Welfare Reform and Work Bill

My Lords, the Minister made much of the financial probity argument and said that tax credit expenditure had raced away out of control, with a threefold increase between its first year and today, at £30 billion. Will he confirm that, at the same time, the bill for income support has fallen from nearly £16 billion in 1996-97, when we inherited it from the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, to £2.9 billion now, because tax credits have helped people who depended on out-of-work benefits to come into work, as we all wanted? Will he also confirm what the OBR has told us: that welfare expenditure, including pensions, was 12% of GDP in 1983-84, was 12% of GDP in 1993-94 and today is 12% of GDP? So the untrue cliché that expenditure is racing away and out of control is not supported by the facts.