division_name: Attorney-General &#8212; Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
motion: <p class="" pid="b.188.3/1" pwmotiontext="yes">I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.</p>
  
  <p class="" pid="b.188.3/2" pwmotiontext="yes">The Bill, which stands in my name and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends, is about the renewal of what I believe is a principled welfare state based on affordability, integrity and fairness. For the convenience of the House, let me explain that I intend briefly to run through the features of the Bill, and I will then open up the debate to take interventions and deal with the amendment.</p>
  
  <p class="" pid="b.199.1/1" pwmotiontext="yes">I beg to move,</p>
  
  <p class="" pid="b.199.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">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&#8217;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 &#163;534 worse off by 2015; further notes that the Bill does not include anything to remedy the deficiencies in the Government&#8217;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 &#163;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 &#163;100,000 a year.</p>
  
  <p pid="b.270.4/1" pwmotiontext="yes"><i>Question put,</i> That the amendment be made.</p>
  
  <p class="italic" pid="b.270.4/2" pwmotiontext="yes">The House divided:</p>
  
  <p pid="b.270.4/3" pwmotiontext="yes">Ayes 262, Noes 328.</p>