Benefits Uprating (2013-14)

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right that the coalition is making it pay to work. We are paying an increase in the state pension that is above inflation and above earnings growth. The figure he gives is right: someone retiring this year on a full state pension will get around £15,000 more over their retirement than they would get under the policies adopted by the previous Government.

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

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the Minister doth protest too much, methinks. He knows that the majority of our children who live in poverty do so in low-paid, working, not shirking, families. Those families are already experiencing serious difficulties in adequately feeding, clothing and, in some instances, even housing their children. In the light of the freeze on benefits, how many more families and children does he expect to be pushed into that—surely, in the 21st century—totally unacceptable situation?

[Steve Webb]

I hesitate to trade Shakespearian quotes with the hon. Lady, but to be clear, benefits are not being frozen, they are being increased. She is right on child poverty. The Government have not just stumbled across working poverty, because it was widespread under the previous Government, but it will be substantially improved by universal credit, which will make work pay in a way that it did not under the previous Government.