Welfare Reform and Work Bill — Removal of Work Related Activity Component from Employment and Support Allowance — Impact Assessment and Parliamentary Approval of Implementation — 2 Mar 2016 at 19:04

The majority of MPs voted against making the removal of the work-related activity component from employment and support allowance conditional on an impact assessment and against requiring Parliament to approve details of implementing the change.

MPs were considering the Welfare Reform and Work Bill[1].

The motion supported by the majority of MPs in this vote was:

  • That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 8B and 8C.

Lords amendment 8B stated[2]:

  • Page 14, line 24, at end insert—
  • “(8) Subsections (2) and (3) shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report giving his or her estimate of the impact of the provisions in those subsections on the—
  • (a) physical and mental health,
  • (b) financial situation, and
  • (c) ability to return to work,
  • of persons who would otherwise be entitled to start claiming the work- related activity component of employment and support allowance.
  • (9) Regulations bringing subsections (2) and (3) into force shall not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”

Had it not been rejected this amendment would have added the above text to Clause 13 of the Bill titled Employment and support allowance: work-related activity component[3] The clause provided for an amendment to Part 1 of the Welfare Reform Act 2007 to remove the "work-related activity component" from the Employment and Support Allowance. The component is paid at a rate of £29.05 per week.[4] Together with the removal of the Limited Capability for Work component in Universal Credit the changes are expected to reduce Government spending by £640m per year in 2020/21.[4]

Lords amendment 8C stated[2]:

  • Page 28, line 2, at end insert “, subject to section 13(8) and (9)”

This would have impacted Clause 31 of the Bill[5], adding the text to subsection (6) which stated:

  • The remaining provisions of this Act come into force on such day or days as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint.

The rejected addition would have enabled amendment 8B to take effect.

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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 (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Con309 (+2 tell) 3095.2%
DUP0 2025.0%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent0 2066.7%
Lab0 204 (+2 tell)089.2%
LDem0 6075.0%
PC0 1033.3%
SDLP0 1033.3%
SNP0 52096.3%
UUP0 20100.0%
Total:309 274091.3%

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
Heidi AllenSouth CambridgeshireCon (front bench)no
Jason McCartneyColne ValleyConno
Stephen McPartlandStevenageConno

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