Welfare Reform and Work Bill

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 8, and Government...

The Bill is a vital part of the Government’s reforms that are moving this country to a high wage,...

Does the Minister accept that income has a huge impact on life chances?

Income is one of many factors that impact on life chances and poverty, which is why the Governmen...

The Minister mentions the fact that income is a factor in poverty, but the executive summary of h...

I say to the hon. Gentleman and to all Members that work remains the best route out of poverty. M...

What would the Minister say to those of my constituents who have limited abilities? Would she say...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the fundamental difference between our party and the ...

The Minister is wrong, is she not? The new deal got more people into work than ever before, where...

The hon. Lady is wrong in many, many ways. For a start, this Government have supported more peopl...

Will the Minister give way?

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman shortly, but I would like to make a bit of progress. Befor...

Macmillan Cancer Support has warned that cancer patients could be at risk of losing their homes i...

What I would say is that Macmillan has also said that many people diagnosed with cancer would pre...

rose—

Is this on Lords amendment 1?

It’s about Macmillan.

I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

I am grateful to the Minister. She prays in aid Macmillan. Will she confirm that it is opposed to...

I think Macmillan, alongside the Government, recognises that those on the support group will, rig...

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will not give way. I am speaking to Lords amendment 1.

Will the Minister give way?

I am going to make some progress on Lords amendment 1, and then I will give way to the hon. Gentl...

I will give way shortly.

The number of children in relative poverty remained broadly unchan...

The Minister would perhaps want me to remind her that child poverty fell by 1 million under the L...

We discussed this issue in Committee. I just reiterate that the Government are right in our appro...

Will the Minister give way?

Just bear with me a second. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] There is no need to be childish. I will give w...

I am grateful and surprised that the Minister has given way. I am sure the Prime Minister is deli...

Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that we continue to publish data on low-income households. This ...

The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who made a point about child poverty but ...

My hon. Friend is right. It is absolutely clear that when children are the future of our country,...

Did the Minister see the report published by the Centre for Social Justice last month, which set ...

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and his comment. We will publish the life c...

I look forward to reading the Minister’s White Paper, but is she not approaching the matter the w...

I rather think the hon. Gentleman makes my point for me in the sense that those in the work-relat...

We have established that Macmillan Cancer Support disagrees with the Minister on this issue. Park...

What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that we have been working with organisations and ...

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will not.

The ESA system was set up by Labour in 2008 to support people with health c...

The Minister has mentioned fluctuating conditions. It is well known that mental health problems c...

I have just touched on what we are doing to find extra employment support. As I have said, we are...

When the Opposition talk about income, what they really mean are welfare benefits. That is not wh...

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of work to people who have previously been lo...

I support Lords amendment 1, which deals with child poverty reporting obligations, and amendments...

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that there are one or two things that we cannot allow Ministe...

My hon. Friend makes some very valid points and I am going to come on to some of them in a moment...

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Does she agree with the Institute for Fiscal Studies ...

My hon. Friend makes a key point, and I will come on to some of the specifics shortly.

The hon. Lady talks about in-work poverty, but can she confirm that under the last Labour Governm...

No.

So how does living in poverty affect children’s development? People—

Will the hon. Lady give way?

May I just make these points, then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman?

People on low inc...

Indicators are exactly that; they are not things that can be tackled, whereas this Bill seeks to ...

The point here is about making the Government accountable for their policies that may in turn be ...

The hon. Lady is very kind. Both her party and ours are committed to ending child poverty, so the...

As a former public health academic, I will answer in the following way. We know the value of havi...

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to remind those on the Government Benches that the...

My hon. Friend is spot-on, and again this is what the Lords amendment is asking for: that the exa...

My hon. Friend is giving a characteristically calm, evidence-based explanation of why money matte...

Again, my hon. Friend sums it up perfectly.

This is a serious question. If the hon. Lady is saying that the evidence shows that the mortality...

Again, the hon. Gentleman possibly does not have all the evidence. On spending-to-GDP comparisons...

rose—

I am sorry but I have given the hon. Gentleman a number of opportunities to intervene.

Seco...

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Like me, she will see many of these people at her regu...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was about to move on to the support that is provided for di...

