State Pension Age: Review

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has broadly welcomed the decisions that I set out in my statement. I will address a couple of the points he raises. On poverty and, as we are particularly focused on pensioners, pensioner poverty, the situation has improved. The poverty situation has improved right across the board since 2009-10, with some dramatic reductions to both absolute and relative poverty levels across that period, not least because of the policies pursued by this Government. He suggests we are something of an outlier in terms of the flattening of the increase in the expectations of length of life in future. That is simply not the case; as I said earlier, it is an international phenomenon.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a couple of questions I would like to address. First, he asked whether a move of the rise of the pension age to 68 was possible, along the lines of the Cridland recommendations of 2037 to 2039. Given we have made a commitment to a 10-year notice period, that would suggest that, if the next review —and I say if, because that is for others to decide in the course of time—were in, say, 2026, that would indeed make those dates possible. Of course, it would not preclude decisions being taken for dates further out than 2037 to 2039.

Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asks what our policy is at the moment. We are very clear what our policy is: the current legislative position is appropriate, but there will be a review within the first two years of the next Parliament.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Unlike the Labour party, I do not welcome this decision. From the 1940s to today, life expectancy from retirement has increased by seven years, which would indicate a retirement age of 72 rather than of 67 or 68. The benefit of long-term decision making is that it gives everybody the chance to plan well in advance. Delaying the decision is a decision in itself, and it is not exactly a sign of strength.

[Mel Stride]

I hear what my right hon. Friend says. As I set out in my statement, there are a number of uncertainties, some of which are in the fiscal sphere. In fact, if he reads pages 13 and 14 of the Office for Budget Responsibility economic and fiscal outlook, he will see what the OBR has to say about the uncertainty of the public finances around labour supply, energy prices and, indeed, interest rates. For that reason, among others, I believe it appropriate to wait until we are more certain about what the future holds.

Universal Credit

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is heavy pressure on time, with two further urgent questions to follow. There will of course also be a debate on this important matter tomorrow. It may not be possible to accommodate everybody, but the chances of doing so will be better if we have pithy questions, to be exemplified by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg).

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The aim of getting the withdrawal rate of benefits down from more than 90% to 63% is enormously laudable, but can my hon. Friend ensure that people do not lose out in the transition?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; under the legacy benefits system, some people did face effective tax rates of 90% and that system also disincentivised people from work. As I have said, those on legacy benefits that we manage migrate across will of course receive transitional protection.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). We use the word “honourable” in this House far too often, but in this case he has been very honourable in the way he has approached this particular subject.

In the brief time available to us this evening, I hope I can set out the clear reasons why the House must accept Lords amendments 8B, 8C, 9B and 9C tonight. Let me first say that I welcome the Government’s partial change of heart to place the reporting of income-related child poverty on a statutory footing. Amendments 1B, 1C and 1D are not perfect, but they at least represent some progress. I hope that Conservative Members will now see the merits of accepting other arguments made by the Opposition regarding ESA and the work component of universal credit.

Last week, I was invited to sit on the Reasons Committee after we voted and rejected the previous Lords amendments. For those unfamiliar with it, the Committee meets immediately after the vote and agrees the reason to be articulated to the Lords from the Government as to why their amendments were refused. On ESA and universal credit amendments, the reasons were exactly the same:

“Because it would alter the financial arrangements made by the Commons; and the Commons do not offer any further Reason, trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.”

So the Commons did not offer “any further Reason”, which I found shocking. The Government could not come up with anything else to say—no empirical evidence, no logical argument, nothing socially responsible or of any consequence. It relied on a pseudo-constitutional technicality to explain the decision to remove £30 a week from the pockets of sick and disabled people on ESA WRAG. Ping-pong is being used and abused as an excuse in this regard. What message does that send from this Government to ESA recipients? It says, “We don’t need to justify why we are cutting your ESA, we just are. We just can and we just will. We trust that this reason may be deemed sufficient.”

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Gray]

I am sorry, but time is tight and other right hon. and hon. Members have refused to take interventions.

