I think the answer is probably both of the above. Recently, the RPI has been higher. I would have been happy to look at an amendment—no such amendment exists, unfortunately—that combined the work that the hon. Gentleman’s party has been doing on earnings with my effort to get a link back to the RPI and prices. We should look at whichever is the most generous. I stuck to the RPI link in my amendment because I wanted it to be realistic enough to get more support across the House. I fear that I might have been a little over-ambitious.
It worries me that instead of seeking to restore the link to prices, the official Opposition have not sought to protect people who are seeking work, but appear to have picked out one or two benefits, such as employment and support allowance and maternity benefit, for proper protection. They have ignored, for example, those on jobseeker’s allowance, as long as some sort of workfare system is brought in for people who have been looking for work for two years. Do the Opposition think that it is okay for the link to be broken for JSA recipients in the meantime? The Opposition amendments offer an improvement to a nasty Bill, and for that I support them, but I believe they expose a certain cowardice in not confronting the stereotypes and myths that the Government continue to perpetrate. Why are the Opposition not standing up for unemployed people and restoring the link to RPI? I do not accept that they could not consider that principle today, and it is disappointing that they will not. A link to prices is an absolute minimum, a safety net red line.