Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us.”
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me.”
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,453 lines we hold for Sir Iain Duncan Smith, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 65 of 90.
“Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that in my time before politics I was made redundant, and I know what it is like not to know where the next pay cheque is coming from. I agree with him: it is a terrible place to be, and no one, if we can avoid it, should be there. That is why we have said that, through the long-term economic plan, we have to make sure that the economy is stable and on a good, long trajectory, and that we get our debts and our deficits down. As regards chasing people who are avoiding tax, this Government, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said today at the Dispatch Box, have done more to close tax loopholes than any other Government previously.”
“For recent and new employment and support allowance claimants, Work programme job outcomes are exceeding expectations and rising all the time, compared with Labour’s Pathways to Work programme—never rolled out fully—which had no statistically significant impact on employment outcomes and was assessed by the National Audit Office as poor value for money. The truth is that we are now doing more for people who have difficulties getting into work than the previous Government ever did. Does the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) still want to intervene, as she has been trying to catch my eye? No, she is on her computer. I hope she was writing up a glowing review of my speech; I look forward to reading it on Twitter in due course. I give way to her.”
“It is now the most successful back-to-work programme of all those that have been put forward. Performance is exceeding all our original expectations and is better than under any previous Labour programme. Let us look at how much better the Work programme is than some of the programmes Labour had. More than twice as many people moved into work in the first two years under the Work programme as under the flexible new deal. Nearly three times as many people have been in a six-month job as under the flexible new deal.”
“This slot was probably destined for a debate on the health service, but because they have made such a Horlicks of that, they have decided to throw in this business instead. Let me deal with the success of the employment programme and talk about what we in this Government have done. Universal Jobmatch has transformed how almost 7 million people look for work, with over 4 million average daily searches. Work experience is one of this Government’s great successes for young people, with half of participants off benefits at a twentieth of the cost of the future jobs fund. The Work programme is helping more people than any programme before. Over 1 million have spent time off benefit, and almost 640,000 have got a job, 368,000 of whom have found lasting work, with a third of them staying in a job for 18 months or longer.”
“Hypothecated funding is a matter for the Chancellor, as the hon. Gentleman knows, but I will certainly pass his views on. Many of us in this House loathe the idea of some people being able to hide their money away. We think that hard-working taxpayers deserve a fair deal, and the unemployed do too. I am seeing the Chancellor later today, and I promise the hon. Gentleman that I will pass his comments on to him. As regards Labour’s proposed programme, with the best will in the world, I say to the right hon. Member for East Ham that he could have done better on the back of a fag packet, having had weeks, months and years to figure it out. I suspect Labour Members had to come up with something for this debate and are therefore doing this now.”
“The Opposition constantly harp on about a figure that has no basis in fact, so let me give the facts. Full-time employment is up by over 1.3 million since 2010—over 80% of the rise in employment in the past year alone. Permanent employees are up by 1 million since 2010—nearly 80% of all people in work. Three quarters of those in employment since 2010 have come from managerial, professional or associate professional jobs. The Opposition constantly put about the nonsense that there are nothing but zero-hour, no-value, low-skilled jobs, but that is simply not true.”
“The record jobs figures under this Government stand as a testament to our success, with more people in work than ever before, up by 1.75 million, and more people in private sector jobs than ever before, up by nearly 2.2 million. Since 2010, two thirds of the rise in employment has gone to UK nationals—the Opposition never achieved this—thereby reversing the damaging trend of Labour’s last five years in office, when the majority of jobs went to foreign nationals. What is more, we now have more women in work than ever before, more lone parents in work than ever before, and more older workers than ever before—and employment for young people and disabled people is up on the year as well. Let me now deal with the suggestion that these people are moving into part-time, low-quality work. That is not true.”
“It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Lady. She has tortuously wound her way around all these figures, but I come back to the simple point that the work experience programme, at a twentieth of the cost of the future jobs fund, ensures that over 50% of those who enter it will go into work. By the way, I did not invent the work experience programme—it was invented for me by somebody on the floor of the job centre because young people were saying, “Can’t we have more time for work experience than the last Government allowed us to have?” I do not know if she has seen the really interesting figure that the claimant count in her constituency is down by nearly 50%. That is a very good story. I know she will want to write that up as well, as an excellent statistic.”