As I was saying, the Government said that they trusted their reason “be deemed sufficient”. There is, of course, nothing to say because this Government have not done their homework. The impact assessment has not been done. The Government have no idea how this will impact on claimants, their health or their ability to progress towards work. Tonight, the Government will not have that technicality to fall back on. The revised amendments from the Lords ask the Government to provide the impact assessment that should have been done right at the start of this process and for it to be scrutinised before any cut to ESA would be forthcoming.

This amendment from Lord Low and his colleagues sets a challenge to this Minister and her Government. It sets a challenge to accept the amendment or do a better job of reasoning why the amendment should be opposed. It does not cost the Government any extra money; it just asks for them to do the work they should have done before even bringing these proposals to the House.

Some Conservatives voted with the Government last week, holding their nose. They did so on the “jam tomorrow” promise dangled by the Government in the shape and form of the much vaunted White Paper on health and work. Surely Conservative Members must now be asking whether the cart is being put before the horse. Why not publish the White Paper and explain what is going to replace this damaging cut to the incomes of sick and disabled people? Such a radical cut to social security for sick and disabled recipients merits at least that.

We should also consider the various court cases being brought against this Government regarding their welfare cuts—the bedroom tax, and carer’s allowance as part of the benefit cap. And the UN is investigating the cuts in general. By not doing their homework on cuts to ESA and universal credit and by not producing an impact assessment, the Government risk being dragged to court at great expense to the taxpayer once again and at great embarrassment to themselves once again.

I would rather have seen passed the amendments we tabled at the end of last year or those we considered last week. The Government won the votes on those occasions, but this is back before us tonight from the House of Lords. Universal opposition from disability groups and third sector organisations remains, while the fact that so many compassionate Conservative Members are thinking of voting against the Government tonight shows they have not won the argument. They have not convinced us that these cuts should happen before an impact assessment has been scrutinised, and they have not convinced us that these cuts should happen before the alternative in their White Paper has even been presented.

Given the apparent importance of this issue to the Government, the fact that the amendments are tabled in the name of the Secretary of State and that so many Conservatives are so close to voting against him, one would have thought that we would see the Secretary of State in his place this evening—if not at the Dispatch Box, at least somewhere on the Government Benches to show that he is not taking his Back Benchers for granted. He failed to attend the debate last week, and he has failed to appear again tonight. He has shown disrespect to the House, disrespect to his Conservative colleagues, and a blatant disregard for ESA and universal credit recipients whose support is due to be cut. As we heard from the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), he has apparently already written to his Back Benchers in a last-ditch attempt to shore up support, saying that the impact assessments satisfy the Equality and Human Rights Commission. That is simply not true: the commission says that they do not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am in complete support of my right hon. Friend the Minister and entirely in disagreement with the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who is a very civilised gentleman. When he said that this was a pseudo-constitutional issue, he could not have been more wrong. This House’s democratic authority is wholly based on financial privilege, which is why, when we reject amendments that engage financial privilege, we give no further reason. Not only is that important to the current Government, but it will be important to the Opposition when they are in government, too. If the House of Lords can challenge the Commons on matters of financial privilege, then the country becomes ungovernable. Those who have the democratic mandate have a right, because of the people whom they represent, to determine issues relating to finance. The other place is increasingly trespassing on that right. The amendment that it passed in lieu decided to give it the right to consider the secondary legislation on a financial matter, which it does not need to do; it has taken it from primary to secondary, upgrading their role on a financial matter. Constitutionally, that is quite wrong. Any Member of this House who thinks that, one day, he may speak from the Treasury Bench Dispatch Box should bear in mind the importance of ensuring that the constitutional norms are maintained.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

There are plenty of cameras in this place, but they do not always pick up what is going on across the Chamber. When my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) was speaking, the Minister was engaged in conversation with a person to her immediate left. I am not sure whether that conversation was related to the debate in hand, but they thought it fit to laugh during the debate when the true impact of these cuts on the people who can least afford them was being laid out. Either the Minister was not paying attention to the debate because of disinterest, or she thought that what was being laid out was funny. Either way, she should be ashamed of herself.

