We are addressing the policies of this Government. We can spend all our time debating what previous Governments have done but we are addressing this Government’s determination to raise the revenue that they can from a 50% rate, rather than give what is a huge tax cut to a minority of people in our country at a time when people at the other end of the income scale are being asked to bear a real additional burden. That is what we are complaining about and we believe that the Government can and should do something about it.
There have been a range of powerful contributions to this debate. I agree entirely with my noble friends Lord Bach and Lady Hollis about this collection of things that are going on, particularly at the moment. New benefits, new structures and new payment details are being introduced in circumstances in which it is difficult for people to access good advice, to get justice when they wish to challenge, or even to understand the system with which they are faced.
The noble Lord, Lord Bates, referred to fiscal consolidation. Yes, we all agree about fiscal consolidation: the issue is how you go about it. We all agree about the importance of work and getting people into work, but it is how you go about it. The problem is that the Government have not produced the goods. Every time George Osborne presents a Budget or an Autumn Statement, the OBR revises growth downwards. Indeed, the latest GDP figures show that there has been no growth this year. The issue is not about whether we believe growth is the right way forward; it is about how you get it—and this Government have not delivered on that.
As to their impact on benefit spending, the Government’s failure to get Britain back to work is sending the social security bill up by something like £13.6 billion more than expected. Long-term unemployment is up by 55.7% this year. That is a manifestation of government failure in getting people into work and on growth in the economy. Borrowing has risen by 10% so far this year and it looks as though the Chancellor will miss his target to get the national debt falling by 2015.
On our record on benefits, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that real-terms expenditure on out-of-work benefits fell by £7.45 billion under the previous Labour Government between 1996-97 and 2009-10, while real spending on out-of-work benefits in 2006, at something like £38 billion, was at its lowest
point in 15 years. You do not have to take my word for Labour’s record on benefits. An analysis was made of the Labour Government’s record on welfare reform and it was found that they had made “strong progress” in their welfare-to-work agenda. Policies such as Welfare to Work, the New Deal and Jobcentre Plus were all a success. It was the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who came to that judgment.
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