“I do agree. I also remind my hon. Friend that my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) said that under the previous Government youth unemployment did not, as the right hon. Member for East Ham claimed, rise only because of the great global recession that somehow crept up on the previous Government, but was rising steadily from 2004 all the way through.”
“I can tell my hon. Friend exactly—it is 2% of people and 4% of total contracts. Moreover, this Government are moving to get rid of the exclusivity that we think is an abuse in zero-hours contracts—something that Labour never did anything about when in office. The truth about zero-hours contracts, limited as they are, is that they give some people, such as many of those with caring responsibilities, the flexibility of picking work when they need it. We are closing down on the abuses, and they are reducing. By the way, the previous Government never did anything about that. I am reminded—I should have remembered—that the previous Government said they were perfectly at ease and happy with people getting filthy rich, so the point is that we should not expect too much from Labour Members.”
“Each job gives a young person a real sense of self-worth, gives an adult new hope, and gives a parent a sense of security for themselves and their children. That is what the Government stand for, and what we have delivered—hope and security for families up and down the country.”
“When we entered government, one in five households had nobody in work: that was the previous Government’s record. I believe that this Government have got Britain back to work, with unemployment down, youth unemployment down, long-term unemployment down and the lowest rate of workless households on record. We have a proven track record on delivery: departmental baseline spending is down £2 billion; reforms are set to save £50 billion overall next year; and there has been a real-terms fall in welfare spending for the first time in 16 years. Over this Parliament, welfare spending has grown at the slowest rate since the creation of the welfare state. Above all, our real success is not about figures—in hundreds of thousands, millions or even billions—but about the fact that each and every job created means a life transformed.”
“With the Labour party, it is always a case of “Look at what I say, not what I do”, because we invariably find that Labour party members out in the country are doing something fundamentally different. Let me finish my speech, because I am conscious of the time, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Labour Government presided over a great recession—the great Labour recession—which cost the British economy £112 billion, and cost 750,000 people their jobs. We should never forget that their recklessness with the economy cost ordinary families up and down the country very dear in terms of lost jobs, lost money and lost hope. On their watch, youth unemployment increased by nearly half, long-term unemployment almost doubled in just two years, 5 million people were on out-of-work benefits and no one worked at all in one in five households.”
“I set up the £30 million innovation fund four years ago to test cutting-edge projects for helping disadvantaged young people: some of those most at risk of becoming NEET—not in education, employment or training—or falling in with gangs. Using social impact bonds, these projects are now proving they can deliver a return on the investment; 16,600 positive educational and employment outcomes have been achieved, each one an improvement in a young person’s prospects.”
“The interesting thing about this development, which I hope has support on both sides of the House, is that these social investment bonds have advanced dramatically in the past four years, making the UK now a world leader in this, with lots of different Governments coming to ask how to implement it. With the tax relief that we have granted to social investment bonds, the future funding in many of these projects will involve more and more decisions being able to be taken by local government; it will be able to set individual projects up and fund them, without recourse to government, but with a return. So we will be paying for things that happen rather than things that might happen—that is the key.”
“What went wrong was the Youth Contract, full stop. The money used for the Youth Contract actually went to invest in people who had greatest disadvantage, and when we set up our other programmes, including the Work programme, we outperformed anything the Youth Contract had. Furthermore, work experience was not available to young people under the previous Government for any great length of time, whereas we have had more than 50% of people on those work experience programmes go back to work. More young people are in work now than when we came into office; they were left by the disaster of the previous Government.”
“I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has actually looked at the figures correctly. He will find that under this Government youth unemployment has fallen; there are now more young people in work; and youth unemployment is at a lower level than the previous Government left us in 2010, after they crashed the economy. I might also remind him that they used to put young people on short-term programmes. As soon as they did that, they took them off the register and started them as though they had begun looking for work then, rather than being six months in. The previous Government gerrymandered the figures and they still failed.”
“Gentleman got up and said, “You know what, the last Government got it wrong. Thank you for getting it right.””
