We have an opposition day today – a day when the opposition choose the subjects for debate and draft the motion the House will divide over. These motions give the opposition an opportunity to raise important issues, embarrass the Government of the day, propose new ideas or all three. What they don’t do is change policy. So if a majority of MPs voted for the abolition of the bedroom tax it wouldn’t be abolished until the Government came back to the House with a substantive motion to abolish it. As my friend and colleague Andrew George has recognised if the Government were to give his Bill (a substantive piece of legislation to abolish the single room supplement) the necessary time and money to progress we really could abolish the so called bedroom tax. The Speaker is unlikely to choose Andrew’s amendment in preference to the one in the name of the Prime Minister so my dilemma having voted against the introduction of the bedroom tax when it mattered and being a sponsor of Andrew’s Bill to reform it, is do I engage in playground politics by voting for Labour’s motion knowing it won’t do anything. Vote for the Government’s amendment knowing it falls well short of the reform that’s needed. Or abstain on both? Were Andrew’s amendment chosen obviously that’s where I would cast my vote. I have to say that this is the politics I can’t abide where people who know better misinform and raise expectations among the electorate that something can be done using a mechanism they know can’t deliver what they promise. It’s simply used to embarrass and score meaningless points against the other side and what makes it all worse is that were the positions of the parties reversed, exactly the same games would be played. OPPOSITION DAY (11TH ALLOTTED DAY) Until 7.00pm (Standing Order No. 9(3)) Housing benefit (Abolition of social sector size criteria) Edward Miliband Rachel Reeves Ms Harriet Harman Hilary Benn Helen Goodman Ms Rosie Winterton That this House believes that the housing benefit social sector size criteria, otherwise known as the bedroom tax, should be abolished with immediate effect. Amendment (a) The Prime Minister The Deputy Prime Minister Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer Secretary Eric Pickles Secretary Iain Duncan Smith Mr Mark Harper Line 1, leave out from ‘House’ to end and add ‘regrets that the Government took over a housing benefit bill which was out of control, and without reform would have been more than £26 billion in 2014-15; notes that the reforms the Government has implemented have brought housing benefit spending under control and helped to tackle over-crowding and better manage housing stock; further notes that the Coalition has protected vulnerable groups through £165 million of discretionary housing payments in 2014; notes that, following the interim evaluation of the policy, the part of the Coalition led by the Deputy Prime Minister has proposed reforms to introduce other formal exemptions to the policy, including where claimants have not been made a reasonable alternative offer of accommodation; and believes that the Opposition’s failure to support the Government’s wider welfare reforms, including the wholesale abolition of this policy, is financially unsustainable, and would put at risk savings of nearly £50 billion over the present Parliament, as well as leaving people languishing in over-crowded accommodation.’. Amendment (b) Andrew George Line 1, leave out from ‘House’ to end and add ‘believes that the Government should table a motion for a Money Resolution for the Affordable Homes Bill, which if enacted would alleviate the adverse effects of the housing benefit social sector size criteria.’.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 08:56:44 +0000
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