Welfare Reform Bill

The right hon. Gentleman refers to complexities—he and I have discussed many issues before—and this present system is so complex that if he were in the situation of many of the people in his constituency, he would find it incredibly difficult to know whether or not they are better off. The principle behind the Bill is that we must try to achieve that. If he wants to know my honest opinion, I believe that we will be able to make it happen. We are working hard to make sure that this medium-level change to IT works out. I recognise it as such a change. I have had conversations about it with his Front-Bench colleague, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). Our views may differ slightly, but the reality is that the process has to happen; IT development is part of the process. I give the right hon. Gentleman as much of a guarantee as I can that we will deliver it—right and on time. Some 2.7 million households will be better off as a result of the universal credit and almost 85% of the gains—I hope that Opposition Members will support this aspect—will go ultimately to the bottom 40% of people in the income distribution. I would have thought that they would want to support that. My concern throughout the debates—I now want to bring my comments rapidly to a conclusion—has been that it is not at all clear what exactly the Opposition support and what they do not support. By their actions and by what they say, there is no commonality. The Opposition tabled more than 200 amendments in Committee, but voted on them only 16 times. They have complained that we did not allow enough time for consideration of issues on Report and then, on the day before yesterday, they proceeded to talk for more than an hour on amendments that they did not even push to a vote. If they had not done that, they would easily have had a chance to debate some of these other areas. When it comes to spending commitments, the Opposition do not seem to know whether they are coming or going. They would have us believe that they would have taken responsible decisions on the economy, but if they had had their way in Committee, the amendments would have entailed extra spending commitments running into billions of pounds. Not once have they said that they approve of any of the changes or the savings within the scope of the Bill. It was all the more surprising when, the other day, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill complained—irony of ironies—that the housing benefit bill is apparently set to increase in the course of this Parliament. Imagine that—the man who watched while housing benefit spending crashed through the roof, nearly doubling in 10 years, and was set under his Government to rise by a further £2.5 billion in this Parliament alone, has started to tell us that somehow we are not being harsh enough. What a contrast with his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) in her place beside him, who claimed that our changes to housing benefit"““would lead to social cleansing on an unprecedented scale.””" Frankly, they need to get their act together, as they do not seem to know whether they are in favour or against cuts—or whether they simply do not agree with anything. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill wants to speak, so I shall finish. These measures have always been about welfare reform that forms a contract with the people of this country. It is a promise on our part to provide a simpler, fairer system that protects the most vulnerable and makes work pay; and a promise on the part of those who are claiming benefits to play their part, to look for work whenever they are able to do so, and to take some of the responsibility that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)spoke of just two days ago—although half of his party does not agree with him. As I said before, this is about fairness to recipients and fairness to the hard-pressed taxpayer. On that basis, I ask all Members to get behind this Bill, and perhaps the Opposition will make up their minds about whether or not they are in favour of this reform.