Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Michael McCann Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins]

No, obviously not, because they are going out there to seek a job. That is the key thing. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the extra time.

We have put a benefit cap at £26,000, and that is net. The vast majority of my constituents would be delighted to take home or have access to that amount of money. Far from doing something outrageous by increasing the amount of money that people are going to get by 1% in this climate, it is an admirable move by those on the Front Bench to facilitate that, bearing in mind the crisis that the previous Government left.

We have made some choices about who we are going to protect and who we will not. There is a debate about disability, but I am pleased that we are protecting pensioners. It was a commitment by this Government to protect pensioners and we have continued with that. I am very concerned that the unemployed, those who are dependent, those who are uneducated and have no skills, those with limited opportunities to offer young people, are the families that are growing in my constituency. That is a tragedy for the future of towns such as mine. We must break that cycle. It cannot be right that it pays to live on the state.

The resentment and anger are real in people who are working hard. They have seen generations continue to claim benefit. Some of those are trapped, but some have no desire to go and work. People are making life choices based on the fact that they can get money from the Government. As was pointed out earlier, that is taxpayers’ money. That cannot be right. When families see no increase in their income after their hard work and they see people on benefits receiving twice the increase, as has been shown statistically, that promotes resentment in our communities. It is not just about strivers or skivers. Failure to address the issue promotes racism and tension in communities, because somebody sees or perceives that somebody else is getting something that they are not getting. After all their efforts they do not see the benefit of working so hard.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

rose—

[Kris Hopkins]

No, I will not give way.

I have great sympathy for all the people who go out there, graft hard and pay their dues, and then look over next door where the curtains are closed or see estates where people are not ambitious, not aspirational, have failed in education and failed in skills. It is the responsibility of those on the Government Benches to address that, as much as it was with the previous Government. In another 30 or 40 years I do not want to see people living in poverty because they have been abandoned and people keep sustaining those estates. Society backfills sink estates in constituencies such as mine.

We do not take decisions about welfare lightly. We take them extremely seriously, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) said, but we on the Government Benches are on the side of hard-working individuals. That is why I support the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

Sometimes when I listen to debates in the House—on a number of subjects—I wonder whether the great British public are, frankly, astounded at the lack of acceptance of the genuine economic crisis facing this nation. The coalition Government exist only because of the situation we inherited back in 2010. Last year, we found out that the situation was worse and that it would take longer to get better. We had honesty from politicians—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), the Parliamentary Private Secretary, says ludicrously from a sedentary position that we created the current situation, but the great British public know full well that it was the hon. Gentleman’s party and his previous Government who created it. What an absurd statement!

The simple reality is that the current situation means that there are very difficult decisions to take. The Bill is one of them. It is a serious matter, and there have been sensible, helpful and thoughtful contributions to the debate from Members on both sides of the House, but other speeches, frankly, have just scored party political points—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) wants to intervene, he is welcome to do so, but he should not chunter from a sedentary position.

[Mr McCann]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Mulholland]

Of course.

[Hon. Members]

He will get more time.

[Mr McCann]

That is always a danger.

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, since the coalition’s election in 2010, the Government have increased borrowing by £212 billion more than they said they would?

[Greg Mulholland]

The hon. Gentleman is obviously not listening. I have said that it has been made clear that getting rid of that borrowing will take longer and be more challenging. However, let us also be clear that if Labour were in government, we would be like Greece. [Interruption.] Labour Members cannot apologise and they shout people down when things that are true are said. The reality is that difficult discussions had to be made when we found out last autumn that the situation was more difficult and that further cuts would have to be made over a longer period. That would be the reality whoever was in government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

Let me start by doing my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) a favour and correcting the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). It was a Labour Government who introduced the welfare state, not a Liberal Government—I am damn sure there was not a Liberal Government after the war.

I heard the Secretary of State defending the Bill on Radio 5 Live this morning. He made two important comments. The first was that the Government had underestimated the size and scale of the economic problems the country faces; the second was that the proposal to cap benefits was based on fairness. The two issues are, of course, inextricably linked, but what he failed to mention was his Government’s contribution to the size and scale of the economic problems we face. Without that part of the story it is difficult—indeed impossible—to put into context the proposal before us, nor is it possible to understand the rationale that the Government are setting out.

The economy is not in good shape, but if the Prime Minister was too weak to move the Secretary of State from office in the last Cabinet reshuffle, he is certainly not going to move his Bullingdon club buddy. That is a pity, because it is the Chancellor’s quick-fix agenda of raising taxes and cutting spending too far and too fast that has spectacularly backfired on our economy. Because the benefits bill is going up while tax revenues are down, borrowing continues to rise. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State should listen to this; he might learn something.

We hear a lot about the great work that the Government have done to reduce the structural deficit, but very rarely do we hear anything about the debt. A perfunctory look at the numbers tells us why. The Government claim they have clipped the structural deficit by £37.5 billion, but they have also increased borrowing by £212 billion since they were elected. It seems neither appropriate, reasonable nor sane to claim that we have reduced the household budget— to use the litmus test of Mrs Thatcher, the great saviour of the Conservative party—while simultaneously borrowing more than five times as much as we claim to have saved. Like so many other claims that the coalition parties make, it is spurious. Their economic competence is indeed questionable.

All this is important because if we had steered a different and more sensible course, the economic condition of our country would be immeasurably better. That takes us back to the Bill. Who is being asked to pay as a result of the Government’s mishandling of the economy? We all agree that it would be foolish to disagree or take sides on arithmetic, but it appears that the Government wish to do so. May I remind hon. Members that jobseeker’s allowance is £71 a week? Under the proposal in this Bill, it will increase by 71p this year. It might interest the House to know that since this Government took office, the cost of the average weekly shopping basket has risen by 17%. Most importantly for the poorest people in our country, figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that falling income and rising food prices reduce food affordability by 20%. For the record—I draw this to the Secretary of State’s attention—the proliferation of food banks across the UK is not a cause for celebration.

Increases in prices have the ability, or at least the potential, to be absorbed by a working household’s budget. Although Labour Members do not deny that times are tough for everybody under the current economic circumstances, to suggest that there is a level playing field between someone earning even the minimum wage and someone receiving £71 a week in benefits is an utter fallacy. This is not about fairness; otherwise, 8,000 millionaires would not be getting a tax cut of £107,000 a year. The Secretary of State’s halo has fallen and crashed to the floor, and the Bill is sadly another example of the true character of Conservative politics. In difficult times, they see nothing wrong in helping the rich at the expense of the country’s poorest people.