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.”
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“For clarification, all the figures were adjudicated by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, not the Government. The Opposition and the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who is promoting the Bill, have said they want the figures checked, but the OBR is an independent body and therefore the figures stand and include all the costs and savings.”
“I have become a little confused about the Opposition’s position, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman could clear something up. I was listening carefully to what he said. There was confusion when the Budget announcement was made, but finally the shadow Secretary of State said the Opposition supported the proposal. From what the shadow Minister has said today, however, it sounds like they do not support it and now neither support nor oppose it. Will he clarify their position? Do they support the idea of people choosing what to do with their own money when they come to buy their annuity?”
“Since January, EU jobseekers have not been able to claim jobseeker’s allowance until they have been in the country for at least three months and can then claim for only a maximum of six months. Shortly, we will further limit the claim time from six months to three months. In addition, EU jobseekers cannot now claim housing benefit.”
“My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Overall the total number of national insurance number registrations to adult overseas nationals is down by more than 7,000 on the year, or 1%. NINo registrations from outside the EU are down by 30,000 on the year, or 17%, and outside the EU annual registrations to all world areas have fallen to the lowest level since records began in 2002.”
“I am not in a position to pre-guess what the Prime Minister will decide in his negotiations—he will make it altogether clear. But I hope that both sides of the House, including the hon. Gentleman, will recognise that a negotiation followed by trusting the people to vote on whether they wish to stay in the EU is a good plan rather than a bad plan.”
“I have visited and talked to a number of my colleagues across Europe—in Germany, Holland, Spain and France—and I have also talked to the Danish Minister. Everyone to whom I have spoken so far and many more—I see that the Poles have also come to the same conclusion—have decided that there is something fundamentally wrong with the European Commission interpretation of people’s right to access benefits in a country where they do not have residency. Recently, the Germans have tightened up in almost exactly the same way as we have done. We had all those people saying that what we were doing was terrible, but now that the Germans are doing it, those people have gone quite quiet.”
“That is exactly the point that I have been making from the beginning. We have always said to the European Commission that this matter lay outside the treaties. It is a national Government responsibility, and it is national Governments who should take that responsibility. The Opposition did very little about organising this so that they would be able to stand against the EU Commission on that basis.”
“In 2010-11, the Department for Work and Pensions spent £54 billion on working-age claimants and children at today's prices, and £106 billion on pensioners. Total expenditure was 9.8% of GDP. In 2015-16, as a result of our changes, the Department will spend £54 billion on working-age claimants and children at today's prices, and £116 billion on pensioners. Therefore, total expenditure is expected to be £170 billion, which is 9.6% of GDP. In this Parliament, we will therefore have saved cumulatively £50 billion, the equivalent of £1,900 for every household in the UK.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Last year, welfare spending fell in real terms for the first time in 16 years as a share of GDP, and will continue to do so. In 2010, spending was at 12.5%, and next year it will be at 11.9%. By 2015-16, the out-of-work benefit bill will fall back to pre-recession levels, down to 2.3% of GDP. It peaked under the last Government at nearly 3% of GDP.”
“The figure the hon. Lady did not give is that out-of-work housing benefit claims are falling, and that is because people who were claiming it are now going into work. That means that they are earning more money, which means that the likelihood of their being in poverty is far less. I wonder whether the hon. Lady would like to get up sometime and congratulate us on getting more people back to work and spending less on housing benefit as a result.”
“I announced in December that Her Majesty’s Treasury has approved funding for the universal credit programme in 2013-14 and 2014-15. The final stage in Treasury approvals is sign-off of the full business case, which covers the full lifetime of the programme. We expect to agree that very shortly.”
“Let me explain to the right hon. Gentleman that the reality is that we have agreed—I can run through the list for him—all the spending that is relevant to the plan that we set out at the end of last year. The final point relates to the full lifetime of that programme, which will take it all the way through, probably beyond all the years that anybody present will be in government. [Hon. Members: “Certainly you!”] To be fair, I do not think Labour will be in government given the way its Members behave. That is now being agreed and the reality is that it has to be done very carefully. I genuinely believe, from my discussions, that it will be signed off very shortly. The result will be that the programme will be seen for what it is: a programme that will deliver hugely to those who have the toughest lives and need the most support and help.”
