Finance (No. 3) Bill

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

There is, and my hon. Friend will know that we have been very clear that the Government’s wider proposed changes to child benefit are not fair or equitable, and that child benefit should remain universal. The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West, decided that child care was poorly targeted, but that if universality was to be broken, we must provide help and support to the poorest families to ensure that they had child care for two-year-olds. The Labour Government planned some 65,000 to 68,000 child care places as a result of the measures that are now in clause 35. The current Government have accepted those measures in principle, as we did, but unless the Exchequer Secretary tells me otherwise I do not believe they are delivering the outputs that we planned as a benefit of saving resources.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

We know that whenever means-testing is put in place, there is a cost because of the bureaucracy that is needed to administer it. Does my right hon. Friend have any idea how much this particular method of means-testing will cost?

[Mr Hanson]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. That is another issue that we wish to explore not just today, but when we debate schedule 8 upstairs in Committee at a later date. The element of complexity and randomness in the application of the clause has been raised with me by the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group. It is incumbent on the Exchequer Secretary to answer those criticisms before we consent to the clause.

There are choices to be made in tackling the deficit and we must look at the options. The then Labour Government made the same choice, but would have ensured that more child care places were available.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Cryer]

Does my hon. Friend agree—this is in line with the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson)—that this badly thought out measure is an attack on the collective ethos of society, which is always dangerous?

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful for that point. Others have made it, and I have tried to echo its sentiments. The Government have the opportunity to rethink the implications of this decision, because implementation is not until 2013, so I hope that the Minister will address that point at the close of the debate. I am sure that hon. Members will recall that when the measure was proposed, Labour was engaged in a leadership election. Perhaps it was an attempt to steal the headlines.

However, from representations that I have received from expert groups, individuals and constituents—I am sure that other Members have received similar representations—it seems that the policy has been shown to be ill thought out. Whatever one’s views about middle England—whether it exists, whether it should be protected —it is crystal clear that the policy will disproportionately affect families with a single high earner. As someone who considers himself a socialist and something of a champion of the working classes and those at the lower end of the income spectrum, I think that there is a basic issue in this debate about justice and fairness. For families with a single high earner and perhaps no second earner, there is a clear injustice and anomaly when compared with a family with two high earners, as both families would lose the same amount.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am happy to say that all three of my children went to St Anne’s primary school in Denton, where my wife, who is up for election tomorrow, is a chair of the governors. My eldest son goes to Audenshaw high school, which is also in my constituency, and all my children are getting a first-class education in those schools.

Let me return to clause 35, Mr Evans, for fear of being told off by your good self for straying too wide of the issue. The issue, for Labour Members, is this. We support the extra investment in child care for two-year-olds, especially in constituencies such as mine. Denton and Reddish is quite a deprived constituency, which covers five wards in the Tameside metropolitan borough—which is, I believe, the 52nd most deprived local authority in England—and the two Reddish wards in Stockport, which, although Stockport itself is a much more prosperous borough, are the two most deprived wards in the constituency. Investment in early years education has made a big difference to young people in constituencies such as Denton and Reddish. I would particularly welcome extra investment in nursery education in those deprived communities and, indeed, the Labour party proposed to provide it. I am pleased that the present Government are pressing ahead with a change that we proposed when we were in government.

Where we differ is in our approach to targeting. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington made a valid point about that. Although I understand the arguments for targeting as a way of ensuring that communities such as his and mine receive the benefit of extra early years provision, some constituents who are better off than the average in my constituency tell me—and it is difficult to argue against what they say—that they pay considerably higher taxes and pay into a welfare state system, and that they expect to get at least something in return. Those payments are their buy-in to the universal welfare system. I take on board your strictures, Mr Evans, but I also take on board the points made by my hon. Friend.

[John Cryer]

What concerns me about the changes is their incoherent nature. It appears that there have been knee-jerk reactions to save a bit of money here and a bit of money there. I fear that the Tory party may be moving from being, as Disraeli said, the party of organised hypocrisy to being the party of disorganised hypocrisy. For the benefit of Government Members, incidentally, Disraeli was a Prime Minister, and a Tory Prime Minister.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I entirely understand what my hon. Friend has said. There is a real inconsistency in the Government’s approach. While I think it commendable to raise additional money to target early years provision, particularly in constituencies such as mine, I also think that the Government’s so-called family-friendly approach is deeply questionable. As I said earlier in an intervention, when the Prime Minister was Leader of the Opposition he made it clear that he would be proud to lead the most family-friendly Government in history. Whether the Government are family-friendly is, of course, a matter for debate and conjecture. I can only say that the constituents who regularly come to my advice bureau seem to have been clobbered time and again by the changes that the Government are implementing, many of which—