Does the hon. Lady agree that the incidence of disability and the incidence of lack of work oppor...

The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point.

The suggestion that working four or five hours...

This Government spend £50 billion a year supporting people with disability and health conditions....

Again, we need to look at our spend as a proportion of GDP. We are 19th out of 32—[Interruption.]...

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a stark difference between the warm words of the Minister...

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I absolutely agree with him.

What has been hid...

rose—

I am sorry; I am not going to take any more interventions.

Further cuts are bound to be mad...

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, I will not.

Instead of denigrating claimants in our social security system we should re...

Order. Everyone can see that a large number of hon. Members want to speak in the debate, which ha...

Everything comes to he who waits—and that was a long wait, everyone will agree. I will try to be ...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am sorry, I want to make progress so that everyone can get in.

For many people, a respons...

I am glad to have the opportunity once again to set out the SNP’s opposition to this dangerous an...

Given that the Government have emphasised time and again the importance of evidence-based policie...

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case. Those ...

On evidence, the hon. Gentleman suggested in an earlier intervention that WRAG was an intermediat...

What that shows is that the Government’s Work programme has been an absolute failure and that tho...

I rise to speak to Lords amendments 8 and 9. Reforming our welfare state was one of the greatest ...

One of the big changes in this Parliament compared with previous ones is that when we debate welf...

Does my right hon. Friend accept that all Lords amendment 1 does is to require that income-based ...

The report that I issued made that very point. It said that we should continue to publish the pov...

Is measuring at key stage 4 when a young person is 16 so utterly after the horse has bolted that ...

The genuineness of the hon. Lady in making that point shows how the debate is changing—it was not...

I was going to call Mr Maynard.

I have already spoken.

Ah, I did not realise the fellow had already spoken. [Interruption.] No, no, I do not think he ne...

It is a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who spe...

My understanding, with all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, is that there is no statutory oblig...

The Government have made a commitment to continue to publish the data annually. They have been ve...

It is interesting to hear my hon. Friend’s points. Does he agree that under current measures the ...

It sounds like my hon. Friend has been reading the Labour party’s manifesto. The 2010 Act is flaw...

That is why, of course, it is important to have a package of measures, so that we can look at all...

Material deprivation is one of the things that will continue to be measured by the HBAI statistic...

rose—

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not give way again. He has already had a couple of bi...

Order. Let me gently say to the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) that he has alread...

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall take what you say as a gentle reminder for me to move things on, t...

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling to speak in this important debate. I shall be as quick as I ca...

I would like to address Lords amendments 8 and 9 and the question of employment and support allow...

The hon. Gentleman has made thoughtful points. Does he not accept that the problem is that we are...

It is like that, and I would have preferred to see an assessment such as I proposed in the amendm...

I want to speak to Lords amendments 1, 8 and 9. When I came into the Chamber this afternoon, I di...

I hear what the hon. Lady is saying, but is she not advocating a return to the past? Does she not...

Order. May I just point out that if Members continue in this way, and it is perfectly in order fo...

There is no way at all that we can say that the relationship between a person’s income and povert...

I should like to speak to Lords amendments 1 and 8. In looking at child poverty, I am worried abo...

I begin by addressing amendment 1. The Labour Government had four poverty measures when we took t...

It has been an interesting debate so far. The Opposition contribution that was of most interest t...

Following the comments of the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), people in the ESA WRAG have ...

It is a great pleasure to be given the opportunity to speak in this debate. I consider myself to ...

I will be brief, because other Members have covered some of the points that I wanted to make. The...

I will speak to Lords amendments 1, 8 and 9. Let us be realistic: we can get involved in adversar...

Earlier today, I attended the vigil outside Parliament that has been organised by Disabled People...

I place on record my thanks to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham Ea...

It has been a regular occurrence in my nine months in Parliament that we face another lamentable ...

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I confirm that this afternoon the United Kingdom a...

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The House will note that he wil...

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order to congratulate the Scottish...

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has duly given notice to the House of...

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I add my congratulations to the Secreta...

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am able to confirm that the documentation...

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you might provide some advice and giv...

The hon. Gentleman is well aware that that is not strictly a point for the Chair to deal with. Ho...