“I invite anybody in the House to visit areas where universal credit is rolling out—across the north-west, and even here in London—not to talk to the likes of me but to the staff who operate the jobcentres, who will say that it has allowed them to get people started into work far quicker, so that they are taking work earlier and staying in work longer. It means that businesses on the high street can afford to take people on, to begin with for lower hours than they might otherwise have been able to do—in other words, not creating a job—and then expand it into a much fuller-time job, so improving the economy and improving lives.”
“It is always nice to live in the past, but the reality is that if the hon. Gentleman waits he will see that this programme is running well and will be delivering, that this programme of universal credit will benefit everybody who needs the support they most need, and that all the nonsense he is talking about will all go away.”
“There are no sticking points, but these matters need to be agreed carefully. This test-first-and-then-implement process is the way all future programmes will be implemented. I just want to quote Mr Manzoni, the new chief executive of the Major Projects Authority, who made it clear to the Public Accounts Committee in June that universal credit is stable and on track with the reset plan. [ Interruption. ] He said that it is stable and on track with the reset plan, so whatever the hon. Gentleman wants to say, when this is signed off I hope that he will come to the Dispatch Box and say that Labour Members fully support it and they will get on with it.”
“Today, I welcome an important step in our new test and learn approach to delivering universal credit, with the launch of 11 robust evaluation trials to test support for vulnerable households. We are working with local authorities in a way that has not been done before to make available a system of universal support that is delivered locally and that offers tailored help to get online and budget effectively as individuals progress into sustainable work.”
“I wish the hon. Lady had been listening to my answer to an earlier question— [ Interruption. ] No, the reality is that the number of people who are out of work and on housing benefit is falling. The number of those who are in work is rising. Under the last Government, we saw a rise in the number of people who were out of work and having to claim housing benefit. Let me also remind the hon. Lady, who has voted against every single measure we have taken, that our housing benefit reforms were set to reduce the amount of money. When the Labour Government left office, housing benefit was likely to rise to £26 billion. It will now rise at a far slower rate than that, because of the reforms that we have made to housing benefit.”
“The hon. Lady is in a hole and she really should stop digging. Let me remind her of what we had to take over when we came into government. Left unreformed, the bill that Labour left us with would have exceeded £26 billion in 2014-15. Instead, today, it is £24 billion—£2 billion less. Under Labour, in-work and out-of-work housing benefit claimant numbers increased, and those who were in more despair, being out of work, had to claim higher payments. Under us, homelessness is down 7%, half the peak that occurred under the last Government, and rent collection is currently 98% higher than under the last Government. Also, housing association arrears fell during the last two quarters. All of that is better than anything that the last Government left us as a result of their record on spending.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on working closely with businesses to get people back to work. Will he also pass on our congratulations to the businesses, small and large, that have done their level best to help deliver 1.7 million new jobs since the Government came to power and to turn the economy around so that it is the best performing economy in the whole of Europe?”
“I remind the right hon. Gentleman that this Government have got more people back to work, that we now have record levels of employment, that we have cut the deficit and that we are getting the cost of delivering welfare down. We inherited a shambles, and we have turned that around. That is the purpose of government.”
“I remind my hon. Friend that we have given local authorities more than £300 million in discretionary housing payments. What they are meant to be doing right now—many of them are doing it, by the way—is finding people the accommodation that they require and supporting them through discretionary payments while they are looking for it. That is why we are saving £1 million a day and £500 million a year.”
“Sinn Fein needs to face up to its responsibilities and cannot have it all ways. If it gets the welfare Bill through, it will benefit from the support that it will get, but it cannot sit in limbo land. I support what the hon. Gentleman has just said—it is time for Sinn Fein to get on and do what an elected Government need to do.”
“That set of agreements confirms the approval of the strategic outline business case plans for this Parliament. The final stage in this process, for which the logical point is now, has always been to approve and sign off the full business case covering the full, long lifetime of this programme, beyond this Parliament. We are in discussions over that, and it will eventually bring £35 billion of economic benefits to society. My right hon. Friend and I will, I am certain, approve that very soon.”
“These approvals are given by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—such matters are delegated to him by the Chancellor—and are subject to rigorous controls, in line with the recommendations made last year by the National Audit Office. It has always been the plan, as I set out last year, to secure agreement for universal credit in carefully controlled stages: first for singles, where we have agreed funding with the Treasury and are already rolling out in line with that agreement; then for couples, where we have agreed funding with the Treasury and are already rolling out in line with that agreement; and then for families, where we have recently secured agreement from the Treasury and will begin roll-out later this year. All this was confirmed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in an answer to a parliamentary question yesterday.”
