asked about the Government’s programme.

The decisions being made are not easy, and they will not all be right, but trying to smear the whole Government Front-Bench team loses people rather than wins them over. I do not think the hon. Lady needs to do that in order to make a powerful case and have a strong hearing outside this place; if what she says looks like partisan point scoring and personal vilification, it will undermine the arguments she is trying to pursue and champion.

I am delighted that the Minister is listening. I hope and expect—as I know all my hon. Friends and Opposition Members do—that we will find a solution to this technical challenge and make sure it is delivered as quickly as possible, so that the terminally ill get the money they are due as quickly as possible.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford]

I shall speak to the amendments in this group in my name and the names of my party colleagues, namely new clauses 9, 10, 11 and 12, amendments 35 to 48, 56, 20 and 57 to 65, and new clause 7, on which I will open my remarks.

New clause 7, along with amendments 35 to 48, is intended to amend the parts of the Bill relating to the benefit cap. Amendments 35, 36 and 37 would maintain the cap at its current rate, while amendments 38 to 48 would mitigate the differential impact of the Government’s proposals on specific groups of claimants by exempting from the benefit cap bereavement allowance, carer’s allowance, child benefit, child tax credit, guardian’s allowance, maternity allowance, severe disablement allowance and widowed parent’s allowance.

The bottom line, and the key point to be made today, is that many of the provisions in this part of the Bill are entirely arbitrary and have no robust evidence to support them. By proposing an arbitrary benefits cap, the Government fail to acknowledge the underlying drivers of benefits increases. They fail to acknowledge, for example, how soaring private sector rents in parts of the UK with astronomical house prices and chronic under-supply of affordable housing push up the cost of housing benefit—money that usually goes straight into the pockets of private landlords, often without even passing through the hands of tenants. But I recognise that that is not the only driver, and in the absence of proper analysis, setting the benefits cap at an arbitrary level is possibly the worst example of policy making on the back of a fag packet that I have seen in this place for quite some time. Although I support the Labour amendment that would force the Secretary of State to review the impact of the lower cap more regularly, I would prefer to see this very weak piece of policy making removed completely from the Bill.