It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), who made some telling points about the problems with the Bill.
I rise to speak in support of amendment 12, moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The proposals to cut the real income of the poorest are ugly and unjust. I am pleased that the Secretary of State is in his place on the Front Bench. He frequently parades his Christian beliefs, so I shall begin by quoting from the Churches Regional Commission report, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”, which states that the switch in indexation
“represents an on-going erosion…effectively ratcheting up poverty long into the future.”
By 2015, the effect of 1% indexation compared with indexation in line with the CPI to a person on JSA or ESA will be a loss of £156 a year; that is a 4% cut in real terms for those least able to afford it. If the Office for Budget Responsibility’s inflation forecast is wrong, the situation could be even worse.
As we consider the Bill we need to look across at all the changes that the Government are making—we cannot look at this measure in isolation. To see the impact it will have on people, we need to look across the board.
I now receive a lot of correspondence from constituents on ESA, who are particularly badly hit. I want to tell the House about one person. Her £66 a week rent is paid by housing benefit. In April, her benefit will go up to £71.70. Out of that, she pays £10 a week for electricity, and £6 a week for water rates. Like many of my constituents, she still uses coal for heating, and three bags of coal—just to inform the Minister, because I do not suppose he is up with coal prices—will cost her £19.50 a week. Her return bus fare to the town—she lives in a village—is £4 a week, and her bedroom tax is £9.24 a week. All of that will leave her with £22.96 for food, cleaning, all household goods and clothes. I submit that even the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) could not live on £22.96 a week. If he actually considered the sums of money that ordinary people will be expected to live on, he would understand the outrage we on this side of the House feel at the continuous erosion of the social security net.