Jobs and Social Security

Debate between Liam Byrne and Andrew Bridgen

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Byrne]

In a moment.

The Government spent something like £63 million closing down the flexible new deal—a programme that was actually getting more people into sustainable jobs than the Work programme and was costing only something like 9.5% more per job outcome. The Government have, in effect, shut down a system that was working, spent an awful long time getting something back up and then overseen a programme that has dramatically failed to hit the target set for it in the first years. It is a catalogue of failure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Glasgow city council has lessons to teach all of us about what it takes to get young people back into work. Despite all the difficult decisions that the council has had to take, it has made it a priority to get young people back into work. The way in which it has built on the future jobs fund is a real lesson for everybody.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the Labour Government’s record of getting people into work. Can he explain why the number of households in which no one had ever worked doubled to 350,000 during the 13 years of his Government?

[Mr Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman should check his facts. The number of people on out-of-work benefits came down by 1 million under Labour, and the out-of-work benefit bill came down by £7.5 billion. That is in sharp contrast to this Government, who have put up welfare spending by £20 billion more than they projected. To pay down that bill, they are now having to cut tax credits from constituents such as those of the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The right hon. Gentleman did not answer the question. I asked why the number of households in which no one had ever worked doubled to 350,000 under the last Labour Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is a bleak future for many young people in his constituency, where the Work programme has delivered something like 1.3% of people into sustainable jobs, so it is one of the worst figures in the country. When young people in my hon. Friend’s constituency face tuition fees that have trebled, the cancellation of EMA and the shutdown of the future jobs programme, he is right to call in this place for a very different course of action.

Even more worrying for the future, the signs are that when universal credit is introduced, it will not get better for Britain’s strivers and battlers; it will actually get worse. We know that new rules for universal credit will mean taking in-work benefits away from anyone who has managed to squirrel away £16,000, and we know that it locks in cuts to tax credits. Now, in this morning’s Sun, we read that a couple working full time—over a million of them will be in the system—will lose something like £1,200 a year. That is, of course, if it ever happens.

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us what he thinks of that.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I would like to tackle him on the last Government’s record on what he claims was getting people into work. If that were the case, will he explain why the working age welfare budget increased by 40% in real terms during the 13 years of the last Labour Government?

[Mr Byrne]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman some statistics. If he looked at the amount spent on benefits in 1996-97, he would find that it came to about £51 billion, excluding pensions. By the time we reach 2009-10, that had fallen to £44 billion, so I am afraid that no matter how he looks at it, the truth is that the amount spent on out-of-work benefits over the course of Labour’s period in office fell by £7.5 billion. The hon. Gentleman is a member of a party that has presided over an increase in the projected welfare spend by £20 billion, and there are something like 8,000 families in his constituency that are now seeing their tax credits either frozen or cut to pay for that cost of failure. I wonder how he is going to explain that to his constituents as we get closer to the next election.

It is not simply people in work who are paying the bill. We now know that about 6 million families are working, yet are still in poverty. There is another group of our constituents that we must worry about, too—those constituents who are disabled yet are set to lose something like £6.7 billion of help over the course of this Parliament to help pay for the failure to get Britain back to work. These benefits are being taken away, without any cumulative assessment of their combined impact, and these cuts total more than the Government are taking away from banks. That, I am afraid, is a sorry indictment of this Government’s values.