Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

No, it is not about rolling back the frontiers of the state. The points that the hon. Lady has raised are addressed by our introduction of universal credit, which gives people who are in work a progressive route out of poverty by helping them, as they earn more, not to have all their benefits removed. Moreover, by introducing a national living wage, we are ensuring that everyone who is in work and has a low income will be given a pay rise.

Faced with the current problem, a Government might be tempted simply to salami slice benefits across the board. However, this Government have set out a coherent vision of welfare, which has a number of elements. First, if we are to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy to a higher wage, lower tax, low welfare economy, we must deal with the tax problem. The last Government, with their coalition partners, set about massively increasing the amount of money people could earn without paying tax. We are continuing that agenda, so that as people earn more they keep more

Secondly, we have grasped the problem of people who are in work but do not earn a sufficiently large wage, which is why, for the first time, we are able to increase the minimum wage significantly. Our increase is far greater than any increases that were made by the Labour party when it was in power.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his honesty. Having claimed, as his colleagues have claimed, that this is a living wage, he himself has now used the phrase “national minimum wage”. Is it not the case that all the Government are doing is increasing the minimum wage without making it enough for full-time workers to live on?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not accept that. I hope that Members will forgive my slip of the tongue. The increase in the current minimum wage, which is less than £7 an hour, to a minimum wage of well over £9 an hour by the end of this Parliament is huge. It is not in line with the standard increase in the minimum wage. This is a step change that reflects the introduction of a national—

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[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

We support many of the measures in the Bill, which will be important in the debates we will have on it, but my role today is to highlight the things that cause us concern.

This Bill probably spells the end of the Northern Ireland Assembly, because the current welfare reform measures have not been introduced, which has left a £600 million hole in the budget. I say to the Members from Scotland who are keen to have welfare reform devolved, that there is a cost in that because every measure that is not introduced means money is taken off the block grant. People should be aware of that. It is significant that Sinn Féin, who are not here, will probably claim that they will block these measures.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that the very firm view in Scotland is that those additional costs are a price well worth paying if they give us the fair and just society each and every one of us was elected to deliver?

[Sammy Wilson]

My point was that there is a cost. How people decide to distribute it is another matter. The one thing I do know—