Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I would like to congratulate the Government on their incompetence with the Bill. I would like to say that these are measures that a future Labour Government would support, but differently. We would have a human face to our approach, unlike this Administration.

First, let me deal with the point about incompetence. These are fairly simple regulations compared with what the Secretary of State is preparing for the nation with his universal credit. If the Department cannot get these regulations right, what hope for universal credit?

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I am listening to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, but it sounds a little rich coming from him. From his time in government, he and others well know that sometimes the view of judges is very different from a lot of other legal advice. The reality is that by saying that this is incompetence he must be claiming that his own Government were deeply incompetent throughout their time in office.

[Mr Field]

Well, if that is true, this Government have learnt nothing from our experience, so it is doubly worrying. Universal credit, which the Government are going to deliver, is an immensely complicated reform and if they feel that— [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says not true. Should the day ever arrive when universal credit began to be delivered, we would all be in a position to judge. However, these are arguments for another day. Let us congratulate the Government on their incompetence and their need to come here and seek out support to rectify the errors made in the Department.

The second issue is important. We are dealing with an attitude of mind whereby there is a feeling that, even without ever making a contribution, a person has a right to benefits and to a pension from other taxpayers. That attitude is now deeply ingrained in our culture, and the Secretary of State’s welfare reforms and universal credit will encourage it. Under his scheme, more people will think they have a right to benefits than do now. Many of us, even those in areas with high unemployment, know that there are people, particularly young people, who feel that unless they will be offered jobs at three times their benefit level, it is not in their interest to work. That is why it is so important to change—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State is making faces, but I am trying to support him in the case that he is making.

We are trying to move from unconditional welfare to welfare that attaches conditions to drawing benefits. The last Government started those important reforms, and we continue to support them. The big divide has been between a welfare state based on contributions, in which people are eligible for benefit only if they have paid the requisite number of contributions, and one in which people think that they should get benefits because they are citizens. The Secretary of State may continue his conversation, but he knows full well that as he tries to limit the entry of Bulgarians and Romanians into our welfare system, the weakness of his hand is that they will be able to claim benefit here, because large numbers of other people do, and we will be discriminating unless we give them benefit on the same terms.

The lesson that I hope we will draw is that the Opposition will go into the election with a clear mandate to move from a means-tested welfare system, in which people think that they have a right to benefits, to one in which people gain entrance to welfare because they have paid contributions. The difference is in job offers and job guarantees. The most crucial welfare reform that the last Labour Government made was the future jobs fund, which was destroyed by this Government when they came into office. If we are to build up a medley of worthwhile alternatives for people who cannot find jobs, we the Opposition and the Government must play some part in creating those opportunities.

There is debate on both sides of the House about the best routes back to full employment, but no certainty about what they are. In the immediate future, therefore, we will have to rely on an even more severely tightened future jobs fund than the Labour Government did. We know from our constituencies that the real test of whether people want to work is to have jobs to offer them. Without those, we are in difficulties. That is not to say that we would not sanction without them. London, for example, has the second highest youth unemployment, but in 10 years of Labour government, 1 million immigrants came to London to work. There is clearly some problem in people’s thinking about what is suitable for them to do versus what is suitable for immigrants.

In my short contribution, first, I congratulate the Government on their incompetence and on having to rely on the House to rescue them from it. Secondly, like them, we are moving away from an unconditional welfare state to one that attaches conditions, but unlike them, we believe firmly that they need to engage actively in trying to build up something like the future jobs fund, so our constituents are offered real opportunities to work. I hope that those of us who have Labour authorities or even decent Tory or Liberal authorities, despite their current budget difficulties, will seek to implement that approach so that over the years, we will be able to offer more people proper, dignified alternatives to sitting on their backsides on the dole.