Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. What her constituents need is a job, but what they are not getting from the failed Work programme is any prospect at all of work.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

On inflation uprating, which is at the heart of this Bill, there is a widespread belief that housing benefit for private rented accommodation will rise in April by CPI. The Department has done little to dispel that understanding, but in Rotherham, as my right hon. Friend might be aware, the rate for a three-bedroom home is set to be cut by 3% in cash terms. Is not this, like the Bill, another harsh, half-hidden cut to the help that those in work and those out of work need to meet the cost of household bills?

[Mr Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is also right that the Department’s incompetence in proceeding with some of these reforms means that many of the changes risk costing more than they save. That is why Ministers have been forced to delay implementation of the benefit cap, about which they made such a fuss last year. Now we see that it will be implemented in just four London boroughs, because the Government do not know how it will work in practice.