My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 1 in this group and to the other amendments that we have in it: Amendments 6A, 9 and 10A. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayter for moving the amendment in my absence and apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for missing the very start of what was a powerful presentation.
Amendments 1 and 9 would remove the reference to 1% in Clauses 1 and 2 and hence remove the 1% cap on the uprating of relevant sums and amounts. Amendments 6A and 10A would delete the prohibition on uprating such sums and amounts under the annual uprating of benefits and tax credits. We fully intend these amendments to undermine and negate the purpose of the Bill, which we consider to be unnecessary, misdirected and contributing to the continuing economic failure of this Government, a failure all too evident from last week’s downgrading of our AAA credit rating by Moody’s.
Let me be clear from the outset on Labour’s position: we will make no commitment now on spending or tax for the next Parliament and will set out our spending plans at the time of the next election. However, right now we would uprate in line with inflation—I shall come on in a moment to how the Government can plug the hole in their increasingly fragile finances.
This Bill is unnecessary because if this Government misguidedly wish to plough on with this capping on uprating, they could simply use the annual uprating process. The Bill provides no certainty for taxpayers because there is no certainty on claimant numbers, except perhaps the prospect of them increasing, given the Government’s economic failure. As for the markets, it is frankly untenable to suggest that by locking those amounts, which account for less than 0.1% of government spending, into legislation they will be assured and comforted. It does not seem to have cut any ice with the rating agencies. The certainty of a real terms cut
in support cannot be welcomed by claimants, especially when they have no certainty about the level of the real cut.
We all know why the Bill was brought forward. We made our position clear at Second Reading and I do not propose to revisit the issue in Committee. The Bill is misdirected on several counts. It does nothing for jobs. Indeed, by withdrawing real resources from low-income families, which of necessity have the highest marginal consumption rates, it is damaging demand. It ignores the IMF warning that the fiscal stabilisers should be allowed to operate. Its justification is supposed to be that there needs to be some correction for the fact that benefits have been uprated at a faster rate than earnings over the past five years—essentially, that those out of work have done better than those in work. It is perverse, therefore, that two-thirds of those hurt by the Bill are in work, taxing the very strivers whom the Government claim to be supporting. Indeed, specifically included in the cuts is in-work support, such as working tax credit, SSP, SMP and paternity pay, as well as in and out of work benefits such as housing benefit, the very support that enables individuals to sustain employment and manage work and family responsibilities.
It is not only those in work who are having their living standards cut. The Government are failing to honour their pledge to protect the most severely disabled. If they still hold to their obligations under the Child Poverty Act, they are drifting further away by pushing a further 200,000 children into poverty. Worst of all, at a time when the Bill will reduce the living standards of the very poorest, they are rewarding those with the highest incomes, including 8,000 millionaires, with a generous tax cut. The contrast could not be greater: a £2,000 a week tax cut for some, 71p a week if you claim JSA.
By leaving the inflation risk with claimants, the Bill creates greater risk for the poor and uncertainty about their real incomes. The 2012 Autumn Statement cites energy and fuel prices as remaining a potential source of risk over the coming years. It estimates that inflation will be higher in 2013 and 2014 than originally announced due to rises in domestic energy prices and food commodity prices—the very costs that hit the poorest hardest. We see today the reaction of the currency markets to our credit rating downgrade: a weakened sterling, which will put further pressure on prices.
Uncertainty is compounded by there still being no cumulative impact assessment for the raft of benefit and tax credit changes that have been introduced so far by the Government. The IFS, in its 2013 green budget, analysed the effect of the 2013-14 tax and benefit changes. It concludes:
“This broad pattern of tax giveaways and welfare takeaways”—
its own terminology—
“means that the changes, on average, reduce net incomes towards the bottom of the income distribution and increase net incomes in the middle and upper parts of the distribution”.
It states that the below-inflation uprating is the predominant cause of losses in the bottom half of the income distribution and that the reduction of the top rate of tax from 50% to 45% produces the gain for the richest.
That juxtaposition speaks volumes about the priorities of this Government: the rich need more to motivate them; the poor need to feel the lash of cuts to inspire them. This pattern is not new. Looking at the overall position since 2010, apart from the richest decile it is a fact that the poorest have lost the greatest percentage share of their income in the cause of fiscal consolidation. This analysis is consistent with the detailed briefings that we have all received from a range of authoritative sources. They tell us that 68% of those affected by the Bill are actually in work, 30% of all households that will be hit will lose on average £156 a year, two-thirds of those households are families with children, 71% of households affected are at or below average income, and two-thirds of those affected are women.
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Our opposition to the Bill is clear: the Bill locks in cuts to real incomes through to April 2016. We argue that the normal uprating process should operate, with annual Statements laid before and debated by Parliament. We will hear the cries from the Minister asking what we would do. Clearly, one matter that should be addressed to get the social security budget down is getting more people into work. Despite claims to the contrary, the Government are failing on jobs. Long-term unemployment and long-term youth unemployment are up on the year. The Work Programme is little short of a disaster and continues to fail the hardest to help. Some 1.4 million part-time workers would like to be working full time. This is why we have proposed a new initiative to get people into work and a compulsory job guarantee for the long-term unemployed, and we have costed a scheme that over the course of a year would help more than a quarter of a million people into work, paid for by restricting on a tapered basis pension tax relief for those earning more than £150,000.
We will continue to argue for the reversal of the proposed tax handout to the very rich. We heard the Minister at Second Reading suggest that the saving that this would produce would be “illusory” because the rich would order their affairs to make sure that the will of the Government was defeated. Indeed, the HMRC analysis suggests that some would do this by forestalling and deferring, whereby income fell into a lower tax period, converting income into more favourably taxed capital. Have we not already had reports about income being deferred into next year? However, the Government do not have to acquiesce in this and accept the Starbucks approach to tax compliance. If they believed in tackling tax avoidance, they could secure the revenues that reversing this tax cut could generate.
There are alternatives. The country does not need the Bill. It needs growth, jobs and fairness in sharing the burden of fiscal consolidation. This Bill will contribute none of this.