Welfare Reform Bill

Some Members will have seen recent television programmes that relate to my constituents and to Rachmanite landlords. It has not happened overnight; I blame what has happened over the past 30 years. So what is the logic of the cap for my constituents. Is it an incentive to secure work? The vast majority need no incentive; they are desperate for work. Yes, there is a small minority who will always refuse to seek work, but there are already sanctions for that, introduced by this and the last Government. I already have constituents turning up at my surgery who have been automatically suspended from benefits for three months for the slightest infringement, and they include many who suffer mental health problems or who simply cannot work through the system themselves. Is the idea to force people to move to cheaper accommodation? Most in my area pay the rents that they pay because they have no other option; there is nothing to downsize to. In any case, the new housing benefit regulations to force down rents have already been introduced. Benefits in my area already do not meet the full cost of rents. People are faced with options. How do they make up the gap between the benefit and the rent? In some instances this winter, there has been a choice between heating and eating. I repeat that in my constituency—and this is happening across the country—we now distribute food parcels to keep people in some form of civilised existence. If people are to move, where do they move to? My local council is advising people to move to Leicester, Southampton, Manchester and elsewhere in the north. The problem is that the lower-rent areas are where there are no jobs. We are in a vicious cycle of forcing people into areas where they cannot survive. For me, the cap simply means that more of my constituents will be forced into poverty. All the statistics demonstrate that children will be hardest hit. There is already the problem of children in families being churned from temporary accommodation to temporary accommodation. That destabilises the family and has an impact on their education. The cap is supposed to control costs, but, as has been said time and again, we simply need to control rents. Halt the profiteering by landlords that has gone on in recent decades. My view is simply that the cap is unnecessary and based on prejudice and political posturing. In past debates in the House, there have also been discussions about cutting the cost of welfare. There was one quote about benefits being an incitement to idleness. Such expressions were used in the debates about the poor law and eventually led to policies of less eligibility and the workhouse. We do not seem to have learned anything in two centuries about poverty and how to tackle it.