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I completely agree, and my hon. Friend’s personal experience ought to be listened to by the Secretary of State and Members on both sides of the House. She will know that 17,000 of her constituents will be hit by the changes in 2020—an extraordinary number of families will have lower incomes as a result of the changes.

The truth is that the changes cannot increase work incentives and will not increase outcomes. They cannot. That is why successive independent experts have come out and told the Government to think again, as they did on tax credits. The Social Security Advisory Committee—the Government’s own advisory committee—tells them to reverse their plans. The Resolution Foundation, chaired by a former Tory Minister, tells them the same. Most recently, and most importantly of all, on 17 December the Government’s social mobility commission, deputy-chaired by a Tory peer, Baroness Shephard, said with great clarity to the Secretary of State in its “State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty” report:

“The immediate priority must be taking action to ensure that the introduction of Universal Credit does not make families with children who ‘do the right thing’ (in terms of working as much as society expects them to) worse off than they would be under the current system. That means reversing the cuts to Universal Credit work allowances enacted through the Universal Credit (Work Allowance) Amendment Regulations”.

The commission is right and the Opposition agree, just as we agreed when the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and her colleagues urged the Government to go into reverse last time.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

In a deft but somewhat selective speech, is the hon. Gentleman not missing the point that universal credit, with a single rate of taper, will make it invariably clear to people that if they work more, they will earn more? Under the current system, taper rates go up to 90%. It is incredibly confusing and many people do not risk taking on extra work because they will have to re-apply for benefits and may be worse off. Universal credit has a beautiful simplicity and will encourage people to work.

[Owen Smith]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his equally deft selectivity. Dare I say that my point is that universal credit might have done all those things? If we had, as was originally envisaged, a 55% taper rate, or even if we had the current 65% taper rate, and if we had work allowances that were double what are now proposed, as was originally intended, universal credit would have made work pay and it would have been an incentive for people to work those extra hours. I have made that plain in my speech. However, with the cuts—the seven successive cuts that have been made since 2012—it will not deliver what was promised. The hon. Gentleman and the country are being sold a pup by the Secretary of State. It was not what was written on the tin when he first brandished it. Conservative Members need to understand that, because thousands of families in their respective constituencies will be affected by those cuts. Many of them will lose as much or more than they would have lost under the tax credit cuts. I say to all Tory Members: join us or tell me how these cuts are different from those they stood against last time around, other than that Tory Members might not quite have the time to realise that these cuts are being made before they next stand in an election. So far as I can see, that is the only plausible reason for their failure to follow their consciences this time and rail against the cuts.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Wait for it. Can the Secretary of State confirm—

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the shadow Chancellor to say that he will give way to the Secretary of State and then not give way? [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. As a constitutional expert in this House, the hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a point of order.

Child Poverty

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What the figures show is that, as I know as a London MP, parts of London have particular and deep-rooted problems. We want to address those particular problems. First of all, it is true that people are better off in work than they would be out of work, because without work they would have no chance of raising their income. As I made clear on Monday, we also want companies to start paying people a proper wage. I have campaigned endlessly to raise the minimum wage. We have raised it, and the Government are committed to raising it further. I have said to companies, “It is time now that you pay more money to your employees, to rate them as they should be for the work that they have done.”

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the target-based culture of the left actually encourages dependency and makes people stay in poverty because that is the right incentive for them, and that his policies are offering a new opportunity, which is transforming people’s lives? He deserves the full support of the House and the country.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend, who makes a critical point. If we set up a target process that deals with only one aspect of a symptom, we will not get to the root causes. We have set out to get to those families who are the furthest away from employment, and move them into independence through employment. The figures I have given on the number of people in social housing now back in work and those on the lowest incomes now back in work are dramatic. They are better than any other records previously established.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I add my congratulations to those already offered to the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) on a fine maiden speech? I was a great admirer of her predecessor, who was a wonderful man and an ornament to the House of Commons. He was, among other things, a papal knight. I am delighted that the hon. Lady is following in his footsteps with her excellent speech.

