I wouldn’t be an MP if this government was being unfair, declares Claire Perry

Claire Perry, Marlborough’s Tory MP, has clashed with a Mums United campaign which claims that a quarter of a million children will be pushed deeper into poverty by the government’s overhaul of the benefits system.

She has rejected harsh criticism of the new Universal Credit tax system that Save the Children maintains contains a blind spot that mean 150,000 working single mothers could lose up to £68 a week or £3,500 a year.

And in a statement of faith to her constituents on Sky News yesterday (Tuesday) she declared: “I wouldn’t be an MP if I thought that what this government is doing was unfair.  We’re here to get the country back on track so that we are not passing the debt to our kids, to the next generation.”

Mrs Perry was appearing on Sky News’ ‘Boulton and Co’ programme opposite Katie O’Donovan of Mumsnet, the country’s biggest online website for parents, following a report from the Save the Children charity claimed that those who would lose out included a single mother with three children who earns about £242 a week or just over the minimum wage.

But while Save the Children accepts that new universal credit will help some families, it fears more children will be forced to grow up in poverty, a criticism the Department of work and Pensions rejects.

Are women being hit unfairly, Andrew Boulton asked her?

Mrs Perry hit back: “And the answer is of course ‘No’.  That’s because what we always do when we talk about this is lump 32 million people into one bucket.  So let’s see examples where women are perhaps being hit hard?”

“What about women who are paying off mortgages who have done fairly well from the low interest rates being secured?  Or female entrepreneurs who we really want to start up their businesses and can now get a lot of help?”

She said was “really disappointed” with the report by Save the Children, which has launched a Mums United campaign in collaboration with Gingerbread, the Daycare Trust and Netmums to put pressure on the Chancellor to help the hardest-hit working families in next week’s Budget.

“That’s because we inherited a system — and I know this very much from my constituency — where women who want to work and who want to get back into the workplace for a few hours a week can’t do so because there is a cliff edge.”

“You have to work for 16 hours to get childcare and what are doing is putting in place a universal credit system where, in the minimum relationship, work always pays more than welfare.”

“If you work two hours you can get childcare support for that.”

She protested that Save the Children had discovered “theoretical examples” where perverse conditions might operate.

And when Andrew Boulton suggested that it was the worse off who were always hit in a financial squeeze, Mrs Perry retorted: “The complete opposite is true.  We are taking a million people out of tax and 70 per cent of those are women.  We had a public sector pay freeze but we excluded 80 per cent of these women.”

“In my constituency the average income is £25,000 a year.  Taxing those people to pay child benefit to MPs is considered to be wrong.  So we have to focus the money on those who need it.”

She pointed out that childcare costs went up by 50 per cent under the last government with the result that it was impossible for working families to find good quality, reasonably priced childcare.

“We have to reform that system,” she insisted.  “But I think we have to focus on one thing at a time.  Universal credit deals with the problem where people face a cliff edge and there is no incentive to work.”

Was life basically harder for men or women today?  Boulton asked her.

“We have so many more choices to face in our lives around childcare, around job security and clearly we have inherited a situation where lots of women after 13 years of record spending are still at the bottom of the pile in terms of income or job security,” replied Mrs Perry, who has three children.

“We have to make sure that we grow the economy and that we have jobs for those people and that we help those trapped on welfare back to work.”

“There is nothing progressive about leaving people on welfare.  We have to say sort yourselves out, we’ve got to tackle that problem.”