Capping benefits

The New Year has started with a row in the House of Lords over the Government's Welfare Reform Bill and changes to the benefits system. This is a subject on which I get a steady flow of e mails from local residents. There is a genuine sense of unfairness that the welfare system has been left in such a mess by Labour, with too many people better off out of work and on benefits than if they entered the world of work. This area itself does not have large numbers on out of work benefits. The percentage on these benefits in South Oxfordshire is half the average for the South East. However, nationally, 5 million are on such benefits and almost 2 million children live in homes where nobody works.

People see it as not fair that benefit claimants can receive higher incomes than families who are in work. I agree. That's why the Government wants to introduce a cap on benefits – so that no family can get more on benefits than the average family does by going out to work. That average and the amount of the cap is £26,000 per household per year.

It is important that in fixing this broken system we look after the really needy and vulnerable. The benefit cap will not affect the disabled or those who work and receive working tax credits. There is no reason for anyone to be made homeless by these reforms when they can still receive the equivalent in benefits that someone in work would have to earn £35,000 a year to make.

The Government's reforms are popular because they are right. One poll showed 76% approval for a cap. Even the Independent newspaper agreed. It asked why the people can recognise fairness when they see it, but those who oppose the cap cannot.  Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, is quoted as saying that the current welfare system encourages fecklessness and irresponsibility.  In a national newspaper he is quoted as saying that Britian's public debt was the greatest moral scandal we face and that unless we get the defcit under control and start paying back the debt we would be mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren.

There has to be a limit on the amount of money benefit claimants can receive. I think that limit is set at a fair rate of £26,000 – the equivalent to someone earning £35,000 before tax, a salary that many working families would be happy to receive.

Ed Miliband has fallen at the first hurdle and failed this key test of leadership and credibility. He promised to 'take the tough decisions' on reforming welfare and claimed that he supported the cap. But his party in the Lords backed an amendment that would wreck the cap. His tough words have been exposed as just posturing from a weak leader.

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