I want to move on from excellent speeches and things that made politics look as though they are for good and honourable people to the less pleasant subject of political opportunism. Political opportunism, of course, is something that plagues the political world and which we all have to deal with. Some people are very good at it. Alex Salmond comes to mind as an expert in that art. Some people might say that Nigel Farage is good at political opportunism, although others might think that he is more inspired than that. I am afraid, however, that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) is not good at political opportunism; she is far too serious-minded and able a figure to lower herself to such depths.

It is interesting that the Labour party’s heart is not really in political opportunism. I notice that the shadow Secretary of State is not here. No doubt that is for very good reasons, but very good reasons for detaining senior political figures sometimes align to a remarkable degree with the disagreeability of the subject they have to discuss. I recall that a former Prime Minister, John Major, was detained by a serious toothache at a crucial point when the leadership of the Conservative party was at stake.

[Heather Wheeler]

His wisdom teeth.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. I hope that the shadow Secretary of State is not having problems with her dentist and that her absence is merely because she dislikes the subject under discussion.

This motion is an example of political opportunism, and we have known that from the first. How did the subject come into the public domain? Was it done in an upright and what we might call manly way? No, not a bit of it. Somebody was sent undercover to the Tory party conference. Some socialist, no doubt wearing a dirty mackintosh, crept in to hear the noble Lord Freud make a few comments at the party conference. Was that the upright fashion we expect even from the Labour party, or was it actually a rather underhand approach to political debate?

What was then done with the tape recording, this gold dust of political embarrassment? Was it brought forth and released to the newspapers? No. As the hon. Lady said, it was kept to the most important part of the parliamentary week. Parliament was in recess, so we had to wait for the revelation to come forth. One wonders why Prime Minister’s questions was suddenly in the eyes of the Leader of the Opposition. He must be a glutton for punishment if that was his view, for surely most Leaders of the Opposition think that other occasions are more enjoyable, for example when it is they, rather than the Prime Minister, who have the final word. The recording was held back as an example of pure political opportunism, to be used at a point when it could inconvenience the Prime Minister the most.

Even our great Prime Minister cannot know everything that is said by every junior Minister at every meeting at a party conference. His mind may be full of many things, but even his mind, great as it is, cannot hold that many things all at once. Inevitably, the Minister came under a bit of flack, and he apologised. I do not know the noble Lord Freud—I have been in the same room as him, but I have never met him—but the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said that he is courteous and compassionate. So we have a courteous and compassionate man who is contributing to the development and discussion of public policy, and in so doing he said some words that he should not have said.

How is public policy to be developed if every time somebody says something that is a little bit interesting or beyond the consensus, their name is hauled before this Chamber and their resignation demanded? Are we to allow no development of public policy? Are we always to have witless comments being made in a politically correct way that allows nobody to consider what is in the real interests of people who are sometimes the most deprived in society? Are we to do nothing to help them improve their condition or enable the state to assist them in getting out of the levels of deprivation they are in? Are we to be so fearful, so frightened and so terrified of people sent around to spy on public meetings that we never develop policy at all? If that is what the socialists want, they are wrong.

Affordable Homes Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member for the 16th century wants to intervene.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and it is always a pleasure to listen to his speeches, but in his criticism of Margaret Thatcher is he saying that he regrets the fact that millions of people were able to buy their own houses and be property owners, which is surely a great thing that the Conservatives achieved?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman should listen more carefully to my speeches. I was always in favour of the right to buy scheme and enabling people to buy, and live in, their home—an Englishman’s home is his castle and all of that kind of stuff, and that applies equally to the Scots, Welsh and Irish—but local authorities were not allowed to replace that housing stock with social housing, and we set ourselves a long-term economic problem from which we have still to recover. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have another go and attack me by saying the Labour Government did not do enough when we were in power, he is absolutely right: we did not, and we acknowledge that, which is why one of our key commitments is to guarantee that by the end of a Labour Government in 2020—by that general election—we will be building 200,000 properties in the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and allowing me to interrupt him at an early stage in his remarks. Does it occur to him, as it does to me, that those constituents who went through the consultation process and asked for a Bill on affordable housing would not have thought that a Bill on affordable housing would merely get them a review? That does not seem to be a very active Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I was just about to deal with that point.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution, which reflects the messages that I was getting in my constituency, in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington, before the most recent general election.

