Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Craig Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend speaks with enormous experience and expertise, and she is completely right. As I said earlier, tax credits are a policy success. In 1997, 43% of single parents in Britain went out to work; today, the figure is 65%. There has been a 50% increase in the number of single parents who are in work, and that is a measure of the success of tax credits.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

rose—

[Owen Smith]

I will give way in a moment to the hon. Gentleman, who represents a great city—a working-class city—but before I do so, I ask him to reflect on the views of one of his colleagues, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who said last week that

“it would be remiss of me not to recount the extraordinary levels of feeling in Plymouth last weekend. This bright, vibrant, exciting and…blue collar city, where in the last general election we saw lots of new and first-time Conservative voters, has serious objections to the tax credit reforms.” —[Official Report, 20 October 2015; Vol. 600, c.882.]

The hon. Gentleman knows, and I know, that that stands for his constituency in Cardiff too, and I hope he will reflect on it when he addresses the House.

[Craig Williams]

The hon. Gentleman has talked about policy success. Cardiff truly is a working people’s city. Will he comment—so far, he has not done so—on the Government’s leadership on the national living wage? What would he say to the staff of Morrisons, Costa Coffee, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, British Gas and IKEA, who are already benefiting from those companies’ attempts to follow the lead taken by this Conservative Government and match the living wage?

[Owen Smith]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is relatively new to the House, but he really ought to be present for the beginning of debates. I said at the start of my speech, and indeed on two other occasions, that I welcomed the Government’s moves. I applaud them for what they are doing in increasing the national minimum wage, although I repeat that it is utterly bogus to describe it as a national living wage. It is not a national living wage, which is why the Living Wage Foundation will not describe it as such. I wish that the Government would give us a true national living wage, in London and elsewhere.

The hon. Gentleman has, in his wealthy, leafy part of Cardiff, more than 3,000 constituents who benefit from tax credits. I ask him to look into his heart and reflect on whether it is right, for whatever purpose—ideological or economic—to ask those hard-working families to pay this bill. It is not fair, it is not just, and I do not think that it should go ahead.