6. JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) Link to this
to the Minister for Social Development and Employment
When does he expect the single core benefit to be implemented?
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) Link to this
I repeat the answer I have already given to the House today. Details of the new and simplified benefit structure, including its name, will be the subject of Cabinet decisions later in the year.
Do the Minister’s comments on March 31 that “while I can’t say that we will be delivering a single core benefit certainly the system is going to be hugely simplified.”, indicate that Cabinet and this Minister are backing away from a single core benefit because it was, is, and always has been unworkable?
Could the Minister tell us who is correct: the Prime Minister, when she said in February last year: “Merging seven existing benefits into a single benefit would leave no one worse off.”, or the Minister, when he said just last week: “We are not prepared to say, ‘Well, sorry, no one will be worse off.’ ”? Who is right, the Minister or the Prime Minister?
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE Link to this
I made it quite clear in my earlier answer that at the point of change for the introduction, last Saturday, there were no losers.
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE Link to this
I am not withholding any information, and I would say that the record of this Government on delivery of movement of people from benefits into the workforce is exemplary.
Why, given Labour has worked on this concept since 1989 when Michael Cullen was the social welfare Minister, is the Minister still unable to provide intelligible answers to either written or oral parliamentary questions? Why can he not just tell the truth?
Madam SPEAKERHon DAVID BENSON-POPE Link to this
I do not know which part of the word “No” to the earlier answer the member does not understand.