Welfare Reform

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, I can give such an assurance to my hon. Friend. We have for some time needed to simplify and streamline the current disability payments and to target the support obviously and particularly on the most severely disabled people through the universal credit, which will happen, and through reform to disability living allowance. DLA will not be incorporated into the universal credit—it will continue as a separate allowance because it is non-work related. I can promise her that that is uppermost in our minds in the design of the system.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

The Government and employer organisations have confidently asserted that the expected huge rise in unemployment owing to job losses in the public sector can and will be ameliorated by the creation of jobs within the private sector, albeit neither can put a time scale or numbers on that assertion. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that the changes will not be used by employers in the private sector to drive down wage levels to at or below the national minimum wage?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I first of all say that I hope Labour Members do not simply continue to hope for the worst and preach? The reality is that even in the past few weeks and months, there have been more than 300,000 new private sector jobs. As I said, more than 1 million jobs went through the jobcentres in the last three months and were found for people. Today’s statement is about making people better off. If I were sitting where the hon. Lady is sitting, I would say, “How wonderful if the bottom three deciles improve their incomes.” The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) may laugh, but in her time in the Government, they spent money and failed and left us with a deficit. Labour Members should apologise for that.