“The reality is quite different from that set out by the right hon. Gentleman. Youth unemployment is down 171,000 on the year—nearly a fifth; 7.1% of all young people are unemployed and not in full-time education; and the number of young people on jobseeker’s allowance has fallen every month for that past three years. The truth about this is quite the opposite to that he suggests. The previous Government left us with young people unable to get work experience and unable to get jobs, and a real stagnation problem, with young people not being able to get the skills necessary. Youth unemployment is now falling. Youth employment is rising —[Interruption.] No; since the last Parliament youth unemployment has fallen. Youth employment is rising. Once in a while it would be nice if the right hon.”
“Citizens of the European economic area who choose to come here without a job to start will not be able to access universal credit. We have introduced several restrictions to benefits to ensure that our welfare system focuses support on those who are contributing to the economy. These include strengthening the habitual residency test, banning access to housing benefit for new EEA jobseekers, and introducing a three-month residency requirement for income-based jobseeker’s allowance.”
“The universal credit programme is working well. It is now completing its roll-out to all the areas in the north-west, to all singles, couples and families. In the next month, it will start rolling out across the country, and that will bring universal credit to more jobcentres. By the time that process is completed, one in three jobcentres will be running universal credit. The key thing is to make sure that we get this vital reform, which helps people to get back into work faster, that we land it correctly and safely, and that we learn the lessons of the past when things like tax credits, brought in under the previous Government, were absolute disasters wasting billions of pounds in lost money and fraud.”
“Yes; changing that situation is something that the coalition has set out to achieve. I remind my hon. Friend that when we came to power, the last Government had pretty much left an open door for access to benefits. People were able to claim jobseeker’s allowance pretty much on arrival. There was a habitual residence test, but it was very weak. We strengthened it and stopped people claiming for more than three months. People will not be able to claim housing benefit and they must have a right of residence. If they do claim, they must show that they have a minimum earnings likelihood. Anything below that will not count as a job. We are tightening up the system after the mess that we were left by the last Government.”
“I will take that as a peculiar compliment. We inherited a system in which people did not have to work for any time to claim jobseeker’s allowance. Within the existing rules, we will not pay for the first three months. If people are unemployed, they will be paid for three months. After that, they will be asked to leave. That is a much tighter position than the one we inherited. I, of course, would like to take it further. As the Prime Minister set out clearly in a recent speech, he believes that there should be years of contributions before someone is eligible to claim benefits, be they tax credits or jobseeker’s allowance. When the Conservative party gets back into power, we will implement that.”
“Exactly what I have mentioned. The mess that we were left by the last Government left little or no restrictions on anybody coming in, so the UK became a draw for people who wanted to claim benefits and be out of work, because it was a better option. We are tightening that up. We have stopped a number of things, such as housing benefit, and have shortened the time on jobseeker’s allowance. Tax credits are moving into line with that as well. As I said, when we are re-elected at the next election as a Conservative Government, we will tighten it up even more.”
“The UK has the fifth lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, and unemployment has fallen by more than in any other G7 economy in the past year. Thanks to welfare reform and our long-term economic plan, businesses are creating jobs and 1.75 million more people are in work than in 2010.”
“Yes, I agree with my right hon. Friend. The reality of what he raises is exemplified by the fact that the Opposition still cleave to the idea that they would copy the French way of doing things in respect of the economy. It is worth reminding them that in France—this is the system that they think is really good—the employment rate is down at 64%, the unemployment rate is 10.3% and the youth unemployment rate is up at 25.4%, which are all massively worse than here in the UK.”
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to ensure that much greater emphasis is placed on vocational education in schools, including to get people ready for apprenticeships. The Government have done a huge amount towards that. There are 1 million new apprenticeships. The report that came out when we first arrived said that there had to be a greater emphasis on that. None the less, our youth unemployment rate is remarkable when compared with the average in Europe and, apart from Germany and Holland, is significantly lower than anywhere else.”
