Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

Absolutely. That is what they have done in previous Budgets and autumn statements; in this one there was silence. I agree with my hon. Friend that the Government should absolutely return to the practice they adopted after the election.

Like the Minister in the 1980s, anybody who cares about poverty and who is looking at what is set to happen to the most vulnerable in the next few years, will be appalled. Child poverty will be growing remorselessly once again—back to the policies of the 1980s and back to their consequences, too. There is enormous public concern about the effects of clause 1 and the Bill as a whole. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) referred to the coalition of organisations in Scotland who have written about their concern. The Child Poverty Action Group has said:

“The Bill is a cause of great concern.”

Barnardo’s has stated:

“This policy will punish children the most by trapping them in poverty and impacting on their lives, leading to poor health, poor qualifications and unemployment.”

Citizens Advice said:

“It is imperative, particularly whilst increases to earnings from work are restricted, that support for low earners received through the welfare system is not disconnected from inflationary measures to the cost of living.”

The Children’s Society said:

“Groups which are meant to be protected (such as households with somebody with a disability) are more likely to be affected than households without protection.”

In an open letter this morning, the chief executives of Catholic charities in Liverpool, Manchester and London warned of the threat the Bill

“poses to the fundamental well-being of disabled, unemployed and low paid people, as well as their families who are already buckling under the weight of recent changes to the welfare system.”

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at the facts, rather than scaremongering. The fact is that the child element of tax credit has gone up by 16% under this Government—£470. He really should look at the facts.

[Stephen Timms]

I simply ask the hon. Lady to look at all the other things the Government have done and at the Institute for Fiscal Studies assessment of the consequences for child poverty. As I have said, its assessment is that the number of children living below the poverty line will increase by 400,000 by 2015 and by 800,000 by 2020 and that there will be an additional rise of 200,000 as a direct result of the Bill.

The general secretary of USDAW, the shop workers’ union, has spoken of

“a kick in the teeth for working people that will fill many households with despair.”

Disability Rights UK has said:

“We are fearful that the Welfare Benefits UP-rating Bill will… impoverish thousands more disabled people.”

Homeless Link has said that

“the proposals contained in the Bill are grossly unfair, hitting the poorest in society the hardest.”