To go back to the consultation that the hon. Member for St Ives carried out, we know that 65,000 people did not bother to comment at all, or give an opinion either way. In my view, those who did indicate their support for this Affordable Homes Bill will be very disappointed, to say the least, with its content. The Bill appears to be a mere shadow of the one that the hon. Gentleman put forward for consultation to his constituents. That Bill contained an extension of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme, a proposal to create an affordable homes investment bank—there is no mention of such an institution in the Bill before us—and a proposal to create a new planning use class for non-permanent residential use, in other words, for second homes. That would have given local planning authorities power to control the number of second homes in their area. There is no mention of that in this Bill.

The Bill that the hon. Gentleman asked his constituents to comment on was also scheduled to give local authorities immense powers of compulsory purchase where developers held back land for development, or where they failed to develop sites for which planning permission had been granted but on which no development had yet begun. Well, surprise, surprise: there is no mention of that measure either.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a jolly good thing that that has been dropped from the Bill, as it would have been a fundamental attack on the rights of private property, which the House has always protected?

[Mr Nuttall]

I completely and 100% agree with my hon. Friend. I for one am extremely grateful that those measures are not in the Bill, but I am worried, as I shall explain in a moment, that the Bill may be just an opening salvo for the introduction of those measures at a later stage. Although what is left is a proposal to change the eligibility for housing benefit and a proposal to require the Secretary of State to carry out a review of the availability of affordable homes and intermediate housing, that is it; there is no mention of any affordable homes investment bank, no mention of any change to planning use classes and no mention of any enhanced powers for local councils. We must ask ourselves why that is so. On one level, I would like to think it is because the hon. Member for St Ives has seen the light and realised that his proposal for Government interference in the free market—as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) identified it—would not have had the effect he hoped for. However, the truth is, I believe, rather more worrying.

As I mentioned in an intervention at the outset, the hon. Member for St Ives perhaps gave an explanation of why there is so little in the Bill on his website last week:

“If I succeed at Second Reading…I hope I can beef up the Bill with amendments at Committee Stage.”

There we have it: this skeleton of a Bill is actually a Trojan horse Bill. If it is granted a Second Reading today, the hon. Gentleman admits that he will use it to try to introduce those other measures later in its parliamentary proceedings.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful once again to my hon. Friend for giving way. I wonder whether anyone consulted the Clerks on whether amendments to widen the Bill by so much would be within its scope.

[Mr Nuttall]

I have not inquired of the Clerks whether that would be correct parliamentary procedure. It is certainly unusual for a Bill’s promoter to admit at the outset that the measure being proposed is not the measure they want agreed on Third Reading and that they intend to table amendments in Committee. It is usual for the rest of the House, not the promoter, to want to amend a Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend might think that, but I think it is better for the discretionary housing payment to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, as at present.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Has not the Minister himself told us that these proposals will cost £1 billion? That is more than the cost of the discretionary powers, so this Bill has a clear financial effect.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House that we now know from the Minister’s comments that we are talking about a figure of £1 billion a year, whichever way we look at it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

I will be more selfish with the interventions I accept, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was not one I have in my speech, so I am grateful to him for making it.

The Government trebled support for discretionary housing payments so that funding for this year is £165 million. In 2013-14, £21 million of central Government funding was unspent by the end of the year. Almost two thirds—63%—of local authorities paid out less than their total discretionary housing payment allocation, and fewer than a quarter applied for a share of the £20 million that the Department for Work and Pensions held back in reserve. Discretionary housing payments exist to provide a safety net for vulnerable tenants, and they offer the best mechanism for local authorities to provide additional support as welfare payments are reformed, enabling them to respond on a case-by-case basis to those who need more assistance.

