Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In retrospect, I think that it was a tragedy to import thousands of low-wage, low-skilled people from eastern Europe while we parked our own indigenous young people who needed skills and training and who needed educators and businesses to put their the faith and trust in them. I have nothing against the people who wanted to come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families, but at what cost did they do so? Even the Scottish Trades Union Congress says the same thing.

Some of the arguments being used are disingenuous because they do not fully understand the context. We have uprated benefits by 5.2%, we have brought in apprenticeships, and we are trying to deal with these issues through the Work programme. I am on the Public Accounts Committee and I know that the programme is not perfect. We are at the beginning of a process and there are some difficulties with appeals, with people’s understanding of the system, and with advocacy. I understand that. However, my blue-collar constituents do not understand how it can be right, when their average salary is about £24,000, for a party that aspires to government to say that it will not countenance a benefit cap of £26,000. My constituency has some of the poorest super-output areas and wards in the eastern region, and my constituents are decent, salt-of-the-earth people who want to work. They are not shirkers.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Jackson]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, even though he is a terribly charming fellow.

Those people in my constituency want to work, but they want the Government to give them a positive message about the future. It is cruel to park people and to forget them.