Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Helen Hayes and Owen Smith

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Yes, and if the Government are to provide us with any sort of detailed, worthwhile impact assessment, they should undertake precisely that sort of calculation. They should look at what net benefit to our economy and society is made by working mothers, carers, and those whose efforts are not being calibrated by the Government, because those people will lose out as a result of the changes to tax credits.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that of the 7,700 families in my constituency who will lose £1,300 a year if the Government go ahead with this cut—three quarters of whom are working—those living in the private rented sector will find the cuts hardest to bear? The Government refuse to regulate that sector, and in my constituency people’s rent has risen by an average of 11.6% in the past year. The Government should consider further the punitive effects of this cut on those families.

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend is completely correct, but this cut does not affect only those who are renting and suffering from sky-high, exorbitant increases in private rent; it also affects owner-occupiers. The Government purport to speak for owner-occupiers, but those people will be proportionately harder hit by this measure than many others. Reduced eligibility for tax credits will mean that some people will receive more in housing benefit—there is an offsetting increase in housing benefit costs as a result of the decrease in eligibility for working tax credits, but owner-occupiers will not get that increase.

Earlier someone mentioned the impact of these cuts on our economy, and the self-employed will also be hard hit by these changes. Around 60% of small businesses, some 5.2 million across the country, are sole traders, and according to the Royal Society of Arts, 90% of the increase in jobs—the “jobs miracle” that the Government like to talk about—have been in self-employment in recent years.