Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Unemployment went up last month. The Government’s commission on employment and skills pointed out earlier this year that although we currently have German levels of adult unemployment, we have eurozone levels of youth unemployment, which went up in July and in August. Does the Secretary of State accept that much more needs to be done to give young people the chance of a decent start?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Of course we are focused on youth unemployment, but it has actually been falling from what we inherited. It has fallen by more than 200,000 since we took over, and the claimant count has fallen every month in the past three and a half years. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the figures going up, and in a sense I am not surprised, because they cover the period leading up to the last election. Given what the Opposition were saying, and looking at the polls that some businesses carried out, it is no surprise to me that they might have held back. If he looks at the vacancies, he will see that there are 735,000 vacancies in the jobcentres every week, which is more than he managed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We inherited a situation where nearly one in five households in Britain had nobody in work at all. It is far more likely for someone who is out of work to be in poverty and for their children to be in poverty. We have pretty nearly halved that level and have the lowest number of workless households since records began.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Until a few weeks ago, the Secretary of State told us that he was committed to the targets in the Child Poverty Act 2010, but now he has brought forward legislation that not only scraps those targets, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) pointed out, will leave Ministers with no child poverty targets at all. He has just denied that from the Dispatch Box, but the fact is that the Welfare Reform and Work Bill removes all the child poverty targets. Why are the Government, in reality, despite his fine words, throwing in the towel on child poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We are not; we are committed to eradicating child poverty and we will have to report every year on our achievement in line with the figures that I gave the right hon. Gentleman earlier. I simply say to him that his Government failed to meet their targets—they spent £75 billion on tax credits in their last six years and still failed—and it is under this Government, in the past five years, that child poverty has actually fallen by some 300,000, rather than under them.

[Stephen Timms]

The truth is that child poverty is now going to rise even faster than already predicted because of the huge cuts in tax credits next April, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) referred. With most children in poverty now living in working households, not workless households, should the Secretary of State’s children’s life chances reports not include data on children in low-income working households, as well as on those in workless households?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I believe that our reports will cover a much wider range of issues that affect child poverty. I have always felt that issues to do with family stability, drug and alcohol addiction and education are critical to a child achieving a decent outcome. If the right hon. Gentleman has anything further to add, I am always willing to take his submissions, and the Select Committee has also said that it will do the same. My point is that an arbitrary target simply for an income line, which is what his Government did, leads to a huge distortion in the benefits system, and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has said exactly the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. In all the areas in which we have rolled out universal credit—in more than half of jobcentres—it is dramatically improving people’s lives. Unlike when the previous Government rolled out tax credit and hundreds of thousands of people lost their money, this scheme is ensuring that people who deserve the money and are ready for it are paid it.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The number of people receiving universal credit remains derisorily small. Four years ago, the Secretary of State told us that the transition to universal credit would be complete by 2017. We told him he would not manage it. We were right; he was wrong. He still has not given us a revised date for the completion of universal credit roll-out. Has he given up entirely on ever having one?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am on the verge of giving up speaking to the right hon. Gentleman, because he misuses all the facts. As I have told him again and again and again, he is more than welcome to visit the sites where it has been rolled out. He has had an open invitation to come to see the digital site and I recommend that he does so. Universal credit is already working; no one has lost any money; it will be online; and it will go out fully and start next year. This is a successful programme and if the right hon. Gentleman wants to compare notes about tax credit roll-outs, I would be more than happy to do that.