I appreciate that the hon. Member for St Ives ideally wants the spare room subsidy to be removed. He would like a return to the time before the measure was introduced, when taxpayers in my constituency had to contribute towards those living on benefits and enjoying accommodation that they themselves could only dream about. Clause 1 is seen by those who want to return to those days as a mere stepping stone towards the day when tenants can once more have the benefit of spare rooms at the expense of other hard-working taxpayers. We must strike a balance between the interests of taxpayers and the legitimate needs of welfare claimants, and I do not see the need to introduce the measures in clause 1 to achieve that balance.

Let me turn to clause 3, which has not received the attention it needs so far. Subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State to

“carry out a review of the availability of affordable homes and intermediate housing and produce and lay before Parliament a report which must set out the conclusions of the review.”

within 12 months of the Bill being enacted. We know from clause 7(2) that the Act would come into force

“at the end of the period of 3 months beginning with the day on which it is passed.”

Anyone reading clause 3 would assume that there must be an urgent need for a review, and that for some reason no information is available about the housing stock in this country, and certainly nothing on affordable housing. However, even the most cursory investigation of the subject reveals that our library shelves are simply groaning under the weight of reports and statistics on this matter. In fact, there are so many that—you will be pleased to know this, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will not even begin to list them, never mind quote from them all.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Although one of life’s great pleasures is to ensure that Madam Deputy Speaker is happy, the rest of the House will be desperately disappointed if my hon. Friend does not elaborate on all those points.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am sure that the House can contain its disappointment and anxiety to progress this debate. I hope, Mr Nuttall, that you are making reasonable progress, and taking your own advice about making the remaining points in your speech so that others can participate in the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the debate, many points of great interest have been raised and it has been suggested that further amendments will be made. I therefore think it would be highly beneficial if the Bill were referred to a Select Committee.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his intention to apply Standing Order No. 63.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 63(2), That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee.—(Jacob Rees-Mogg.)

Benefit Entitlement (Restriction) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 17th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Indeed, he will see that clauses 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill state:

“Notwithstanding…the European Communities Act 1972”.

In other words, the Bill would ensure that we were able to decide these things for ourselves, as a sovereign legislature, and override European Union law. My hon. Friend’s point was, in a sense, echoed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in an article in The Sunday Times to which I referred earlier. It states that he

“added that reforming benefits was part of a wider move towards no longer automatically accepting rulings from the European Commission and courts.”

He welcomed the comments by Lord Judge, the former lord chief justice, that ‘we shouldn’t always assume straight away that anything that comes legally out of Europe we have to impose’ and said he was optimistic that there was the ‘beginning of a twitch with the Supreme Court”.

My Bill is designed to go a bit further than a twitch; it is designed to ensure that we change our law. If we suffer infraction proceedings in the European Court of Justice, one thing is certain: they are unlikely to reach a conclusion until you and I are in our dotage, Madam Deputy Speaker. The ECJ involves a very long-winded process, and because it is so long-winded, the French Government, for example, will deliberately defy EU law in the knowledge that any sanctions arising from their defiance will not be apparent until many, many years later.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

What does my hon. Friend think would be the practicality of any sanction on a country that is a net contributor to the EU budget?

[Mr Chope]

I am not going to answer that question; as with so many of my hon. Friend’s interventions, he perhaps already knows the answer, in which case he will be able to adumbrate it if he contributes to the debate. The point he makes is that we are net contributors, and if the European Union thinks that we can be kicked around and we will do whatever Mrs Reding or anybody else wants us to do, it is about time they started concentrating their minds on the fact that British taxpayers pay a lot of their salaries.

Again, if fines or penalties are imposed, that creates distortions. I suppose we could set them off against our contributions to the European Union.

I became particularly interested in this subject early last year, because I thought that it was absolutely fundamental that our country can distinguish between our nationals and nationals of other European Union countries in dealing with benefit issues. A few parliamentary questions have been asked on the subject. In answer to a question asked on 14 January 2013, the then Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), said:

“The UK’s benefit payment systems do not currently record details of a claimant’s nationality. Looking forward, the Government is considering ways of recording nationality and immigration status of migrants who make a claim to universal credit”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 466W.]

