Welfare Reform Bill

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak so early in this debate. I am a little surprised, but this is a very welcome early opportunity. First, I congratulate the Government on their direction of travel. This is a fairly brave Bill, and I congratulate them on introducing it. There are, of course, areas of reservation, which will be explored in Committee and on Report. However, I believe that we live in a humane and civilised society, and such a society tries to lock people into the world of work, not exclude them from it. If the Bill's direction of travel is to bring people into work and help them gain sustainable employment, I definitely welcome it. It is important to remember that work socialises people. We spend a lot of time in this place talking about income—allowing people to earn money and move off benefits. That, of course, is hugely important because it gives people their self-respect and often allows them to move out of poverty. But we must not overlook or forget the other hugely important aspects of work. Nothing is more depressing than sitting at home and looking at four walls day after day, completely removed from the world outside. The great thing about work is that it involves going out and meeting people. People work in teams and create and generate new friends and relationships; whole new vistas open up. That is hugely important. We must look at work as a way of not only helping people get an income and move off benefits, but of improving their quality of life, long-term prospects and long-term mental health and well-being. The Bill has perhaps come at the wrong stage of the economic cycle. It would have been better if it had come a few years earlier; as we have seen today, we face a huge wave of redundancies across the economy. That, of course, is not welcome but it is a reality of the recession that we are in. I am concerned that at a time when we want to help people to re-enter and re-engage with the labour market, there will not be the jobs for them to take. However, as hon. Labour Members have said, that is no excuse for inaction. In the months and years ahead, we must work with people to prepare them to re-enter the labour market. Furthermore, there is fluidity in the labour market even in a recession. Opportunities will open up for the long-term unemployed to move back into work, and we should look for those opportunities wherever we can find them. There is also a huge job to be done with employers. We need employers to start valuing people with disabilities. Sympathy will go only so far; it does not put food on people's tables and does not bring them back into the work force. People with disabilities do not need to be patronised by us—they need to be promoted and helped by us. They need a hand up. They need us to work with them to put them back into meaningful jobs that help them to fulfil their desires and abilities. That is the sea change that we in this place need to promote in the labour market. We have to stop simply being sympathetic and tut-tutting. We have to move the issue forward, find opportunities and get back into work people who have so much to contribute to the world of work, our society and our communities. I want to sound one note of criticism of the Government, but I really do not mean this in a partisan way. One of the great sadnesses of the past 10 years has been the so-called skill shortages. Actually, what we have often had is a shortage of personnel to fill jobs. We have been lucky that many motivated immigrants have wanted to come to this country and fill those positions. By and large, they have made a huge contribution to our society and its wealth, and we have been very lucky to have them. I cast no aspersion on those who want to come to this country to better themselves and their families. However, such people have come here at a time when many people born and raised in this country have been sitting outside the labour market and have been removed far from it. Perhaps we should have spent more time working with the excluded to get them back into work. A life on benefits cannot be the life that most people want to lead. That point has been made by Labour Members, and I am sure that it will be made eloquently by Opposition Members. When Beveridge invented the welfare state, of which we can all be proud, I am sure that he did not believe that it would be a long-term solution and that people would have the option of spending their lives on benefit. I am sure that if he were here today, he would see that as some sort of prison—as trapping people in a benefits system that did not provide them with a way out to making a full contribution to the society around them. There are oft-used clichés— benefits are here to provide ““a leg up””, ““a safety net”” or a ““ladder out of poverty””. We need to focus on that in this place. I am well aware that there is a group of people who, for whatever reason, will never, ever escape from the benefits system. Perhaps they are too ill to find work, or their family is too large, or their care responsibilities are too great. We must never despise those people, because, as Labour Members have pointed out, a whole range of circumstances stops people entering the labour market. We are a civilised society, and we care for people, but part of that care must be taking people who want to escape from benefits out of benefits and placing them back into the jobs market. Many Members want to speak, so I will cut my remarks short. The Government should be congratulated on their direction of travel. Many complexities in the benefits system need to be removed or resolved. Members in all parts of the House have an obligation to sit down with the Government in Committee and make this Bill the best Bill that it can possibly be. Many people out there are relying on us to give them the help that they so desperately crave.