Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I will be very brief, but I cannot resist the effrontery of trying to challenge some of the assumptions made by two people whose views on social security I very much respect, the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Newton. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said that the social security bill is pushing £200 billion and needs to be contained and cut. He is correct, but the biggest single group driving that increase in costs are of course pensioners. There is an increased number of pensioners, who are living longer, sometimes with poor health. These cuts do not—in my view, rightly—impinge on them at all. We are making other people pay for the demographics that are not their fault. The second point I would like to address comes from the noble Lord, Lord Newton. He says that there is a big prize in this: universal credit. He is absolutely right. I defer to nobody in my support for universal credit and my support for the Minister on the structure of universal credit. However, that structure is being contaminated by where some of the cuts fall. If we can keep those two things separate in our minds, we can fully the support the Minister on his structure, as we do, while trying to protect those who are most vulnerable and affected by where the cuts fall. At the end of the day, it is about political and moral choices. Noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, said that we face a deficit and must bring it down—these cuts have to fall. May I gently suggest to him that I rather doubt that any of the cuts have affected him? Not one of them has affected me. Indeed, my council tax is being frozen at a cost of nearly £1 billion a year, which is very nice. Over five years, that equates to the very £5 billion that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, cited. I get my council tax frozen while disabled children, cancer patients and vulnerable children at risk of homelessness carry my bills for me, even though we in this House have broader shoulders on which to carry the cost. It is about choices and the choice of every Member in this House today. I hope they will make a choice that most of us would regard as the decent one.