Capping Welfare Spending

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, in this very important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) on securing the debate. I am sure that we are both disappointed that no one from the Opposition is here to state their point of view, since they have opposed every benefit change we have put through.

I do not propose to speak for long because we want to leave plenty of time for the Minister to respond to the important points that my hon. Friend raised, but I want to share with hon. Members my recent experience of the benefit cap. As part of my duties in my constituency, I visited my local jobcentre to hear about the impact the benefit changes were having and to understand what actions were being taken there to help people to deal with the changes, and I was surprised to hear some positive news. One of the most positive things was that the jobcentre had appointed a social justice adviser, whose role is to work inside the centre with the people affected, helping them to understand where they might be able to make savings and what benefits they are entitled to. Their role is also to work with those who have been affected by the benefit cap.

The newly appointed social justice adviser talked to me with great pride about a case he had recently dealt with. He had invited in a person who was getting £700 a week in benefits for her and her family, and they had sat down and reviewed all the benefits she was receiving and all the money she was spending. What came out of all that was that she was paying £1,200 a month in rent. When they looked a little closer, they discovered that the property was substandard and was massively over the market value for a property on that estate. With a little bit of work and some involvement from the council, instead of her paying approximately £300 a week in rent, she now pays £85, which brings her below the benefit cap. She and her family are now in better accommodation and on the right track. The other advantage is that because she now falls below the cap she can afford to look for work.

The one thing that the cap has done is to make us all look again at who is in receipt of benefits, and rather than just abandoning them into the benefits trap we are bringing them out, to the jobcentres, and helping them to get their lives back on track. That woman’s life has been turned around purely and simply because the benefit cap was introduced. She is now looking for work because she can afford to, and she has escaped the trap.

I said I would be brief, so I shall draw to a close. We should not allow the Opposition to tell us that the things we are doing are terrible and have a dreadful impact on everyone. While we have to accept that there will be an impact, we must work with those who have been affected to help them see the benefits, and to see that work will pay and that we will make it pay for them. The changes that the Government have introduced are a genuine opportunity for people, and I was delighted to be able to see and hear about that at first hand on that recent visit.

The Government should be congratulated and, as I said right at the beginning, I am just disappointed that someone from the Opposition is not here to listen to this important debate and to congratulate the Minister before he sums up. I am thankful for having been given the opportunity to say a few words, and I again thank my hon. Friend for introducing this very important debate.