Welfare Reform

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The reality is that the hon. Gentleman should welcome the programme that I am introducing today, because it will improve the lives of the poorest in society. I am sorry that he chooses to cavil about this. My comment on buses was simply this: people on low incomes in London and many other cities recognise that it is sometimes necessary to travel to their places of work. That is the key point. Frankly, I do not need any lectures from him, and if he and his party—[Interruption.] No, they should be prepared to accept that the recession that he refers to is the recession that they left us.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am proud to represent a town that exists because it has work, and I am proud to have been part of a Government who, for the first time in nearly 20 years, reversed the increase in child poverty. However, I am concerned that the Secretary of State’s announcement will not achieve what I believe he intends to achieve. We know that the best way to tackle child poverty is to increase women’s income. In Slough, the average bus fare is about £3.50. His taper says that people will keep 35p in every £1 that they earn. If a woman is doing a job that she can get to while her children are at school—for four hours a day, say—she will have to work the whole time just to pay her bus fares, ending up with £4 more. Will he not take the advice of his hon. Friend the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and do something about the cost of travel to work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady has to admit that the one group that will be hugely affected in a positive way will be women going into work, because so many are engaged in caring and work and in having to balance the two. They will be paid more for the hours that they work, because they will retain more of their money. Of course there might be disputes and debates about whether we need to support people with travel costs, but it is a bit rich for the Opposition to give us lectures about travel costs after they left us without having done anything about them at all.