“My right hon. Friend puts his finger on it. The reality is that the Government have implemented a long-term economic plan. In that long-term economic plan, welfare reform plays a critical part in ensuring that people are ready and available for work. Our labour market is far more deregulated than that of many other countries in Europe. It is noticeable that today, in the light of the elections in Greece, everyone is talking about austerity, but the big problem in Greece, as in other countries, is that the labour market is so rigid that very few companies want to invest, because there is no flexibility whatever. That is why they come to the UK—this Government have a plan that works to help them to get profitability.”
“That is the point. Opposition Members do not like it very much, but let us follow that theme for a minute. The Leader of the Opposition extolled the virtues of the alternative to the long-term economic plan—the French plan, which was no economic plan as far as I understand it. We have now seen French unemployment go through the roof, employment rates fall and economic activity stagnate. London is now something like the sixth or seventh-largest French city because so many French people are coming to the UK because—we welcome them—they like to look for jobs.”
“The latest published figures for August 2014 showed that the number of people affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy has fallen by 75,000. This follows a general downward trend, bringing the number of those affected down from 547,000 in May 2013 to 472,000.”
“After all, Labour, when in power, was the party that introduced that very policy for those in social sector private rented tenancies.”
“In previous speeches and today, the hon. Lady has talked about the fact that there are just not enough properties in her constituency to enable people to downsize. In fact, I understand that there are 2,700 people subject to the under-occupancy spare room subsidy, but something like 15,000 one and two-bedroom houses in the social sector properties in Wigan. There are many houses—many more than she might have laid out. My point to the hon. Lady and the Opposition is that, in their opposition, they need to explain how they will afford it. The policy is saving some £500 million a year. It has already saved £830 million to date. They have no plans for substituting that, which means that their economic record is in tatters.”
“He yet again mis-states the reality, which is that this has to work. I remind him again that it was his Government who introduced this for the private-rented social sector.”
“The hon. Gentleman knows that that is just another attempt to start scaremongering about the whole idea— [ Interruption. ] Yes, it is. What has been disgraceful about the Opposition is that they have spent their time scaremongering up and down the country about this issue. He knows very well that local authorities and the police work together, they have discretionary housing payments to deal with that matter at a local level and they can resolve it. More than £380 million has been granted to local authorities for discretionary payments. I have looked at what the hon. Gentleman said previously about the number of houses available. He said that some 5,000 people are suffering due to the under-occupancy rules because they had nowhere to move, but I remind him that there are 63,500 one and two-bedroom properties in Birmingham.”
“The hon. Lady, like many on the Opposition Benches, is living in cloud cuckoo land. They invent a whole series of issues about this. First, we get these lines about the fact that evictions are up. In fact, evictions are a very small proportion and are down. They say that rent arrears are up, but they are stable and have not risen. They say that homelessness is up, but it is actually down. The reality is that every time the Opposition talk about this subject, they invent these issues. But never once in the whole of the time they were in government—or even now—did they bother to talk about the fact that their policies meant that house building fell to the lowest level since the 1920s and that many people live in overcrowded accommodation, thanks to Labour’s failure, its crashing of the economy and its shocking mismanagement of housing.”
“The report is a serious contribution to an important debate, which recognises that the reasons behind the demand for emergency food assistance are complex and overlapping. I have already responded and will continue to review the recommendations and engage with the inquiry as it takes its proposals forward. That is an undertaking I gave at the last Question Time. My Department has already agreed to do more to raise awareness of short-term benefit advances, including advertising in jobcentres so that everyone can see it.”
“The reality is that long before the coalition came to power, they were already delivering a failed economy and forcing people out of work and into difficulty beyond whatever we may have done.”
“I am afraid I simply do not recognise the kind of case the hon. Lady raises. She knows that if she wants to raise a case directly with me or with the Minister for Employment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), she should do so, but there is no such rule in jobcentres or in respect of sanctions. [ Interruption. ] Yes, I am very happy to see the hon. Lady, but let me bring her to the wider issue, which is simply this: the report made it very clear that there are multiple issues. What the Opposition have tried to do non-stop, as they have with the spare room subsidy and other matters, is try to scare everybody up and down the country into believing that there is a magic wand. Let me remind her that under her Government the number of food banks doubled.”
