Agenda item

Welfare Cuts

It was moved by Councillor Adam Hurst, seconded by Councillor Mazher Iqbal, that this Council:-

(a)        recalls previous resolutions it has passed outlining that the impact of the previous Coalition Government’s cuts to welfare in Sheffield are hitting hardest the poorest in the City;

(b)        notes recent reports that child poverty is on course for the biggest rise in a generation, reversing years of progress that began in the late 1990s, leading charities and independent experts claim;

(c)         further notes that calculations from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have suggested that progress between the late 1990s and 2010 has been reversed and that the number of children living in relative poverty rose from 2.3 million in 2013 to 2.6 million in 2014, and that the Child Poverty Action Group says that with the Government committed to implementing another £12bn of cuts in a new round of austerity, the problem will grow;

(d)        notes that the Government has outlined its intentions to make £12 billion additional cuts to welfare spending, however, have refused to explain where the cuts will fall and who they will hit;

(e)        believes that the Government must come clean about its plan to cut support for working families, disabled people and carers and that its refusal to admit who’ll be hit by its cuts is adding to the insecurity felt by working families around the country;

(f)         notes that this Government has failed to rule out cuts to tax credits and support for working families under Universal Credit and has failed to rule out cuts to support for disabled people and their carers;

(g)        believes that welfare costs should be reduced by tackling the root causes of rising benefit bills, such as insecure employment, low pay and lack of affordable housing; and

(h)        directs that a copy of this motion be forwarded to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Joe Otten, seconded by Councillor Colin Ross, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by:-

1.          the deletion of paragraphs (a) to (c) and the addition of new paragraphs (a) to (c) as follows:-

(a)        regrets the gap between the richest and the poorest rose during the thirteen years of the previous Labour Government and that the previous Labour Government failed to meet its target on child poverty by hundreds of thousands of children;

(b)        notes that, despite speculation by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) that the number of children living in relative poverty would increase to 2.6 million by the end of 2014, the official figures from the Department for Work and Pension’s ‘Households Below Average Income’ report show that the percentage of children in relative low-income households remained "flat" in 2013/14;

(c)         notes that the IFS report ‘Child poverty in Britain: recent trends and future prospects’ states ‘Labour struggled to find ways of substantially improving the (absolute and relative) incomes of the poor other than via […] direct fiscal redistribution’ and that ‘Labour’s heavy reliance on increases in benefits to reduce poverty is that (at least some of) those poverty reductions may prove fragile’;

2.         the addition of a new paragraph (d) as follows:-

(d)        applauds the work of Liberal Democrats in the previous Government to support children living in poverty, including:

(i)          funding to provide 15 hours of free childcare per week to disadvantaged 2 year olds;

(ii)         the pupil premium, which has seen £25 million invested into Sheffield schools to help the poorest children;

(iii)        an additional £50 million a year to provide extra tuition to 11-year-olds who are struggling with poor maths and reading skills;

(iv)        £5.4 million to provide Free Early Learning for disadvantaged two-year-olds; and

(v)        committing to free school meals for all infant pupils;

3.          the relettering of original paragraphs (d) to (g) as new paragraphs (e) to (h);

4.         the addition of new paragraphs (i) and (j) as follows:-

(i)          notes Labour Party leadership candidate, Liz Kendall, backs the Government's plan to reduce the welfare cap to £23,000 a year and fellow candidates, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, have failed to rule out support for reducing the welfare cap;

(j)          believes that the best way to reduce child poverty and achieve a fairer society with greater opportunity for everyone is through the creation of a stronger economy, creating growth and in turn more investment and more job creation;

5.         the relettering of original paragraph (h) as a new paragraph (k).

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

The original Motion was then put to the vote and carried, as follows:-

RESOLVED: That this Council:-

(a)       recalls previous resolutions it has passed outlining that the impact of the previous Coalition Government’s cuts to welfare in Sheffield are hitting hardest the poorest in the City;

(b)       notes recent reports that child poverty is on course for the biggest rise in a generation, reversing years of progress that began in the late 1990s, leading charities and independent experts claim;

(c)        further notes that calculations from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have suggested that progress between the late 1990s and 2010 has been reversed and that the number of children living in relative poverty rose from 2.3 million in 2013 to 2.6 million in 2014, and that the Child Poverty Action Group says that with the Government committed to implementing another £12bn of cuts in a new round of austerity, the problem will grow;

(d)       notes that the Government has outlined its intentions to make £12 billion additional cuts to welfare spending, however, have refused to explain where the cuts will fall and who they will hit;

(e)       believes that the Government must come clean about its plan to cut support for working families, disabled people and carers and that its refusal to admit who’ll be hit by its cuts is adding to the insecurity felt by working families around the country;

(f)        notes that this Government has failed to rule out cuts to tax credits and support for working families under Universal Credit and has failed to rule out cuts to support for disabled people and their carers;

(g)       believes that welfare costs should be reduced by tackling the root causes of rising benefit bills, such as insecure employment, low pay and lack of affordable housing; and

(h)       directs that a copy of this motion be forwarded to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

(Note: Councillors Richard Shaw, Rob Frost, Joe Otten, Colin Ross, Martin Smith, Roger Davison, Sue Alston, Andrew Sangar, Cliff Woodcraft, Ian Auckland, Steve Ayris, Denise Reaney, David Baker, Katie Condliffe and Vickie Priestley voted for paragraphs (d) to (h) and against paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of the Motion and asked for this to be recorded.)