Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is yet another sign of just how fundamentally strong our economy is, which is helping us to deliver record numbers of people in employment.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I did not study geography at university, but the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is a little way away from East Anglia.

[Richard Fuller]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

I am in a generous mood. I have known the hon. Gentleman for 30 years, and if he wants to persuade me that Bedford and Kempston is a hop, skip and a jump away from the constituency of the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), he has a taxing task, but let us hear it.

[Richard Fuller]

I am very grateful for your indulgence, Mr Speaker. As a lifelong watcher of Anglia Television from the heart of Bedford, I can say that we are very proudly members of East Anglia. In Bedford, a small town, we have only small employers—we do not have a large private sector employer. What steps are the Government taking to encourage small businesses to take on young people and others who are unemployed?

[Mr Speaker]

I would never have done anything like what the hon. Gentleman has just done when I was a Back Bencher.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Well, she asked the question and if she does not want the answer, that is fine by me. What I am saying to her is that the last Labour Government moved to a clerical system. We have reviewed that approach over the past year and decided that, under the changes we want, going back to an automatic system is much better. The recent statistics released last week show that the rate of appeal was slightly higher among those who did not receive the initial letter appeal than among those who did; we therefore do not think there is a difference. We will be writing to people to remind them that they still have rights to appeal if they wish to do so.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

A substantial benefit of the issues relating to tax credits is that more companies are encouraged to pay the national living wage—£9 an hour—now. What conversations has my right hon. Friend had with the Chancellor about incentives that we could provide to companies to pay £9 an hour?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, the No. 1 reality is that companies that believe the economy is well run will invest in their workforce and give them a better salary. The problem was that the last Labour Government set up a system that encouraged companies to pay low wages and leave them static. The change now is this: universal credit is making them move on; higher salaries; a better wage packet. Many companies are already paying the higher level—they have come and said they will.

Hairdressing

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), and I thank her for providing me with the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I join her in placing on record admiration for barbers and hairdressers—one needs only to look around the House to see what a challenge it can be. You, of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, are at the top of the list. It is undoubtedly a challenge to get every individual’s hair correct. May I place on record my particular thanks to Sugaz barbers of Lime street, Bedford, for their tremendous dedication to making the Member of Parliament for Bedford look presentable in public these past four or five years?

Hairdressing is a tough profession, as every individual has their own needs and tastes. As the hon. Lady said, the skill sets in the industry and the services and products it provides have progressed dramatically over the past 20 or 30 years. I would also point out the size of the industry. As she said, it is not a small sector of our economy but a considerable one. It employs a large number of people, and there are a large number of businesses in it. It affects all of us—we all use the services of a hairdresser or barber on a regular basis, perhaps until we become follically challenged.

The hon. Lady did not mention another important aspect of the sector, which is that setting up a salon or becoming a barber or hairdresser is one of the most accessible ways for people to start out in their own profession or start up their own business. For a lot of people, formal education is not their direct interest, but making people feel better and bringing happiness to their lives is how hundreds of thousands of people contribute to our society. Hairdressing has historically been a relatively easy way for people to get involved in setting up a business. That is why I disagree with the hon. Lady’s approach to regulation, if I may say so, even though she outlined a solid case. Frankly, I do not want the state cutting my hair. More deeply than that, I believe that sufficient protections for the consumer are already in place. If I may, I will go through a number of them in turn.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has graciously thanked his hairdresser, but may I say that on the whole, his hairdresser’s task is rather simple? The point is the greater complication, and the use of chemicals and other products, when a woman’s hair is styled. That is often a more technical and difficult task, and that is where regulation is required.

[Richard Fuller]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, and I will state why I think regulation is not the approach to take. If that does not satisfy her, especially on the issue of chemical use, perhaps she will make a further intervention or contribution.

My first point applies to almost all barbers and hairdressers, because they almost all go through formal training. Bedford college has an active range of courses for people who want to become hairdressers and barbers. They go through the training, learn about the use of chemicals, different styles, techniques and human interactions, and achieve a good qualification.

