Social Security

I do not want this to be a partisan debate, but my hon. Friend makes a good point. When she was discussing the plight of her constituents in St. Albans, there was some sneering from the Labour Benches. I point out to those Members that there are many thousands of Labour voters in St. Albans—indeed, it was a Labour seat until the last general election when my hon. Friend won it for the Conservatives. I was slightly annoyed by the sneering, which injected a slightly sour tone into the debate, but I am sure those Labour Members are very sorry about it. I return to heating and fuel for pensioners. I am not a great class warrior, but like my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) I am a member of a trade union and I feel that there is a whiff of the Cedrics at British Gas. I was slightly concerned to hear that the company is making record profits when many pensioners are struggling to pay their bills. British Gas needs to have a long hard think about what it is doing. I am not against profit at all—profit is paid into pension funds—but I am really concerned that energy companies are making large sums of money off the back of some hard-pressed people in our communities. Pensioners are paying more for staple foods and the cost of bought-in care is increasing. I shall touch briefly on incapacity benefit. I am delighted that people who are genuinely ill and unable to work will receive an uplift in their benefits. It is important that they have quality of life, although of course it will not be the same as if they were in work, but I hope that for many of them it is manageable. However, like many Members, I am concerned about the increase in the number of people in receipt of incapacity benefit. Being on benefit is no way to live if there is another option, so I hope that the Government are really committed to getting more people off incapacity benefit and back to work. Many people who have been out of work for a long period begin to doubt their ability to go back to the workplace; mental health issues creep in and there is loss of confidence. I hope that collectively, across the Chamber, we can come together to ensure that people who can work have the chance to do so. I was pleased that there will be some adjustment to tax credits, but I am concerned that they are not necessarily the answer in the long term. All of us will have heard in our surgeries the harrowing cases of people in receipt of tax credits who are being pursued for back payments of between £4,000 and £7,000. One of the fundamental problems in this country is that people start paying tax on their income far too early. I have said it before in the Chamber, I say it now, and I will say it again. It is incumbent on a civilised society to ensure that hard-working families whose earnings are at or near minimum wage level hold on to as much of their earnings as possible, rather than having their earnings taken off them by Government, through tax, and then laundered back to them in the form of tax credits. That robs people of their self-respect, and it is not the best way of helping those at the bottom of the income scale. Again, I am not seeking to make a partisan attack; that is just my fundamental belief, as a Member of Parliament and as a member of society. I hope that when our time comes and we are in government—as we will be, because we still live in a democracy—we will address the issue. I represent Broxbourne, which is full of generous people who understand the need to look after the old, the infirm and those who are struggling between jobs, either because they are made unemployed through no fault of their own, or because they are having a difficult time. However, there is concern among all our constituents about the growth in the number of professional claimants—claimants who think that the state is there to support their way of life, and who think that they have no obligation to the state. When social security was created, the idea was that people paid into a fund that acted as a safety net, and could draw on it in their time of need. That is a noble, lasting, good idea. However, I am terribly concerned that a whole section of society think that they can draw on that fund, but have no obligation to support it or make any contribution towards it in their life. If we are to retain long-term confidence in our system of social security, we need to make sure that it is seen to be fair—that those who have paid into it are at the head of the queue, and that it is there for them in their time of need. All of us will know of horrible cases in our constituencies in which people with successful lives, who may not have been earning a lot of money but who had stable jobs, a stable family life and a stable home, suddenly suffered a great tragedy or an illness. Those people's lives can unravel incredibly quickly, and they find it difficult to access services and benefits. They struggle to keep themselves together. Sometimes they face losing their house or their children—they face all sorts of tragedies—yet on the other hand some people who have never done a stroke of work in their life, have never contributed towards society in any reasonable way, seem to sail through everything, and have everything laid on for them. We must put hard-working people and families at the forefront of our benefits system. The Daily Mail would have us believe that millions of immigrants are coming to this country and abusing our system. Of course there will be some—a minority—who do that. We must be mindful of that and we must not allow it to happen. However, I get annoyed when newspapers attack immigrant communities and fail to reflect the fact that there are many people born and bred in this country who abuse and cheat the system. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. I support any measures that ensure that people who do not have a right to access benefits do not get their hands on them.