Speeches by Whately.

“I hate to tell the hon. Gentleman, but Labour is in charge now. It has had nearly two years and nothing is changing. You do not have to take my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker; here are the numbers. Over 8 million people are claiming universal credit, almost 4 million people are claiming sickness benefits and over 60…”

“The hon. Gentleman wants me to give way. Does he have a welfare savings plan? If so, let us hear it.”

“Oh dear; what a shame. There were no ideas for savings there at all. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that will get him a job under the next Labour leader, I am afraid that he will have to keep trying. Labour claims to be the party of working people, but the facts do not back that up. Labour always leaves office with unemp…”

“I respect the Secretary of State. He has talked at some length about what is wrong with the welfare system, but the fact is that there is no welfare Bill in the King’s Speech. I reckon he is stuck between a rock and a hard place: he knows the benefits bill is out of control; he knows that the public are sick of seeing …”

“Let me begin by welcoming the Minister back to his place—we missed him last night, and it is good to see him back in the Chamber. Throughout our many debates, we have broadly agreed on the policy intent behind most of the Bill, but as I have said time and again, agreement on the principles of a Bill is not the same as …”

“Let me begin by welcoming the Minister back to his place—we missed him last night, and it is good to see him back in the Chamber. Throughout our many debates, we have broadly agreed on the policy intent behind most of the Bill, but as I have said time and again, agreement on the principles of a Bill is not the same as …”

“I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), so let me help him. Unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds is at 14.3%—that means that one in seven young people is unemployed. There are thousands fewer jobs and thousands fewer vacancies …”

“Mr Speaker, “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”. That is the view of the author of the Government’s strategic defence review, the Labour peer, former Labour Defence Secretary and former Secretary-General of NATO Lord Robertson. Which will the Secretary of State choose: defending the country…”

“Let us put some facts on the table, because it is time for the Government to confront the hard choices. We are spending less than 2.5% of GDP on defence, but 5.3% of GDP on welfare. Six million people of working age are living on benefits. Under the Secretary of State’s Government, over a million more people have gone …”

“First, may I thank the hon. Gentleman for opening this evening’s debate, and for setting out the latest Government amendments, in place of the Pensions Minister? These ping-pong sessions with the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell) have become a regular in my diary, and I will miss him this evening. When this B…”

“The hon. Gentleman is quoting selectively from a letter that I have written to the industry. We had this exact debate with the Pensions Minister last week. There is an acknowledged and debated collective action problem; on that, there is a level of consensus, but there is no consensus that mandation is the right answer…”

“That leads us to the Minister’s central claim that mandation is necessary to solve a collective action problem—that while the sector recognises the case for higher return investments, no individual scheme is willing to move first. Now, that is a serious argument, but mandation is the wrong conclusion. He says that indu…”

“Secondly, the Minister has said that this is merely a reserve power—and one that the Government have no intention of using. But a reserve power does not sit harmlessly on the shelf. It shapes behaviour, and I think, in truth, the Minister accepts that. He has said as much to me before—that the power will achieve its en…”

“The truth is that parts of the solution to this problem are in the Bill. The pensions dashboard will give savers visibility and, with it, agency. The value for money framework will help employers choose schemes that they can justify to their employees on the basis of returns, not just fees. Those are ways to tackle the…”

“Unfortunately, that is where our agreement ends, and I suspect the Minister knows that, so let us turn directly to the elephant in the room: mandation. The Minister has advanced a number of arguments in its defence, and I will address them in turn. First, he said that this is a natural extension of the Mansion House ag…”

“The Minister and I agree that we want to see more investment by pension funds in the UK, and we want to see better returns for savers. The industry backs that aim too; that is why it did the Mansion House Accord. But to be clear, when he says that he has industry backing for this, there is a distinction to be made betw…”

“The review amendment is also welcome. It introduces a post-legislative reporting requirement on scale, which will allow this House to hold the Government to account for the real-world impact of these reforms.”

“The Minister has also introduced an amendment to limit the Government to only exercising the mandation power once, giving them just one opportunity to set the asset-allocation requirement. I recognise that that gives more certainty to industry, as there is less risk of moving goal posts. He has also updated from last w…”

“Size alone does not equal success. Take football clubs as an example: a larger club may have greater resources, a bigger stadium, more expensive players and larger crowds, but none of that guarantees results on the pitch. I am told that one need look no further than Tottenham Hotspur to see that. We welcome the Governm…”

“This week we have seen a flurry of concessions. There have been revisions to the sunset clause. First, the date when the mandation power lapses, if it has not been used, is being brought forward from 2035 to 2032. Secondly, the entire regime will be repealed at the end of 2035. So, as drafted, the mandation threat will…”