Amendment 10 stands in my name and in those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) and my hon. Friends the Members for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech), for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). Its purpose is to address the oft-repeated key concern of the Secretary of State and the Government—it has been repeated today by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and others—that in certain circumstances and, admittedly, over selected periods, benefits have risen at a rate higher than wages, and that in straitened times such as these, a principle should be
established whereby that should not happen and that average wages should be the marker against which future benefit rises are set.
A further weakness in the Government’s proposals, to repeat an earlier intervention of mine on the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), relates to their intention to enshrine in future policy the blunt and inflexible instrument of a 1% rise beyond the next general election—up until 2016—and whether we can foretell with confidence what is likely to happen during that time.