Stephen Mosley
Main Page: Stephen Mosley (Conservative - City of Chester)Department Debates - View all Stephen Mosley's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Duncan Smith
In that case, will she explain why she was saying—to a group called the Christian socialists, I think—that all the changes that the Government have introduced to welfare can be reversed and all benefits can be universal? That is what she said.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
To be fair to the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), she spent 30 minutes not saying what she was going to do, so she may not have said what she was going to do then either.
Mr Duncan Smith
This is what is so interesting. Over the weekend, the lid was lifted on what is really going on. [Interruption.] They do not like this, because it is the truth. The hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham said of the Opposition employment policy announced the other day:
“We managed in the political world to condense it into one story about a punitive hit on 18 to 21-year-olds around their benefits. That takes some doing, you know, a report with depth is collapsed into one instrumentalised policy thing which was fairly cynical and punitive.”
He was making the point, I think, that the Opposition are failing to say what they really want to do. The hon. Lady let the cat out of the bag when she made it clear that the Opposition want to spend more on welfare and to reverse our changes to the welfare system.