[Nia Griffith]

If, as the hon. Gentleman says, the vast majority of hairdressers go through the process of getting a proper qualification, should we not give them credit for that, and ensure that someone who has not done so is not able to give the whole industry a bad name by doing something inappropriate or stupid? As he says, many hairdressers have done a lot of work and trained, and if they were asked to register because it was compulsory, I am sure the vast majority would be proud to do so.

[Richard Fuller]

There are a number of points in that. First, people who work for a qualification get that qualification and credit at the end of their training course, which is a sense of celebration and merit for them. Secondly, if they believe it is valuable to get that additional accreditation from the council, that is perfectly open to them. There is nothing barring someone from taking on that accreditation, but the hon. Lady proposes not to treat accreditation in that way but to make it a compulsory requirement, and that is where I differ from her approach. Qualifications provide people with that credit, and the sector currently works adequately at that level.

Another factor is word of mouth. If there is one part of our lives where word of mouth has a big influence on where we go, it must surely be in who cuts our hair. We listen to what people say, perhaps when we are younger, and then we stick with someone and they cut our hair for many years into the future. We get to know who we want from what other people say, and we tend to stick with what we know. In that type of structure, and given how demand in a market works, regulation seems to be more of an impediment and intrusion into people’s normal practice of finding the right barber or hairdresser than a help.

Supply and demand works. If someone is operating a salon and provides poor or risky service, they will go out of business because in most communities people know which barbers and hairdressers do not work effectively. As I said, there is already quite a lot of conversational management about the quality of service in that sector, and that has been supplemented by online sources. Nowadays people seeking a hairdresser can look at ratings and recommendations online, just as they can for other services. Finally, in the rare occurrences when a problem does occur, one can obviously seek redress directly from the salon for any impediment caused, and if a very severe issue has caused an injury, there is the opportunity for litigation. Plenty of measures are already in place that make regulation an unnecessary, perhaps even distracting, step.

The hon. Member for Llanelli said that regulation helps to stop the unscrupulous, but we had plenty of regulation in banking and that did not stop unscrupulous behaviour. She specifically mentioned taxi drivers. We have regulation in that sector, but in a number of activities there is still unscrupulous behaviour by taxi drivers. I do not see regulation, perhaps as the hon. Lady does, as providing a guarantee that something will be right. In fact, I believe that our understanding of how markets and people work, what we hear from our friends and others, and the service we directly receive, is a much better guide and form of consumer protection than blanket regulation.

I understand that the proposed measure is in the interests of the British Hair Council. I understand that it has about 6,000 registered members from the 250,000 people who could be registered, which is a relatively low proportion. Rather than compelling people to join, perhaps the council should ask itself some tough questions about why it has achieved such a low level of penetration. Why is its offer not attractive enough for people to join? It is not the job of government to give the council a leg up so that it can increase its membership—it should be doing that itself. I think the hon. Lady confirmed that the membership fee is £42, so the council, with its current 6,000 members, has an income of £250,000 a year. Were we to make membership compulsory, that income would go up to £10 million a year. I can therefore see a clear and direct financial interest for the council to be pushing this measure, through both the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) and today’s debate. I can see why the council is pushing very hard, but I am not hearing any compelling argument, related to either consumer satisfaction or industry improvement, about why we should take that step.

[Nia Griffith]

The hon. Gentleman needs to take into consideration why one would register if it is not compulsory. There are lots of professional organisations to which people do not necessarily belong if they are not compulsory. When I was a modern languages teacher, I could have belonged to about three or four organisations, in addition to the trade union to which I belonged. If there is to be no regulation, how would the hon. Gentleman guarantee that somebody could not practise if they were not competent to do so? He talks about word of mouth; that might be all right for the established person, but it does not help the newly qualified person in setting up, which is one of the arguments he made. Why is it that he rejects any form of protection? Does he have another idea how that offer of a proper guarantee could be put in place, so that people could see a sticker in a window and know that the salon—or the individual, if it is someone visiting a house—is properly qualified? Is there another way to guarantee that?

