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Welfare Reform Bill

These debates about our welfare system or, as I should say, heeding the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks), our social security system—whether in the House, the media or the pubs and living rooms of our constituencies—often become a magnet for two opposing arguments. The first is that everyone on welfare is somehow undeserving and all the money is spent incorrectly; the second is that every penny spent is 100% effective and should be beyond question. We have heard those views today, but both are extreme and neither is true. I will always support our welfare state, and I want to live in a country where we accept collective responsibility for the people who are most in need. We would all be much poorer if we did not enable the most vulnerable members of our society to live with dignity, and it would be a far more daunting society without the support that we currently offer to people who are searching for work. I admit, however, that our system is not without its shortcomings, and it could benefit from some reforms. Unfortunately, those are not the reforms suggested in this Bill. Our welfare system can be daunting and is too complex, and universal credit could be a positive step forward if it simplifies the system, but simplicity and transparency, welcome objectives that they are, are not enough on their own; the welfare system must also be fair and effective and, above all, enable the transition from welfare to work. The proposals in the Bill fall short of those measures, and as a result, despite being a supporter in principle of welfare reform, I cannot support them today. The Government need to realise that we can support the welfare system and make it stronger only if we are also willing to support the labour market. Helping the transition from welfare to work will be successful only if there is work to take up, yet the scale and pace of the cuts that we currently see threaten to send unemployment soaring, just as happened under the previous Conservative Government, when it topped 3 million on two separate occasions. Government Members tell us that the welfare bill is expensive, but so is mass unemployment. I believe enormously in the power of work. Employment brings dignity, respect and decency to life, and getting more people into work should always be one of the prime objectives of the Government. In my constituency there are 16 people chasing every advertised job, and, with some of our major employers, such as the council and the police force, axing hundreds of jobs, that will only become worse. Residents are concerned about their jobs, and with youth unemployment at record levels they are worried that there will be no work for their children. The Labour Government took deliberate and positive steps to reduce youth unemployment by introducing measures such as the future jobs fund. By September, almost 700 young people in my borough had completed placements funded by the scheme. The scheme was an opportunity for participants to learn new skills, to develop confidence, and to learn about the things that might be holding them back in the jobs market. Many of the people who completed it went on to further education or training. Where was the sense in axing such a scheme, which was already proving successful in stemming the increase in youth unemployment? It seems to me that schemes such as the future jobs fund were cancelled not for economic reasons but for political ones. The Government appear intent on spinning the myth—