Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Wilson Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to control welfare spending.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

17. What steps he is taking to control welfare spending.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

18. What steps he is taking to control welfare spending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right about the situation that we were left. We are already bearing down on the problem. The figures show that we are making inroads into welfare fraud. Universal credit will have a much better record in this area, because we will be able to use real-time information to check up on who is in work and what they are earning on a monthly basis, rather than having to wait until the end of somebody’s time on tax credits at the end of a year and reconcile the figures over a long period. Under the current tax credits system, £5 billion has been written off as a result of fraud and error, and it looks like another £5 billion will also be written off.[Official Report, 1 February 2013, Vol. 557, c. 8MC.]

[Mr Wilson]

As the Secretary of State has said, the previous Government increased welfare spending by 60%. There was not, however, a 60% increase in people getting jobs, or a 60% reduction in child poverty. Does the Secretary of State agree that we should not measure the success of our welfare system by how much we are spending on it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend: we should measure our welfare system by how soon it provides support to those who need it and how it supports those who can be moved into a more productive form of life. The previous system trapped people into dependency on welfare with rising bills and, ultimately, a very poor record on child poverty.