Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Graham William Allen (Labour, Centre-left): This has been a strange debate. It is as if we have managed to collect in the Chamber all the sensible people from all the parties, and to have a serious debate on some of these issues. It is unnerving to step out of the comfort zone of yelling at each other, and instead to hear sensible contributions from across the House, including the speech by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) that we have just heard Perhaps the lesson for us all is that this is how we should have done it in the first place, before the Chancellor made his announcement. He could have set out broad principles, as he is entitled to do, and said: "We need to reduce the welfare budget because we made a commitment in our manifesto. We would like to consider these issues. We need to find £12 billion, so how might we best do that?" By using the wit of Members from across the Chamber—including those who are appointed to Select Committees and work incredibly hard on our behalf—I am sure we could have come up with something less painful, crude and crass, while also saving the Chancellor some grief. However, we did not do things that way; we are doing it the other way round, so let us hope that we can reach a sensible result by listening to Parliament I also hope that we will listen to people out there. This is a classic debate, and we must listen to those who will be impacted on and influenced by these changes. Often, those people are not necessarily very articulate or in touch with their Member of Parliament, but I want to speak up for them, particularly those in my constituency. Dinner ladies, check-out and administrative staff, nursing and teaching assistants and manual workers all need us—whatever our political persuasion—to stick up for them right now We should all be in it together, but it often feels that we are not. I looked for the number of people in my constituency who will benefit from changes to inheritance tax, and after a lot of searching I came up with a large zero. Unfortunately, it did not take long to find the number of people in my constituency who will not be benefiting from the changes to tax credit, because 12,300 children will be affected. That is important because I am the Member of Parliament for the second most deprived area in the United Kingdom in terms of child poverty in low-income families, which is a matter of great concern. We are not "all in it together", because those kids are not in it with those whose families have higher incomes and should be shouldering a fair share— nothing more—of the tax burden in our country. Colleagues who know their food banks will unfortunately know that this measure is a food bank recruitment scheme on behalf of the Government, and we must be careful about how we tread forward with it No one was ready for this change. Some of us believed the Prime Minister when he was on television before the general election and said that there would be no changes to the tax credit system. It is the same Prime Minister who, sadly, was in this House a week ago and said he was "delighted" that the cuts had been voted through the previous evening. That indicates a contempt for institutions other than government—I know I labour this point, but listening to Parliament and to people outside does not mean that someone gets diverted from their principles; it means that they can better enable those principles by listening to those who might be able to help in a slightly better way These cuts will have a broader impact on families. Four out of five families in my constituency receive tax credits because of the low-income nature of my area—my constituency is among the 20 most deprived—and we can do a job for them. We will not necessarily overturn what the Chancellor thinks, but Members of the House can do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has done and consider tapers, thresholds, transitions, and the time needed to allow people to adjust to a massive change in their life. We must look consistently at that family element, and review and analyse the impact of the changes in future years, so that we can mitigate the worst cases I am delighted that we have not heard the word "scroungers" in this debate, or heard people being described as having a free ride on the state or the system. As it happens, two-thirds of people in my constituency who are in receipt of tax credits are at work. They are being subsidised by the rest of us to be at work, and low-paying employers are being subsidised.