Welfare Reform

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The last Government spent more than £35 billion on child poverty, and they are to be applauded for making some changes and lifting 100,000 children out of poverty. We should be conscious of that and I will not say anything other than that that was the right direction of travel. However, that was a lot of money to spend to get what was quite a narrow effect, and child poverty rose relatively speaking after 2004. The best approach, we think, is the universal credit, because take-up rates will improve, allowing families who do not know what they are eligible for to take the money. That will automatically improve the quality of life for those families and have a huge effect on child poverty.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As I understand it, the new contract that the Secretary of State will introduce will begin from day one of a person’s unemployment, so he will be tearing up the old contract and the entitlement to benefit of people who have paid national insurance. Furthermore—as the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) pointed out—the sanctions regime will also be introduced at that very early stage. Does not the Secretary of State realise that it is an extremely inefficient way to run an economy to force people with high skills into jobs for which they are not suited? We do not want physics graduates on the checkout till.