Capping Welfare Spending Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Lord Barwell
Main Page: Lord Barwell (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Barwell's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Capping Welfare Spending
Lord Barwell Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I am delighted to have secured the debate. The level of welfare spending and whether it should be capped have been the subject of great public interest but have not been discussed much in Parliament, so this is a good opportunity to give the issue a short airing.
Even before the crash, the cost of welfare spending rose by 50% under the previous Government. All sides agree that when the good times rolled, too little action was taken, in the famous words of the Chancellor, to fix the roof while the sun was shining. The current Government have had little choice but to take necessary but tough decisions. We must live within our means, and welfare reform and capping welfare are key parts of that. It is a question of fairness. In my constituency and up and down the land, people go out, work hard and try to do the right thing for their families, spouses, children and loved ones, to make ends meet in difficult times. They look around and they tell me, “It’s simply not fair that there are people living on benefits who are better off than we are. Why do we go out to work? Why do we bother? Why not just live a life on benefits and be better off?” It is wrong that people who do not work enjoy a higher standard of living than people who go out to work and do the best they can.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the vast majority of those who are on benefit do not choose to live that lifestyle, but the previous Government designed a system that traps them, because they receive more in benefits than they are ever likely to get through work? The system traps people in that condition.
Charlie Elphicke
I completely agree with the powerful point that my hon. Friend makes. The number of households in which no member has ever worked doubled under the previous Government. As he says, we cannot stand by and allow social failure on such a grand scale to continue for a moment longer. That is why no family who are out of work should be better off on benefits; why a benefit cap is right; and why it is set at £26,000 a year.