Welfare Reform Bill — Decline Second Reading — 9 Mar 2011 at 18:50

The majority of MPs voted in favour of the Welfare Reform Bill.

The Welfare Reform Bill would introduce Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments and restrict housing benefit for those in social housing deemed to have excess bedrooms.

MPs were considering a proposal to decline the bill a second reading, expressing disagreement with the key elements of the bill, and stopping it from making progress towards becoming law. A number of reasons for opposing the bill are set out in the motion.

The rejected motion stated:

• this House, whilst affirming its belief in the principle of simplifying the benefits system and good work incentives,
• declines to give a Second Reading to the Welfare Reform Bill because the proposal of the Universal Credit as it stands creates uncertainty for thousands of people in the United Kingdom;
• because the Bill fails to clarify what level of childcare support will be available for parents following the abolition of the tax credit system; because the Bill penalises savers who will be barred from the Universal Credit;
• because the Bill disadvantages people suffering from cancer or mental illness due to the withdrawal of contributory Employment Support Allowance;
• because the Bill contains no safeguards to mothers in receipt of childcare support;
• because it proposes to withdraw the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance from people in residential care and fails to provide sufficient safeguards for future and necessary reform;
• because it provides no safeguards for those losing Housing Benefit or appropriate checks on the Secretary of State’s powers;
• because it fails to clarify how Council Tax Benefit will be incorporated in the Universal Credit system;
• because it fails to determine how recipients of free school meals and beneficiaries of Social Fund loans will be treated; and
• because the proposals act as a disincentive for the self-employed who wish to start up a business; and is strongly of the opinion that the publication of such a Bill should have been preceded by both fuller consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill.”

The key operative phrase is: " declines to give a Second Reading to the Welfare Reform Bill".

This vote was immediately followed by a vote in which the majority of MPS voting did so in favour of giving a the Welfare Reform Bill it's second reading.

• [1] Parliament webpage on the Welfare Reform Bill (which is now the Welfare Reform Act).

Debate in Parliament | Source |