Universal Credit Work Allowance

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Oliver Dowden

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Lady meant the hon. Gentleman’s tactics, not mine.

[Oliver Dowden]

I would ask the hon. Lady to consider the facts. I believe that the OBR is projecting a decline in the proportion of our national income spent on welfare over this Parliament, so the plan is actually working. If Labour Members do not wish to reduce welfare spending, there are only three alternatives. First, they could choose to cut spending on public services, but I have heard nobody suggest that, instead of making this reform, we should cut spending on the NHS or education. Alternatively, they could advocate an increase in personal or any other form of taxation, but I happen to think that in this country we already have unsustainably high levels of taxation. The third alternative is that Labour Members—

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Oliver Dowden

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

You see! Why can’t people just stand up? It is not difficult. Schoolchildren do it. Just stand up when you want to speak! I can now see a significant number of people wishing to speak. I cannot impose a time limit at this stage in the proceedings, but we have less than half an hour left in this debate, so I appeal for brevity: perhaps three or four minutes.

[Oliver Dowden]

I shall speak briefly against new clause 1. We as a nation need to be clear about the scale of the challenge that we face. The budget deficit has been halved, but it is still enormous and we are spending far more than we earn. Against that backdrop, the increase in welfare spending is an important element that must be addressed. The amount of spending on tax credits has risen from £6 billion when Gordon Brown first introduced them to £30 billion now. That money is being borrowed in order to pay for welfare. I do not think that borrowing money to pay for welfare expenditure is a sensible idea.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Let us look at the totality of welfare spending as though it were a cake. Is it not the case that the failure of the Government over the past five years to address the high cost of housing or to bring down the housing benefit bill is the key to solving your problem?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. It is not my problem. It is somebody else’s problem.

[Oliver Dowden]

We need to be clear about the problems with tax credits. Let me offer the House three facts. The first is that, under the last Labour Government, 1.4 million people remained on out-of-work benefits for almost the entire period. Secondly, the number of workless households doubled, and thirdly, the level of in-work poverty rose by 20%. So there has been a massive increase in expenditure on welfare and on tax credits, but it is not delivering the reduction in poverty that we all desire.