Pensions Bill [Lords]

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Malcolm Wicks

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) have raised the issue in the past. I recognise their background, great experience and genuine sense of a need to try to figure out a solution. I am always willing to listen to argument and debate that, but my concerns are twofold: first, I am not certain that we have the data going back far enough to be able to make the calculation, although I might be wrong; and, secondly, I return to the point that in the past we have not done things in that way, because it is very difficult to set out differential pension retirement ages for different groups. We are going to equalise provision for women and men, but now the debate is about breaking them apart, and that would lead us into all sorts of debates about unequal retirement ages.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Frank Field]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I give way to the right hon. Member for Croydon North.

[Malcolm Wicks]

I am encouraged by the Secretary of State’s thoughtfulness on the matter, to which I hope we will return in Committee. According to the Office for National Statistics, almost one fifth, or 19%, of men in routine occupations—manual workers, labourers and van drivers—die before they receive their state pension. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has implied, those people have probably worked since they were 14, 15 or 16 years old—very different from those of us who did not start in the labour market until our early 20s. Some sensitivity about when people who have worked for 49 or so years can draw their pension is a matter well worth pursuing.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and repeat to the right hon. Member for Croydon North, I am always willing to look and to think carefully about what proposals there are—not for the purposes of this Bill, obviously, but in the future. I know that he has written—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Malcolm Wicks

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

Given the importance of tackling social security fraud, which depends in part on promoting a sense of responsibility and honesty across the whole of society, does the Secretary of State agree that that is undermined by the widespread tax evasion by rich individuals and companies? If honesty is good enough for the poor, surely it is good enough for the rich.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Of course if one defines tax evasion as doing something utterly illegal, it is quite wrong and we should bear down hard on it. That is the reality for everybody—if they do something that is beyond the law, that is wrong and we should bear down on them no matter how wealthy they are. That should be a rule for everybody, not just for the poor.

Welfare Reform

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Malcolm Wicks

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The Work programme will start well in advance of today’s proposal—we anticipate that it will start next summer. There will be a set of contracts on a regional scale that will involve the private and voluntary sectors. Organisations will run programmes against a set of outcomes, for which we will pay them, so that as they deliver and get more people back to work, they will be paid for those results. That will be carefully balanced so that we do not pay them for dead-weight costs that might otherwise have been in the system, but it will certainly be clear.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I welcome very strongly the strategic direction of the Secretary of State’s statement, but comparisons will inevitably be drawn with the 1940s. That should remind us of the importance of the work ethic and the fact that citizens have both rights and duties when it comes to benefits and work. It also reminds us of the importance of employment policy. I say that not in a partisan spirit, but because I think there is a real difficulty. Churchill’s coalition Government and Attlee’s Labour Government took measures to move towards full employment—with great success. When a Government take 1 million jobs out of the economy, both public and private sector, does the Secretary of State understand my concern about the chances of success of the good strategy announced today?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s words of welcome—I particularly value them because I am a huge admirer of his, as he knows. He is right to draw the parallel with the 1940s, not for anything to do with Beveridge, but simply because high withdrawal rates were possible in the system that was set up at that time because the people involved were mostly men who were either in work or out of work—there was very little part-time work in that sense, so withdrawal rates had no effect. Today, because of the nature of part-time work, withdrawal rates cause real problems for people, particularly as they go back to work.

On jobs, I simply say this: yes, as the economy grows, those jobs will be created, but let us not forget that in the past three months, over 1 million jobs went through my jobcentres, and 450,000 jobs rotate through them every week.

Welfare Reform

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Malcolm Wicks

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I make a point of agreeing with him on many things. The changes to child benefit are exactly what they are—to help us to reduce the terrible deficit that we have and to save the poorest families in the land from suffering a terrible burden that they would have to bear in due course. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear last week—these are not matters directly for me, but he and the Chancellor will bring forward measures in due course—the very best way to ensure that couples do not face that penalty is to ensure that they are not unfairly taxed from the outset. This is about child benefit, and we will support families who make the choices that they make.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

When, in the mid-1970s, the decision was taken to merge the child tax allowance, which broadly benefited the wallet, with the family allowance, which broadly benefited the purse, the then Labour Government, after a bit of a kerfuffle, decided that it should become a child benefit for the mothers, for reasons which, I think, both sides of the House recognise. Does the Secretary of State realise the dismay of many people in all parts of the House and the public that he is now running a coach and horses through the principle that it is very often the mother who has to juggle the family budgets, that certainly in the south of England, salaries at the level at which he is withdrawing benefit are not extravagant, and that that is a blow to the concept that mothers are at the heart of our families in Britain?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I respect the right hon. Gentleman enormously, and he knows that, but I am afraid that he is living in a time warp. The reality is that we have walked into government to find facing us the single biggest deficit on record. This country is close to being broke, thanks to his Government and how they ran the economy. So, yes, in a perfect world we might have wanted to continue with everything as it was, but in reality we cannot afford to. We make such changes on the basis of ensuring that we do not make them on the backs of the poorest people. Had we done it any other way, he would have complained quite rightly, and I must say to him that, if he does not like the proposal, and it sounds like he does not, perhaps he or his Front-Bench colleagues will tell us where they think they are going to get the money from as an alternative.