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Work Programme (Wales)

I agree with removing the 16-hour rule. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. The problem, as has been pointed out by various expert, independent judges of such matters, is that the way that the universal credit works means that it will particularly affect partners seeking work. That could hit women disproportionately—a point that he needs to bear in mind, although he made a legitimate point about the 16-hour rule. Why is the policy punitive? It is because one cannot make the reforms work fairly and effectively while cutting the total cost of benefit entitlement by £80 billion, as the Government are doing. We are not anti-reform, but we are against these reforms. All the evidence—including that from New York, which is often cited by the Government, and which I visited as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2007—is that it costs a lot of money to get people off benefits and into work, especially people who have been on benefits for a long time. It is not the cheapskate policy that the Tories and their Liberal Democrat friends seem to believe it is. It costs a lot, but it is worth it because people are healthier and society is better, as we showed in government. Even the Secretary of State’s colleague, the Minister with responsibility for welfare reform, Lord Freud, has said that Labour delivered ““remarkable”” progress on welfare reform. The Secretary of State referred to the number of people on out-of-work benefits, but failed to mention that under Labour, between 1997 and 2008, that number did not rise. In fact, it fell in Wales, rising thereafter simply because of the banking crisis and the recession that followed. In addition, Labour halved unemployment before the recession and reduced the number of people on incapacity benefit significantly for the first time since it rocketed under Mrs Thatcher and John Major. The Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell, are plainly suffering from political amnesia in failing to recognise that incapacity benefit, above all, went through the roof under the Conservatives, when it was seen as a means of getting people off the claimant count, thereby disguising the high level of unemployment. To conclude, I am afraid that the Government’s work plans fail both the fairness and effectiveness tests. They are not working, and they will not work. Thousands of people across Wales will be much worse off, suffering, as in the past, under the same old Tories.