Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall start by focusing on one or two comments that Members made earlier and then return to a central issue—getting those with disabilities back into work.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) said that 3 million strivers will be hammered. I am a great fan of his—he is the Chairman of the Select Committee of which I am a member, and I am sorry he is not in the Chamber to hear this—but his gloom tonight was focused on two things. The first is the big problem of unity and what approach to take to welfare and work within his own party. The second is an underlying belief that the only way to help the poor is ultimately to increase benefits from taxpayers, and that the only way out of poverty is to grow a tax credits bill that is already, at £30 billion a year, far greater than in the similar populations of France or Germany, and is, in the words of the former Chancellor, previously the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West,

“subsidising lower wages in a way that was never intended”

when it was first introduced by the Government of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead.

The reason the right hon. Gentleman and his party are discombobulated on the issue is that they rightly feared a reduction in benefits before an increase in wages and did not expect that my party, the party of compassionate conservatism, would implement precisely that: a national living wage considerably above that mooted by their former leader, plus an expansion of the tax-free allowance that will take the amount one can earn without paying income tax to almost double by 2020 the £6,500 allowance of 2010. They know that higher wages, lower tax and less welfare is the right way forward, because there was no social justice in spending over £170 billion more than we received in tax revenues, leaving the interest on Labour’s debts alone—the interest alone—costing us more than the entire education budget. There is no social justice in spending more on benefits—on the interest on all that debt—than on helping our children with education and giving them the chance to attain and to go on to good jobs.

Some of Labour’s leadership candidates have realised that point and seen that there are no more sweeties in the sweet bag and no credible alternative to this overall philosophy of higher wages, lower tax and less welfare— unless one believes that living within one’s means is always for someone else and not for us, and one wishes to follow an anti-austerity programme that has led a country like Greece to the brink of disaster. That is a political option, but it is not one that the city of Gloucester would ever want this country to follow.

I turn briefly to the second part of my speech. The Chancellor promised in his Budget speech that we would always support the elderly, the vulnerable and the disabled.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Our hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said that £30 billion a year is being spent on disability living allowance and on similar allowances. Does my hon. Friend agree all Government Members welcome that?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the current welfare bill is unsustainable, but he is also right—I have heard him say this in Select Committee meetings—to say it is vital that we support the elderly, the vulnerable and the disabled. It is true that the Work programme has been far more successful for those on JSA than for those on ESA. The question therefore is: how do we help those people with disabilities who are currently not getting a job and not benefiting from the Work programme in the same way as those on JSA?

Some 61% of those in the ESA work-related action group say that they want to work, and the evidence is that they do. I have heard from charities and from people with disabilities in my constituency how passionately they want to have the same working opportunities as the rest of us, so what can we do to help them? The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), in his role as the Minister for disabled people, has the ambitious task of halving the number of people with disabilities who are out of work. He will need some innovative thinking to help him, so let me make a couple of suggestions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful and interesting speech of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). He showed huge sincerity in his opposition to the Government, but during a couple of sections of his speech, I thought he might be joining us in the Lobby this evening, and I am disappointed that on this occasion he will not. I draw his attention to the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) and other hon. Friends who have pointed out that this is, in fact, the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. I thought the hon. Gentleman was getting there—surely we all support systems that work; surely we all want annual reports to the House on progress on full employment, troubled families and apprenticeships. There must be much in the Bill that hon. Members on both sides of the House can agree on.

The last Labour Government spent £170 billion in tax credits between 2004 and 2010. It is not unreasonable to ask whether that £170 billion, or at least some of it, could not have been better spent on measures that would change recipients’ life chances. That is particularly true since we know we have to live within our means, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) stated so eloquently—far more eloquently than I put it in my intervention on him. Between 2010 and 2015, the welfare reform that we achieved made savings of £60 billion, helping to halve the deficit and restore confidence in our public finances. In the same period, employment increased by no less than 2 million. In my constituency, the number of people who are unemployed has fallen by a third, and I am sure that similar statistics could be quoted by hon. Members throughout the Chamber if they chose to reel them off.

The best way to tackle poverty and reform welfare is to ensure that everyone who can work has that opportunity. That is the best way to tackle poverty both in this generation and in the next. Under this Government, 387,000 fewer children are being brought up in workless households. That is hugely positive in enhancing the life chances of all our people. I am delighted that the Government are not only targeting full employment but ensuring, through the introduction of the national living wage and the targeted reduction of tax, that those working in lower-paid jobs get a fairer reward.

The proposal to reduce the welfare cap is right for two reasons. It will support a culture in which people know that work will always pay, and that it is the best way to maximise income and support a family. It is also right to redirect our support to enhancing life chances. The funds saved will go towards increasing the number of quality apprenticeships—I take the point made by the shadow Secretary of State that they must be quality apprenticeships, and I am sure that is what we will get. I know that enabling young people to achieve their ambitions is close to the hearts of all of us, on both sides of the House. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) that that is an exciting feature of the Bill, which we should all support. The Government have overseen the creation of 2 million apprenticeships, delivering more apprenticeships in two years than Labour delivered in five. The Bill will take the aspiration further, with a target of 3 million apprenticeships.

I acknowledge much of what the hon. Member for Ogmore said, but there are great differences across the House in how we achieve our aims. We believe—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.