Danny Kruger
Main Page: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all Danny Kruger's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days ago)
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Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)
It has been a very good debate, and I am very grateful to all hon. Members across the House who have contributed.
It is still no clearer to us what the Government think or intend to do about the two-child cap, but it has been very good to hear so many strong voices from the Opposition Benches for and against the two-child limit. Of course, we do not really know what the Prime Minister himself thinks. He campaigned for the Labour leadership on a promise to scrap the two-child limit; then, in order to win the general election, he campaigned to keep it. Now, under pressure from his Back Benchers—once again, I pay tribute to the real powers in the Labour party—he is hinting that he will scrap it after all at a cost of £3.5 billion. Add to that the £4.5 billion the Government have to find because they abandoned their welfare reforms and the £1.3 billion they lost when they U-turned on the winter fuel payment, and the Government will have to find £9.3 billion this autumn.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
I would like to clear up what this Prime Minister and Government have done. They have expanded eligibility for free school meals to include more than 3,000 children in Bracknell Forest; expanded Best Start family hubs, which is something the previous Government never funded in Bracknell Forest; expanded the warm home scheme; rolled out free breakfast clubs in primary schools; limited expensive school uniforms to three branded items—
Danny Kruger
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his recitation, much of which was Conservative policy now rebranded by the Labour Government and the rest was further spending commitments. The Government are incapable of cutting spending, so we know where this is headed: tax rises in the autumn. There will also be tax rises on wealth. We know what wealth is: it is the product of economic success. It is what happens when people risk their capital and make things that people want. Wealth means more jobs, higher wages and more tax revenues. It means that we can reduce debt and invest in more businesses. And wealth taxes, which are coming, will mean less of all that. That is the Labour way—circling the drain and then going down to national bankruptcy. That is where a wealth tax and welfare spending lead us to, and the rest of the House seems to support that plan.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
According to the latest DWP data, more than 11,800 children in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley are living in poverty. This is not abstract and it is not inevitable; it is a direct result of policy choices by the previous Government and the maintenance of that policy by the current Government. One parent shared—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order! May I please urge people to make interventions short and pithy and not pre-prepared and read out.
Danny Kruger
I will come in a moment to the matter of child poverty, and I recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman is making.
I was just referring to the fact that all the parties except ours—indeed, it is unclear what those on the Government Front Bench think—seem to support lifting the two-child cap. The Liberal Democrats cannot seem to see a spending opportunity without grabbing it with both hands. Their spokesman, the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), spent £4.5 billion just in his speech earlier this afternoon. Then we have the SNP Government, who have presided over higher economic inactivity and lower employment than in England, have missed all their targets for child poverty, and still clamour for more money for welfare.
Then there is the Reform party, which is sadly absent today. I do quite like the Reform party and I agree with its Members on lots of things, but there is a problem: they would spend money like drunken sailors. I can see what is happening and I am very worried about it—they will end up in an electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats with a joint ticket to protect welfare spending. I do not know how hon. Members feel about the anticipated alliance.
The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) and others, particularly Members on the Government Benches, have cited widening poverty rates over the past decade or more, and they repeatedly raised the issue of 4.5 million children, but they are talking about relative poverty. The fact is that relative poverty increased under the previous Government because, overall, the economy grew, as more people became more prosperous. As the median income rises, more people come under it; that is how it works. If relative poverty goes down under this Government, it will be because they shrank the economy. That is highly likely, but it is not an achievement to boast about.
Relative poverty is not a measure of anything except the operation of the law of averages. Therefore, what we need to look at is real poverty, absolute poverty. As we rescued the public finances and grew the economy, absolute poverty went down under the Conservatives.
On children, the percentage of children in absolute poverty after housing costs fell between 2010 and 2024. We pulled 800,000 people out of absolute poverty and averted over a million more people falling into absolute poverty. We had more people in work, a higher employment rate, and fewer workless households than since records began. We should thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for that. Mention was made of Wilberforce and Disraeli. One day they will add the name of Duncan Smith to that great record.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. That should have been “the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green”.