[Richard Fuller]

First, as a politician I do not think I should be guaranteeing the quality of service that someone receives in a hair salon. Secondly, I do not think that regulation is the same as a guarantee, and I have tried to make that point. Regulation is, as the hon. Lady rightly says, a sticker in the window, but there are plenty of examples of regulation not providing protection. It can sometimes be misguiding to say that people are protected when they are not. If we want protection, we might have to put in place compensation schemes and ask the taxpayer to fund situations where there have been negative consequences. The hon. Lady and I have a substantially differing approach to whether it is appropriate for politicians to guarantee, and to whether a guarantee means protection. As I tried to set out earlier, there are a number of layers of informal protection that guide our decision to get a haircut in salon A or salon B.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Hair Council’s proposal to have inspectors going around regulating. That would be really tough. The Care Quality Commission has to regulate, I think, 21,000 care homes, and we know that that does not necessarily provide a guarantee of service. There are even more hair salons, so unless there is a very cursory inspection—just popping in and popping out—that would be a substantial undertaking. I have some scepticism about whether the council is currently in a position to provide the level of insight the hon. Lady thinks it can in an industry that is so widely distributed and so small scale individually. The sector also has quite a high turnover—a number of salons will set up and then fail—so there will perhaps be even more than the headline number of salons that need to be regulated.

The hon. Lady set out a good case, but I disagree with her approach. She talked about the regulation of new industries—for example botox and so on. There is a question—perhaps the Minister will address it—of whether there should be a difference of approach when we look at new industries, such as those providing botox and cosmetic surgery, that do not have a track record of customer service and what people understand, as there is in industries, such as hairdressing, that have been established for generations. What about nail salons? If the Minister is minded to agree with the hon. Lady, does he think we should also regulate nail salons? If so, how many nail salons would we have to cover? If not, why would we cover one, but not the other?

The hon. Lady did not mention Europe, but given the title of the debate, I want to talk about pending European regulations relating to the hairdressing industry in the UK. When many of us on the Government Benches hear about European regulation—this is a poor joke—we are minded to pull our hair out. [Interruption.] I said it was a poor joke. [Hon. Members: “It was a very poor joke”.] It is late in the day, so I can get away with it.

There is, however, a much more important non-joke issue that was drawn to my attention by the National Hairdressers’ Federation, which is based in my constituency: the framework agreement proposed by the EU on occupational health and safety protection. As I understand it, the Commission is seeking to make the framework voluntary agreement into something that is legally binding in all member states and for all businesses in the industry. This raises several issues. First, I am not sure we want additional European regulation in a sector in the UK. Secondly, it would not apply to those who are self-employed; it would apply only to businesses and so create a two-tier level of occupational health and safety protection? Thirdly, the European trade federation has said it would have severely negative consequences for the sector.

I think that most people who run salons would say it is a tough, low-margin business where every cost matters. Do we really want to add an additional burden from the EU? I understand that 10 member states have already expressed their opposition to making the regulation legally binding. Will the Minister give us his views and tell us whether the UK has or will oppose making it legally binding rather than a matter of voluntary compliance? In most sectors, voluntary compliance works effectively.

The hon. Lady has made a strong case for an alternative point of view, but it is a case I disagree with, and I hope that the Minister will also disagree. However, I am grateful to both of them for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Pension Schemes Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The Minister is rightly saying that this Bill is part of a series of measures the Government have undertaken to increase pensions for people. Is the number of people in the auto-enrolment process higher or lower than expected?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. The number is substantially higher. I had to apologise to the Select Committee in oral evidence recently that we had grossly underestimated the success of our policy. We had thought that the staying-in rates for workplace pensions might be as high as two thirds, but in reality the number of people who, having been automatically enrolled, are staying in is touching nine tenths. Even so, with each passing month, as new figures come out, the sceptics keep saying, “Oh, as we get to smaller firms, the opt-out rates will shoot up,” but we are certainly seeing no evidence of that so far. I think there is a sense that people knew that they needed a pension and knew the value of an employer contribution and tax relief, and when we remove the barriers for them they are delighted to accept it.

