Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill — Decline Second Reading — Capping Increase of Specified Benefits at 1% — 8 Jan 2013 at 18:50

The majority of MPs voted in favour of capping any increase in working age benefits and tax credits at 1% rather than potentially allowing them to rise by 2.2% in line with prices.

This vote was on a proposal made by Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill) that MPs should decline to give a second reading of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, stopping it becoming law. His rejected motion stated[1]

  • That this House
  • declines to give a Second Reading to the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill because it fails to address the reasons why the cost of benefits is exceeding the Government’s plans;
  • notes that the Resolution Foundation has calculated that 68 per cent of households affected by these measures are in work and that figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that all the measures announced in the Autumn Statement, including those in the Bill, will mean a single-earner family with children on average will be £534 worse off by 2015;
  • further notes that the Bill does not include anything to remedy the deficiencies in the Government’s work programme or the slipped timetable for universal credit;
  • believes that a comprehensive plan to reduce the benefits bill must include measures to create economic growth and help the 129,400 adults over the age of 25 out of work for 24 months or more, but that the Bill does not do so;
  • further believes that the Bill should introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee, which would give long-term unemployed adults a job they would have to take up or lose benefits, funded by limiting tax relief on pension contributions for people earning over £150,000 to 20 per cent; and
  • further believes that the proposals in the Bill are unfair when the additional rate of income tax is being reduced, which will result in those earning over a million pounds per year receiving an average tax cut of over £100,000 a year.

This vote was followed by a vote in which MPs agreed to give the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill its second reading, allowing it to progress towards becoming law, information on effect of the bill can be found on that subsequent vote's description page

The explanatory notes[2] state the purpose of the bill was to implement a decision announced in the Autumn Statement:

  • In the Autumn Statement, it was announced that in light of the national economic situation, certain working-age social security benefits and payments, and certain elements of tax credits, would be up-rated by 1 per cent, rather than prices (as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (‘CPI’), 2.2 per cent), for the tax year 2013-14.

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con283 (+1 tell) 0093.1%
DUP0 7087.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Lab0 242 (+2 tell)094.6%
LDem45 (+1 tell) 0080.7%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP0 2066.7%
SNP0 60100.0%
Total:328 262092.5%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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