Romanians and Bulgarians (Benefits)

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The changes are long overdue, and I would like to know why the right hon. Gentleman did not explain why the last Government did nothing about resolving the issue. He says that we should not be partisan, but he just has made a very partisan statement when an apology was all he needed to make. He needed only to say that he was sorry for the mess Labour left us in.

What we are talking about will have no practical effect on the implementation of universal credit, which, by the way, is proceeding exactly in accordance with plans. On the contributory principle—this is the point I wanted to make to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead—there is no magic wand. Let us bear it in mind that if it was a blanket contributory principle, we would end up paying a lot of benefits, such as winter fuel payments—an issue that, as the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) knows, was not resolved by his Government—to lots of people who had long since departed Britain. We are considering the matter, and universal credit will give us an ideal opportunity to embrace tax credits and, through this requirement, to start the process of change so that we can resist the pressure of paying tax credits—because they would no longer exist—to people who come to the UK for the first time and claim to be self-employed. That is the area I am looking at.

We need no lectures from the right hon. Gentleman about prosecutions for minimum wage infringements. The last Government’s record on this was so bad I wonder why the Opposition bother mentioning it at the Dispatch Box. We are trying to change it, and will change it, whereas the last Government gave way on every single issue in Europe from the moment they arrived.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Why can the Secretary of State not propose to the House that we legislate to say that no one can get benefits unless they can demonstrate a suitable contribution record or have spent at least 10 years in full-time education in the UK?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said earlier, that is the direction of travel we are trying to head in. We are trying to change the rules, in order to make the test covering the period someone spends here and the commitment they make to the UK much tougher. We are wrestling with the habitual residence test, but it is weak in parts because it makes no requirements concerning the length of time someone commits to being in the country. That is an area we have to, and will, challenge. I want to change those rules so that the European Court recognises that someone needs to make a commitment to the country they are in before they can start drawing down.