Luke Murphy
In 2023, the shadow Minister said:
“The narrative that the public has now firmly adopted—that over 13 years things have got worse—is one we just have to acknowledge and admit.”
Does he still acknowledge and admit that things got worse under his Government?
Danny Kruger
I am grateful to the hon. Member’s archaeology in finding my previous quotes. Many things did get worse over the last decade and a half—of course I recognise that. But much of it was as a consequence of the global financial meltdown that his party presided over. We spent many painful years fixing the deficit that Labour left us.
I want to quickly cite the previous Government’s record on young people. Labour Members have boasted of the new Labour years, but in 1997 youth unemployment stood at 650,000, and by the time Blair and Brown had finished in 2010 it was up a third to 940,000. When we left office 14 years later, we had almost halved it down to 560,000—lower even than in 1997. That is the Conservative record.
I will conclude shortly, but I first say to those across the House who want to lift the child benefit cap to consider what they are asking. They are asking working people who pay more in tax than they receive in public services—and who themselves have had to take agonising decisions about whether or not they can afford to have another child given the taxes they pay—to fund the benefits for other people who receive more from the system than they pay in.
Paul Waugh
The shadow Minister makes a point about the state funding children. Does he accept that a million families that have three or more children receive child benefit presently? If he accepts that point, does he, as a father of three—as am I—not accept the principle that those children come first under the child benefit? What is the difference between child benefit and universal credit? Does he want to cap child benefit at two children?
Danny Kruger
The difference is that child benefit is paid to everybody. Child benefit is a universal entitlement. We need to ensure that we are not adding to the incentives in the system to live a life on benefits. I fully recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.
When I say that some people receive more from the system than they pay in, I am not trying to stigmatise those people. That point has been thrown at us, but it is not the case. I am not stigmatising people who receive more in benefits than they pay in tax. Life is not all about whether someone is a net fiscal contributor or not. I agree with points made by some Members that we should think more about social structures than fiscal transfers, but when it comes to fiscal policy there is a limit. Reciprocity matters, and when we are talking about money, it is right that people living on benefits face something of the same realities as people who pay for themselves.
We still have too many families trapped in welfare. What we need is more families and, yes, larger families supporting themselves through well-paid work. We need a tax system like that in Europe, America and across the world, which recognises families. The previous Government made an important step with the changes to the high-income child benefit charge, which was scrapped by Labour. The best thing we can do for families is to get the tax system and, crucially, the wider economy right, so that we have good growth, good jobs, higher wages, flexible childcare and strong communities.
Kanishka Narayan (Vale of Glamorgan) (Lab)
The shadow Minister talks about trade-offs in public finances, growth and child poverty. In the period since 2015-16, there was zero progress on absolute poverty and zero progress on relative poverty—public finances ruined and growth flat. Does he not think that the central trade-off was between a Tory Government and a thriving country?
Danny Kruger
The story of the last 14 years is quite easily told. In 2010 there was a budget deficit of 9%, and we had almost fiscal bankruptcy. We spent 10 years very painfully restoring the public finances at great cost, and I totally understand that. Then we were back down to a balanced budget. Then covid hit, and we spent the last five years trying to recover from that. On welfare, we have a very proud record of reducing unemployment and making work pay. Since covid we now have this great problem of disability and sickness benefits. That is the challenge that we were undertaking to fix as we left office and that the Government have now completely failed to conclude.
It is not too late. I am glad to see the Minister for Social Security and Disability in his place. His review should not wait until next autumn; we need it this autumn. We need proper plans to fix the welfare system, not just to increase spending as the Government are now doing. I urge hon. Members across the House to support our motion. Let me be clear: every Member who does not is voting for welfare dependency and national bankruptcy. Only the Conservatives have a plan to fix this.