Welfare Reform

Malcolm Wicks Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I make a point of agreeing with him on many things. The changes to child benefit are exactly what they are—to help us to reduce the terrible deficit that we have and to save the poorest families in the land from suffering a terrible burden that they would have to bear in due course. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear last week—these are not matters directly for me, but he and the Chancellor will bring forward measures in due course—the very best way to ensure that couples do not face that penalty is to ensure that they are not unfairly taxed from the outset. This is about child benefit, and we will support families who make the choices that they make.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

When, in the mid-1970s, the decision was taken to merge the child tax allowance, which broadly benefited the wallet, with the family allowance, which broadly benefited the purse, the then Labour Government, after a bit of a kerfuffle, decided that it should become a child benefit for the mothers, for reasons which, I think, both sides of the House recognise. Does the Secretary of State realise the dismay of many people in all parts of the House and the public that he is now running a coach and horses through the principle that it is very often the mother who has to juggle the family budgets, that certainly in the south of England, salaries at the level at which he is withdrawing benefit are not extravagant, and that that is a blow to the concept that mothers are at the heart of our families in Britain?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I respect the right hon. Gentleman enormously, and he knows that, but I am afraid that he is living in a time warp. The reality is that we have walked into government to find facing us the single biggest deficit on record. This country is close to being broke, thanks to his Government and how they ran the economy. So, yes, in a perfect world we might have wanted to continue with everything as it was, but in reality we cannot afford to. We make such changes on the basis of ensuring that we do not make them on the backs of the poorest people. Had we done it any other way, he would have complained quite rightly, and I must say to him that, if he does not like the proposal, and it sounds like he does not, perhaps he or his Front-Bench colleagues will tell us where they think they are going to get the money from as an alternative.