Quality Workplace Pensions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

There is a perfectly straightforward answer to the hon. Lady’s question. When we asked firms to enrol their staff automatically, we asked them to plan 12 months ahead, because it takes a long time to set up a pension scheme, to choose a pension scheme and to communicate with scheme members. A firm sitting down today to plan for April 2015 knows the rules of the game today so that it can choose its scheme in an informed way. She asked why we have allowed a further year for commission and active member discounts. Clearly, if either of those takes a scheme above 0.75%, which many do, they will have to comply immediately in April 2015, but many of those are based on complicated contractual arrangements in pension schemes. We have to strike a balance between unpicking all those and focusing the pensions industry on delivering automatic enrolment, which is a key priority for the next 12 months.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Whether the Select Committee or the shadow Pensions Minister wish to claim credit is of secondary importance to my constituents, who today can feel a little more confident that they are not being ripped off. I thank the Minister for actually doing something about this, rather than just claiming credit. One of the most important things is that people can easily see what charges will be imposed in future. How will his proposals help to make that clearer for people?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. The challenge with this market is that the people buying the pensions are essentially the employers of the firm, not the staff. We need to ensure that when firms are shopping around for pensions for their workers they get clear and straightforward information about what the charges will be and that they will be capped. Scheme members clearly need to be able to access information about charges in a straightforward and transparent way. It is a slightly odd market, because people are buying on their behalf and, because of automatic enrolment, scheme members cannot negotiate a different price; they just have to take the price they are given. Our focus is therefore very much on ensuring that the people who make the choices on pensions—in this context, the employers—have clear advice and the cap to ensure that they and their members cannot be ripped off.

amendment of the law

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Budgets aren’t what they used to be. It used to be that there were no surprises in Budgets because the measures were trailed in the media; that is what we got used to under the last Government. Yet one of the most far-reaching and long-term changes came as a surprise in the Budget statement, and I commend the Chancellor for that.

Budgets aren’t what they used to be because they used to be met by a vociferous and articulate Opposition pulling the Budget to pieces and expressing their hostility to measure after measure after measure. That has been replaced by a deathly silence on the Opposition Benches, and here we are with two hours to go still wondering whether the Opposition will decide to oppose anything in the Budget whatsoever. I do not know whether the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury has yet worked out with his colleagues whether they are going to be more ambitious and more left wing in their response, or whether they are going to go along with what the Government have provided.

[Lorely Burt]

rose—

[Richard Fuller]

Perhaps my colleague in the coalition will enlighten us on what she understands the Labour party may do.

[Lorely Burt]

As my hon. Friend was speaking, I wondered whether the Opposition have nothing to say because the Budget is so excellent.

[Richard Fuller]

That is a fair comment, but we would hope for critical thought—a thoughtful Opposition going through the Budget and finding good reasons to oppose what is in it. Again, however, we heard nothing from the Opposition. It is all very well trotting the shadow Chief Secretary into the media studios to claim—despite the fact that growth is up, unemployment is down and inflation is down—that everything is going badly, like a latter-day Chemical Ali, but the truth is the Opposition have no coherent response to what will prove to be one of the strongest foundations for long-term stability in our economy.

That foundation is based on the sensible principle that people know best how to spend the money they have earned. This Government recognise that and, more importantly, in this Budget we recognise that people understand that when they have spent a lifetime saving money from their earnings, they are in the best position to decide how best to spend it. They do not want to be artificially constrained by someone else telling them how best way enjoy their retirement. This Budget delivers that freedom to them and should be applauded. It comes after years of socialist trickle-down, taking money from working people to put into Labour’s big bureaucratic plans—out of touch with the realities of people—to find out whether their Highgate polices are somehow going to deliver from the socialist graveyards in Highgate to the people of Bedford and Kempston. We have dismissed all that top-down, trickle-down, socialist rhetoric, in order to give people back the money they earned. This is a Budget for working people, and I am proud to support it.

The Budget also shows that the Government recognise that as we were so highly leveraged—with so much debt—in 2010, it will take a long time to recover. A few years ago, I would have urged the Chancellor to go further and cut expenditure more, but he chose a middle path on reducing public expenditure. We have made progress in bringing the deficit down, and sometimes we are now joined by people who said a few years ago that we were going too far, too fast. The Chancellor has found a middle way with that.

