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Welfare Reform

I thank the Secretary of State for advance notice of his statement. We all support the idea that as many people as possible should be getting into work, but can he guarantee that the jobs will be there? It has been suggested that in my constituency, for every single job, there are some 33 people available and looking for work. Does he agree that it is the most vulnerable who are likely to lose out from this kind of proposal and that there must be a safety net and a minimum income for every person in this country? Does he also agree that it is the ordinary folk who currently struggle with the complexities and bureaucracy of the system and that the danger is that they will suffer in the future? Does he share my concern about some of the words used, such as ““wasting money””, ““benefit savings”” and ““offenders””, which suggest that the direction of this proposal is towards a Conservative policy?