No, there is too little time.
It is a disgrace that this Bill is being rammed through the House tonight. The Secretary of State did not want public hearings and Ministers did not want to defend the detail of the Bill in Committee. We hope that the other place will give it the scrutiny that was denied to Members of this House.
The tragedy is that there is another way to bring down welfare spending. Long-term unemployment is now rising towards the 1 million mark, as is youth unemployment. Nothing in this Bill fixes the Work programme, which gets only 2.6 people out of every 100 back into work, or fixes the disarray that is now unfolding in universal credit. What the Government should have been doing tonight is bringing us measures to bring down unemployment, long-term unemployment and youth unemployment, and to save this country the cost of failure. Instead, the debate on this Bill has shown a Government and Secretary of State who are hellbent on making savings and clearing up the cost of the failure of a rising unemployment bill by taking that money from working people—6,000 working people for every Conservative-held marginal constituency.
10 pm
Debate interrupted (Programme Order, 8 January)
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83E), That the Bill be now read the Third time.