“That is exactly what is happening. A fortnight ago, we began our north-west expansion. Universal credit is now in 24 jobcentres and will reach 90 across the country by the end of the year. A week ago, we started taking claims from couples. This careful roll-out is allowing us, as we said we would, to learn as we go along, continuously improving the process—unlike so many of the programmes the previous Government instigated which crashed and burned. In answer to the question, my Department has always worked, and will continue to work, closely with the Treasury on these roll-out plans. As we have made clear in a number of recent debates and answers to parliamentary questions, the Treasury has approved funding for the universal credit programme in 2013-14 and 2014-15, in line with the plan that I announced in December last year.”
“In answering, let me lay out a couple of quick facts about where we are and then deal with the hon. Gentleman’s direct question. Universal credit is a major reform that will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better, making 3 million people better off and bringing £35 billion of economic benefits to society. Rightly for a programme of this scale, the Government’s priority has been, and continues to be, its safe and secure delivery. This is demonstrated through our approach to date, which started with the successful launch of the pathfinder in April 2013 and has continued with the controlled expansion of universal credit. On 5 December last year, I announced that universal credit would be rolled out to the north-west and expanded to couples from the summer of 2014, and would then expand to families later that year.”
“Labour Members want to avoid the reality that the Government’s welfare reforms are working and getting more people back to work. We have capped benefits so that no household can receive more than people who are in work. There are more people in work than ever before. Under Labour, youth unemployment increased by nearly a half; under this Government, the youth claimant count has fallen for the past 30 months. The rate of workless households is at its lowest since records began. I say to the hon. Gentleman and the Labour party that this is the best instance of a man in an ill-fitting anorak dancing on the head of a pin. It is quite pathetic. He needs to think again about welfare reform.”
“I have said categorically that all the expenditures and the work in this Parliament are approved. The reality is that it is approved. The point he needs to get round his head is that, on the figures he gave earlier—the billions—the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee agree that we need careful controls in place. It is therefore natural that we have sought that approval at each stage. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has approved all of those elements. I know what this is all about. The truth is that this is about Labour’s failure to come to terms with welfare reform. We had a debate a week ago in which Labour crashed and burned, and we have an urgent question today.”
“The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made the most pompous, ludicrous statement I have ever heard. I know what he did: he wrote it down before he heard the answer. I have made it quite clear and I stand by what I said: the strategic outline business case plans for this Parliament have been approved. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made that clear the other day, and that is the statement that we stand by. The next phase, as I said in my statement—the hon. Gentleman might like to listen to them in future—is approved. On the strategic outline business case for the overall lifetime of the programme, that is being discussed right now and we expect approval of that plan shortly.”
“Absolutely. The Labour Government—the Labour party needs to own up to this—used to sign off business cases from day one, only to see the programme crash and burn. Tax credits left 400,000 people without money, and their reforms to the health service benefits system were an absolute disaster. We will take no lessons from Labour on how to manage a programme.”
“However, all the elements that are relevant—the strategic business plan for this Parliament, which includes all the roll-out, all the investments, of which the right hon. Lady will be aware, and the roll-out through to the north-west—have been approved. There will be no further need for approvals this Parliament, so the reality is quite clear: universal credit is on track and is rolling against the plan we set out last year. All those approvals are agreed, and we hope that the final element, which would logically come at the end of the process, will be agreed shortly with the Chief Secretary.”
“I respect the right hon. Lady enormously for the job she does, but I say to her clearly that it was on the recommendations of her Committee and the NAO that we instigated—by the way, I think this is the way ahead for all future programmes—a programme in which, at every stage and in every separate part of development, we would have approvals from the Treasury and with the Cabinet Office, which is what is going on at the moment. My point is that the answer that Mr Kerslake, the head of the civil service, gave was correct in the sense, as I have said today, that the overall strategic business case for the full lifetime of the programme is in discussion right now for that completion.”
“I am quite happy to deal with that. I have also said to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee that we are happy to talk through that. We have an invitation from the Committee to come in and discuss it.”
“I have said to the hon. Lady that we are happy to sit down to discuss this matter with her. I remind her that no other Government have ever published business cases, but I am happy to consider what she asks.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reality is that our welfare reforms are working, and our pensions reforms are working. The truth is that the Opposition have absolutely nothing to say about any of this. Instead, they want to delve and delve into the detail, but that will not tell them anything. Universal credit—started by this Government—will be a great success: it will get more people into work, and it will secure more households with greater earnings.”
