Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) indicated, we will vote against this Bill. I also have to say that I cannot accept all the reasoning in the amendment, so we will not support the reasoned amendment either.

Many people in this debate have made a number of points about this Bill. It removes even the term “child poverty” from the Child Poverty Act 2010. The Government’s answer to eradicating child poverty seems to be to delete all statutory references to child poverty. That is their policy on ending child poverty. Of course, that has an impact not only on policies here—where there is accountability to this House—but on devolved policies. Did any consultation take place with the relevant devolved authorities, whose positions are changed by virtue of this Bill, if it passes into law?

More importantly, I am here because, like many Government Members, I want to see that work always pays, but unlike them I am conscious of the fact that I will have thousands of constituents for whom work will pay less as a result of this Bill. People who are on working tax credits will see their position worsen. We see that by the changes to the income threshold and to the taper, which will mean a difference of more than £100 a month to many people, straight off, just from those changes alone. Other people will be affected by the freeze on other benefits. They include people who are not in work, but it also affects people who are in work. It is as though the Government looked at all the speculation a number of weeks ago about what they would do and whether they would go for freezes, for cuts or for caps, or whether they would change the thresholds. The answer is that all of the above are in this Bill. The bottom line is billions of pounds of welfare cuts, which will affect not just the Budget in overall terms in the way the Government want, but family budgets in crucial and biting ways.

In addition, the Bill introduces the two-child policy. We know that Conservative Members will say, “Well, at least it is not quite Vulgarian and you don’t have to hide your first two children. Therefore it’s all right.” But the fact is that the Conservative party was not saying there should be a two-child limit when it came to the child tax allowances that it put through in legislation in the last Parliament. There, £2,000 of childcare payments a year can be paid for every single child; there are no limits on the number of children for that, and of course we know that 80% of the beneficiaries of those childcare payments will be in the top 40% of the income bracket. No, it is two children only here, and people have to think about their choice when they are not in that income bracket. That is why this Bill is fundamentally unjust.

Basically, this Bill proposes a poverty tax. In the previous Parliament, many Government Members valiantly rebelled when it came to Budget measures on things such as the “caravan” tax and the “pasty” tax. There is no sign of any of them rebelling on the poverty tax that will hit hard-working families in their constituencies. There is no sign of any of them rebelling over the dishonest way in which this Bill treats disabled people. Yes, disability premiums might be protected, but not the wider benefits that people are on, so disabled people will see their benefits go down as a result of these measures. They will be told, “Oh no, but we protected your disability premium.” That will be a fat lot of comfort when their overall income goes down as a result of these measures. There is no point in pretending to them at that stage that the tyre is only flat at the bottom; and that the comfort is in the fact that their disability premium is protected. There has been no follow through on the promises that were made to carers. Any of the promises that are still being made to carers are not reflected in this Bill.