The Opposition’s level of coherence on this Budget is most starkly demonstrated by their position on the benefit cap. May I say to the shadow Chief Secretary—if he has the time—that I understand from the speech of the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) that the Opposition are going to support the benefit cap? Page 88 of the Red Book contains a helpful listing of the benefits that will be included in the benefit cap, which include housing benefit, other than housing benefit passported from jobseeker’s allowance. I presume that that includes the spare room subsidy. So my question to the shadow Chief Secretary, who, let us face it, ought to have some economic competence, is: if the spare room subsidy is included as a benefit, how can he keep referring to it as a tax? Does he understand the difference between a tax and a benefit? If he does not, and if he is going to vote on this, will he stop—[Interruption.] He is saying from a sedentary position that it is not just him, but he is charged with coming up with economic policies. One core feature of economic policy is understanding the difference between a benefit and a tax.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I just want to make sure that the hon. Gentleman is clear about this. The reference is to housing benefit but not JSA, but most working people who get housing benefit do so as a result of their being on JSA, which does not fall under the cap. Most people on housing benefit in their old age might fall under the cap, but they are not subject to the spare room subsidy—the bedroom tax.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful for that clarification. I hope the hon. Lady also understands that when people turn an important issue such as the spare room subsidy into political slogans it makes it much harder to engage on where the policy perhaps is being applied too aggressively or not aggressively enough. I have found that a tremendous barrier to engaging with people about how we can make sure the Government are getting that policy right. I hope we can use language in a way that people can understand.

Youth unemployment has been mentioned by many Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman). I agree that youth unemployment should be a priority not just for Government but for each of us as Members of Parliament. That is why I am so proud of Government Members and some Opposition Members, who have proactively gone out and encouraged local employers to give young people a start in their careers—whether it is in an apprenticeship, part-time work or work experience. We should not always look to Government to achieve changes in youth unemployment, particularly now with the national insurance changes that are coming in. There has never been a better time than today to get a young person into work.

It is important that we thank the Government for sticking with their long-term economic plan, for finding a course in the division of pain so that all people, regardless of their background, contribute and that those who have the broadest shoulders make the largest contribution of all. Most importantly, I encourage Ministers to recognise that the task is only half done and that many difficult decisions remain ahead. Will they maintain the same steadfastness of approach in the future as they have shown in the past?

Job Insecurity

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

In relation to business reform, if the hon. Gentleman looks at the comments that we made during the passage of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman has asked me a question, so he should let me finish the answer. There are elements of the 2013 Act that we thought were commendable, such as instituting the Competition and Markets Authority and setting up the green investment bank, which we started to do in government. However, we did not entertain the proposals to water down people’s rights at work so that they would be scared out of their wits, because that would have an adverse impact not only on them and their families, but on the economy.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about social security. There are two ways in which we can reduce the social security bill. First, we can ensure that more people get back into work. I very much welcome all the examples that have been given of that. Secondly, we can ensure that people earn a wage that they can live off. They will then pay more in national insurance and we will pay out less in tax credits, which is good for the Exchequer.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State is making a thoughtful speech. Many Members on this side of the House would like to see him as shadow Chancellor. Unfortunately, it seems that we will have to wait until after the next election to see that.

The motion refers to increasing wages and to the living wage. However, there is a tapering effect that means that if somebody on the minimum wage has a pay increase of 23%—the difference between the minimum wage and the living wage for people living outside London—the increase in the money in their pocket turns out to be only 1% or 2% because of the changes in benefits. If the shadow Secretary of State were in charge, how would the Government address that?

[Mr Umunna]

It is the aim of all Labour Members not to be in the shadows at all. We are happy to give the shadow positions to Government Members.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about wages, it is important that we incentivise employers to pay a living wage. Imposing a living wage on employers would have an adverse impact. We intend to introduce Make Work Pay contracts, through which we will give employers a tax incentive to pay the living wage. The Exchequer will easily get back the cost of that through national insurance.

[Richard Fuller]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I will try to make progress, because I am conscious that I have been going on for some time.