“The head of the home civil service has expressed no reservations, and I do not believe that he has any reservations about these plans. As agreed, the plans will be signed off with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and when they are signed off, I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda will write me a letter to say, “Thank you very much, indeed.””
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem for the hon. Member for Rhondda is that his Government left behind a shambles in welfare—people unemployed, long-term unemployment rising, and youth unemployment rising dramatically—and there has never been an apology about that, or about crashing the economy.”
“I do know, actually. As we go along, we are developing universal credit correctly and stably, so that it rolls out properly. To repeat, we are rolling it out for singles in the whole of the north-west; couples development is now rolling out; and family developments are to come. Towards the end of this year, we will have rolled out universal credit to the north-west. I must say that that is the right way to do it: to make sure that what we produce is safe and delivers what we say it will, unlike tax credits and other problems that we got from the previous Government. I would like to know what the hon. Lady really thinks about the failure of her Government to deliver any programme correctly or safely.”
“That is exactly correct. That is why, when the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) stood up, I explained to her that we are now doing what the Committee asked for. We are rolling out universal credit carefully: at every check, we make sure with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office that what we are producing works, and the next phase is then approved. We have approved all the roll-out plans for this Parliament, as was said by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West. The strategic plan for this Parliament is exactly what the Chair of the PAC asked for, so we are giving her what she wants.”
“The plan does include that. As the hon. Gentleman may or may not know, we are working on that to make sure it is deliverable, but the key is that we absolutely plan to do that.”
“The NAO has come out with the figure of £35 billion, which I cited earlier, but the point is that I believe that universal credit is worth more than that. As well as the planning and implementation process, the work we are currently doing will also evaluate the net benefit to the Exchequer and taxpayers, which I believe will be even higher.”
“There have not been any such discussions, and I hope that he will take that argument back to his counterparts in Northern Ireland and try again to persuade them that the full welfare reform package will benefit Northern Ireland dramatically, as will the universal credit part of that reform.”
“What my hon. Friend says is exactly the point I have been making, but which Opposition Members just do not understand. There were too many disasters under their watch; we do not intend to repeat them. We are doing the implementation exactly as the PAC and the NAO recommended.”
“That is pretty much what the hon. Lady says whenever she stands up on any question to do with welfare. The reality is that she is opposed to absolutely everything that we have done. If it was left to her and some of her colleagues on the Select Committee, they would repeal everything we have done, and welfare would be in the sort of chaos that Labour Members left us when they left Government.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. The truth is that the Opposition do not want to talk about any of their welfare proposals because all of them would cost more money and deliver less. If we were to apply a business case to the Opposition, they would not exist any more.”
“The right hon. Lady knows that I respect her hugely. I am very happy to look at the points that she raises. In Wales, we inherited a peculiarly difficult problem. There were very high levels of unemployment and a very high number of people on incapacity benefit. I believe that our reforms are working. We have seen unemployment fall dramatically and employment levels rise in Wales. Is there more that we can do? Absolutely. My door is open and I would be very happy to discuss anything that she thinks we could do.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is what universal credit will deliver, and that is why delivering universal credit safely and securely is the key to the plan. The approvals have been signed off. All the work that is being done in this Parliament is approved by the Treasury, and the long-term strategic business case should be approved very shortly as well.”
“The Department for Education is making a decision about the best way to deliver free school meals. People who are eligible for free school meals will be eligible for them under the new arrangements. This is an opportunity to ensure that all those who really need free school meals actually get them. There are often problems in the existing system, so this is an opportunity to reform the system to improve the take-up and the accuracy.”
“The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West, and others have not made mistakes. We have been crystal clear about this matter. I stand by the words that have been used and the statements that have been made, as I said earlier. The hon. Member for Rhondda normally does not listen, but just says what he was going to say, regardless of the answer. I suspect that a conversation with him is a very one-way process.”
“I will give two answers. First, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West, stated what is factually correct: that the strategic business plans for this Parliament have all been approved. That is an absolute fact. Secondly, it was I who was not happy with the way the development was taking place nearly two years ago, and who instigated the first process through my red team report. That is correct and I stand by that. Working with the Cabinet Office, we changed the plan. The plan is now being delivered exactly as the Public Accounts Committee, on which the hon. Lady sits, wanted us to deliver it, with all the necessary checks and balances. I would have thought, therefore, that she would congratulate us.”