Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Barbara Keeley

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

The Secretary of State does not need to wait until the Committee because we will table a raft of amendments tonight: if our reasoned amendment fails and the Bill receives a Second Reading, we will table our amendments. He will see in that list of amendments a series of amendments to deal with the unfairness in that part of the Bill. Those amendments will give him the answer that he seeks. They will appear on the Order Paper tomorrow so that the House can consider them over the weeks ahead.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is right to talk about removing unfairnesses. There are a number of unfairnesses in the Bill that affect carers. The Conservatives seem blind to the impact of their measures on carers. Can my right hon. Friend say whether we will table an amendment to exempt carers from the benefit cap? Carers should not be affected by the benefit cap and they should never have been affected by the bedroom tax, but the Government would not listen about that either.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That will indeed be the subject of one of our amendments, because at the moment carers who do not live with the person they are caring for are caught by the cap, and they should not be.

I want to turn to the impact of the Budget changes on tax credits and on universal credit, some of which are in the Bill and some not. Of course the increase in the minimum wage is welcome, but it does not make up for the measures in the Budget, though mostly not in the Bill, that cut tax credits for working families. The claim that they do make up for it—the Secretary of State repeated it in his speech—is, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, “arithmetically impossible”. The problem will be especially bad in the next couple of years. The increase in the national minimum wage is phased in over five years, but big tax credit cuts hit immediately next year. Over 3 million working families will lose over £1,000 a year on average, and work incentives will be cut. That is the reason we voted against the Budget. When the Government bring forward the statutory instruments to implement those huge cuts to the incomes of working families, we will vigorously and fiercely oppose them.