We would clamp down on false self-employment. That is the practice by which employers classify their workers as self-employed in order to pay lower levels of national insurance. Of course, that leaves workers without the protections that are enjoyed by employees, even though most people would regard their relationship as one of employment. That is a particular issue in construction. The last Labour Government proposed that workers should automatically be deemed as employed for tax purposes if they met the criteria that most people would regard as obvious signs of being employees rather than self-employed contractors. That will be the starting point for the next Labour Government.

To conclude, we have a bigger goal. Our ambition must be to transform our labour market from one that has too high a percentage of low-wage and low-skill jobs into a high-wage, high-value and high-skill labour market. Of the 25 economies in the OECD, we rank fifth in the percentage of our labour market that is low-waged and low-skilled, and we must tackle that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

While I accept some of the things that the hon. Gentleman says—in particular, I accept that Atos’ contract for the work capability assessment was brought in by the previous Administration—there can be benefits, and savings can be made, if assessments are done correctly. To look after our constituents, we have to make sure that companies do them properly.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

In the Minister’s reply to my written question of 5 December, we learned that there was a prosecution in fewer than one in four of 45,000 cases of benefit fraud. Only 400 cases resulted in a prison sentence; the vast majority were handled through informal recovery processes. What proportion of the informal repayment arrangements are up to date, and does the Minister believe that increasing the incidence of prosecution would be helpful in reducing the incidence of benefit fraud?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have made great progress in pursuing more people than have ever been pursued before. The reality is that the amount got back from those who have been defrauding the state is better than it has been, but in the answer to which my hon. Friend refers, we made it clear that we have much more to do. It is the nature of many benefits that they are open to abuse; changes such as universal credit will simplify the process and give far less opportunity to those who would defraud the system. That is the right way to deal with the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I think my hon. Friend might be referring to the idea of a total welfare cap, and while the Chancellor of the Exchequer has explicitly ruled out the idea of capping state pensions, I understand there are others in this House who are prepared to cap state pensions.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the performance of the Work programme in helping young people into work.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Just under half the young people who had been on the Work programme for a year had work, and over 46,000 had had more than six months of work.

[Richard Fuller]

I do not know whether the Minister is as disappointed as I am at the sniping negativity of Labour MPs towards the Work programme, when what they should be doing is rolling up their sleeves and making it work in their constituencies. In that spirit, will the Minister applaud the 50 small businesses in Bedford which, working in conjunction with the two Work programme providers, will on 11 July be giving 200 young people the equivalent of a day of speed-dating interviews to give them a good restart in their careers?

[Mr Hoban]

That is a fantastic example of how local employers can work with the Work programme to deliver good outcomes for people and get them into work.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

I shall give way a couple more times, but then I want to conclude.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the public do not want false distinctions between strivers and shirkers and he is equally right, I think, to believe that people will see through those who pretend to care when they do not have the money to show that they care. In his more lucid moment, he explained that the Government had no more money left, so would he accept that one answer might be to push forward with ideas such as the living wage, and will he advise us, on the basis of his own research on a living wage, what impact it would have on the long-term benefits needs in the country?

[Mr Byrne]

I suspect the hon. Gentleman feels that very keenly, as 7,500 people in his constituency are on tax credits. I think that the best way to bring the welfare bill down is by getting people into work. The tragedy with the Bill is that it fails the Ronseal test set out by the Prime Minister yesterday. It does not do what it says on the tin. We are told that this Bill is all about reducing welfare spending. Actually, if we put tax credits to one side, the welfare bill for the period covered by this Bill will not rise by 1%; it is going to go up by 4%. It will go up by £8 billion because the Secretary of State is doing so little to get people back to work.

The reality of the debate is that there is a Labour way to bring down welfare spending and there is a Tory way. The Tory way, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats, is to attack tax credits. The Labour way is to bring down welfare spending by getting people into jobs—jobs in which they will pay tax rather than sitting on the dole taking benefits. That is why we tabled our amendment. We think that it is right to introduce a bank bonus tax to get 100,000 young people back to work, and to reform pension tax relief to create a two-year limit on jobseeker’s allowance. We think that it is right to send the clear signal that anyone who can work must not, and will not, be allowed to languish or to live a life on welfare. That is the kind of tough-minded but fair policy that we now need.