It is rising, as the hon. Gentleman says. There is a huge amount of money in the benefits system. If it is not going to the right people, that will be rectified by the reforms being pushed through by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which are some of the Government’s most ambitious and important changes.
12.30 pm
To go back to morality, I believe that it is immoral to take more than half of somebody’s earnings in taxation.
I will finish on the point that has been raised about the economic benefit of money depending on where it goes, and whether it is better going into the pocket of somebody on benefit who will spend it immediately or going into the pocket of somebody on £150,000 a year. That economic argument has been taken to an extreme point that ignores many other aspects of the movement of money. There is a basic economic principle that money must find a home. Unless the person who earns £150,000 a year stuffs his mattress with £5 notes, their money goes into the economy—[Interruption.]