Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between George Freeman and Stephen Timms

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend says that the change is 13p week, which is a derisory amount.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Timms]

No—I will make progress before I give way again.

The Bill was designed by the Chancellor to promote his party’s narrow interest. Like a number of the Chancellor’s efforts of that kind, it has not worked out as he hoped, but let us be clear that the Government have restricted uprating to 1% for the coming year without a Bill and did not need a Bill to restrict uprating for future years. The Chancellor thought he could boost his party’s standing if he introduced a Bill, so we have one. Coalition Ministers are here to help advance the Chancellor’s cause.

In particular, it is ridiculous to announce now—before we know anything about the future course of inflation—by how much benefits will be uprated in more than two years’ time, which is well after the general election. The Opposition therefore reject the proposal to restrict the uprating of social security benefits and tax credits to 1%. As I have said, in our view, uprating should be in line with inflation and assessed, as it always has been, at the end of the preceding year.

The Secretary of State claimed in his speech on Second Reading that, as part of employment and support allowance, the support group is protected, but it is not. The Secretary of State said that people who are not in the support group will find that they are affected. That is true, but people in the support group will be hit as well. Citizens Advice has worked out that a lone parent with three children who is in the support group will lose £600 in 2015-16 because of the exponential way in which the Bill will grind down the incomes of people who are already hard-up. We will come back to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

The time to announce how benefits would be uprated for next year is later this year in the normal way. The time for the following year is the end of next year. We reject the Bill, which is the Chancellor’s partisan and unprecedented device to set out the trajectory for two years’ time, before we know anything about the future course of inflation.

Ministers still say that they are committed to eradicating child poverty. It says so in the coalition agreement. That commitment is clearly now fictitious. The Bill is simply incompatible with that commitment. Ministers should stop pretending. They have given up on reducing child poverty. They have not just given up on publishing the numbers as they used to do: they have given up on delivering the goal as well. Now they are implementing policies that will force child poverty up.

[George Freeman]

Given that the last Government spent £150 billion on tax credits and achieved a 6% reduction in child poverty, does the right hon. Gentleman think that lifting 350,000 out of child poverty for a £2 billion investment in universal credit represents good value for money?

[Stephen Timms]

The policies of the previous Government reduced the number of children below the poverty line by 1.1 million. The policies of this Government are set to increase it by 1 million by 2020. That is a shameful record.

What we will have from April is a toxic combination of policies that will cut the highest rate of income tax and real-terms cuts in benefits and tax credits. Some 8,000 people who earn over £1 million a year will get a tax cut in April averaging more than £2,000 a week. Someone receiving the adult rate of jobseeker’s allowance will receive 71p a week. People are getting angry at what the Government are doing.