I hope that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who is on the Front Bench today, will tell us what has happened in the subsequent year regarding recording nationality and immigration status, because if we do not even have basic information about the nationality of migrants or people claiming benefit, and have no means of finding that out, how can we ever have the tight controls that the Government keep talking about to ensure that migrants from other EU countries do not abuse our benefit system in their first three months here, or ensure that they are genuinely seeking work?

The first provision in the Bill would ensure that national insurance numbers were issued only after the applicant had declared their nationality, and would not make it possible for anybody to claim benefit without declaring their nationality. In that way, we could at least gather some statistics about the use of our benefit system by nationals from other countries, which we certainly cannot do at the moment.

There is a big problem and I fear that it suits the Government not to give the people the full facts on this issue. They have statistics measuring net migration, for the purposes of meeting a commitment they made at the last general election to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands. However, there are different ways in which net migration is calculated. The labour force survey estimates that the number of A2 nationals living in the UK has increased by 25,000 a year in the six years between 2007 and 2013. However, the Government’s figures, which are based on passenger surveys carried out at ports and airports, suggest that there were fewer than 10,000 new people from Bulgaria and Romania a year. As we do not have a way of measuring people’s nationality when it comes to national insurance numbers or benefit claimants, the Government have to rely on passenger surveys to find out how many people have come from Romania or Bulgaria. The Office for National Statistics has been critical of the cavalier way in which the UK collects those statistics.

Clause 1 of my Bill would make it much easier for us to have a proper public debate on these issues, based on the facts rather than on conjecture. I hope that the Minister agrees that is a good idea.

Clause 2 of my Bill says:

“Notwithstanding the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972, no non-UK citizen who is a national of a member country of the European Union or the European Economic Area shall be eligible for housing benefit or council tax benefit in England and Wales unless the benefit entitlement arises by reason of having the status of a spouse or dependant of a UK citizen.”

In other words, the clause would close down access to housing and council tax benefit for people who have come to this country to work or to play.

Food Banks

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows just how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. The Trussell Trust is very clear: over 50% of referral agents are statutory agencies, and referrers include doctors, social workers, school liaison officers and citizens advice bureaux advisers. These professionals make sure that people turning to food banks are in genuine crisis.

People are using food banks not out of choice, but out of necessity, yet Ministers still refuse to listen. The Education Secretary has claimed that people are turning to food banks because

“they are not best able to manage their finances.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 681.]

How insulting, patronising and out of touch is that comment.

There is a very straightforward way for Ministers to clear up any doubt about the reasons for the increase in reliance on food aid: they can finally publish the official report into the growth of food banks, which was delivered to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June. That report has now been sat on by Ministers for six months, longer than it took to produce. In April, the then Minister of State at DEFRA, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said:

“The conclusions of this work will be available in the summer and published on the Government's website.”—[Official Report, 23 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 821W.]

Now Ministers say the report is still being subjected to

“an appropriate review and quality assurance process.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 November 2013; Vol. 749, c. 1293.]

I bet it is. It is very clear that the Government are determined to hide the true scale of the growth of food banks. They are right to be embarrassed by the truth, but they should come clean, so I say to the Minister today that she should finally force her fellow Ministers in DEFRA to publish this report.

Even without the Government’s hidden report, the reasons for the rise in food bank use is clear: it is the cost of living crisis facing householders up and down the country; it is because even as we finally see some growth in parts of the economy after three years of failure, that growth is not being shared fairly. Last week’s Office for National Statistics figures were clear: average earnings have risen by less than the rate of inflation for the fifth year running. Figures published alongside the autumn statement showed that real wages will have fallen by 5.8% by the end of this Parliament. Under this Government, we have seen the longest period of falling real wage values since records began, and the consequence is that working people are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

No.

Many are paid poverty wages.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

No.

The number of those paid less than a living wage is up by 1.4 million since 2009, to 4.8 million workers in the UK last year—[Interruption.] No, I have been very clear that I am not giving way again in this debate. [Interruption.] As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they rise faster than wages. That has happened for 41 of the—[Interruption.]