“My right hon. Friend is correct. The reality is that delays in benefit payments have fallen under this Government. There are now fewer delays. The Opposition say that we need to speed up the payment of benefits. I remind them that under Labour benefits were not paid until two weeks after the claim, so unless they are now saying that benefits should be paid earlier than that, I really have no idea what the Opposition’s policy is on this. We pay benefits as quickly as possible. There is no determination to delay payment. Jobcentres and benefit offices do their level best to ensure that people get money when they need it, and hardship funds are available if anybody has any difficulty.”
“Today I welcome the new cross-Government report on drug addiction which shows that, for the most complex cases, residential treatment delivers a rate of positive outcomes nearly three times better than community treatment. Instead of not prioritising full recovery, as used to be the case, we are now getting people off drugs, into work and on the path to a better future, rather than leaving them languishing on methadone.”
“By getting more people back into work, the Government are helping them get beyond the need for food banks and other support.”
“As we have always said, these are complex issues. We welcome the fact that voluntary sector organisations provide for and support people in their community, through food banks and often with clothing and various other things. Having had the allowance passed down to them, many local authorities now use it to engage with food banks and send people there and to other organisations providing food and so on. Instead of simply saying that everything is the fault purely of the Government, the hon. Lady should take stock of one thing: it was her Government who crashed the economy and made people worse off. [Interruption.] I know the Opposition do not like to hear it, but they should do the maths: destroying the economy leaves people worse off.”
“I say to the hon. Lady that we intend to, and I repeat the answer I gave earlier. I know she wants to dance around on these things, but she has to say whether she genuinely supports universal credit or whether she plans to get rid of it, as that seems to be becoming Labour party policy.”
“I bet that looked good on a piece of paper when she wrote it. Honestly, here we go again Let me just remind the hon. Lady what her party left behind. It left a welfare budget that had “ballooned”—her word—by 60%. On tax credits alone, in the six years before the election, her Government spent £175 billion. They ballooned their welfare spending; unemployment rose; the economy crashed; people found themselves out of work—and her Government were to blame for all that. We have reformed welfare, and let me remind the hon. Lady that, at the end of this Parliament, we will have saved £50 billion from the bills Labour left us; housing benefit has come down; the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants has fallen; and before she writes a script again, she might like to test it for accuracy. They—the Labour party—have failed.”
“The truth is that many local authorities are using some of the devolved social fund, which is a very good idea, and engaging with food banks to enable people to access them in the early part of their claim. That is happening up and down the country, and I think that is quite reasonable; it is what local authorities do to help people as best they can. Perhaps the hon. Lady is opposed to that because she thinks everything should be run centrally from the Government here. Well, they made a mess of it last time.”
“May I first commend the hon. Gentleman for the work he has done? It has been a shining example both in his own area and nationally on early intervention and in setting up the Early Intervention Foundation. He has worked closely with Government and his own side. Yes, the answer is that of course we want to look at linking closely with the Department for Education, and I am very happy to discuss it with him further, but I also want to congratulate him on the hard work he does.”
“I have made it clear that I have met members of the Trussell Trust. I have never denied meeting members. The right hon. Gentleman needs to reveal his sources.”
“In October we introduced the family test, putting the family at the heart of policy making across Whitehall. From April 2015, for the first time ever, shared parental leave will enable both parents to retain a strong link with the labour market, allowing fathers to play a greater role in raising their children and helping mothers to return to work at a time that is right for them.”
“The troubled families programme has turned around the lives of over 69,000 families in England, and 120,000 had been helped by August 2014. In Brighton and Hove, the programme has worked with 675 families, changing their lives, and 417 families were turned around by August 2014, giving them a new start in life.”
“I heard that interesting debate between Professor Dowler and the head of the Oxford food bank, who talked about the wider ramifications of issues concerning access to food and food distribution, which is a matter for supermarkets. Of course, we want people to earn more. The key thing after the recession was to get people into work. We have got 2 million people back into work as a starting point, and we know that for every year in work a person’s salary rises on average by about 4%. Is there more to do? Yes, of course there is. We are looking carefully at that report and we will respond appropriately. I promise the hon. Gentleman that I take the report very seriously.”