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Mr. Christopher Fraser (Mid-Dorset and North Poole): Does my hon. Friend agree that, before the general election, page 25 of the Labour manifest said:

"We will uphold family life as the most secure means of bringing up our children. Families are the core of our society",

and that penalising families as the Government are doing flies in the face of that commitment?

Mr. Leigh: I hope that the Labour party meant that when it included that statement in its manifesto. I repeat that no one who has come before the Select Committee or who has tried seriously and objectively to deal with the issue has found any justification for taxing the child benefit of families.

Mr. Pond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Leigh: I shall. No doubt, the hon. Gentleman will give me that justification.

Mr. Pond: It is useful to have this debate. No decisions have been made, and the Chancellor has said that it is

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sensible to have the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that his suggestion that, if the change were made, families with children would be more highly taxed than those with none misses the point that families with children receive child benefit, whereas those with none do not? There has been an historic increase in child benefit.

Mr. Leigh: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that his argument is semantic. Child benefit replaced a tax allowance. The hon. Gentleman is the proud father of a beautiful young daughter, whom I know he spends much time looking after, so he knows perfectly well that children represent a real cost, way above the amount given in child benefit.

Mr. Duncan Smith: The main point that Labour Members are deliberately missing, which I hope my hon. Friend will address, is one that I put to the Government, although I received no answer. It is that, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, the proposals could lead to a significant problem because those who are honest and open about their relationships will be taxed, but those who hide their relationships and pretend to be single parents although someone else is sharing their income will not suffer. That penalises the family structure and benefits those who abuse it.

Mr. Leigh: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I could not help noticing that, when he made that point earlier in the debate, the Secretary of State was giggling. I do not want to do him a disservice. He was giggling not because he does not think that the subject is serious but because he thought that my hon. Friend was making an idiotic point because of course no one would be dissuaded from marriage by the level of a little benefit.

Have we not, in the past 50 years of the welfare state, learnt the lesson that, bit by bit, the structure of the welfare state and its benefits has an impact on behaviour, particularly for people who, for whatever reason, do not earn much money? When we discussed the issue in the Select Committee, nobody was able to give a satisfactory answer as to how the measures would affect cohabitees as opposed to married couples, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green pointed out.

We are making a justifiable point. We should not only argue that the measures are an attack on independent taxation, although that is a good reason for not proceeding with them. The better arguments are those adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green.

Again and again, in the Select Committee and in an intervention in the debate earlier this week on the working families tax credit, I made a point to which I still await a response. Perhaps I shall receive one during the Minister's summing-up. My point is that the working families tax credit will inevitably be an attack on the classic Beveridge family of two married parents only one of whom is an earner. The proposal will encourage cohabitation or it will encourage both partners to be earners. Women should have the right to work and they should also have the right to stay at home and look after their children. That is what they want. There has been no response to that important point, which needs to be made again and again.

I shall move on to the wider issue of the NIRS2 computer, which disturbingly, we have heard today, affects 180,000 pensioners. The Government's basic

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defence seems to be that the problems are all the fault of the previous Conservative Government, who introduced the computer, and should have foreseen the problems. It is true that the computer was introduced by the Conservative Government. The bid made by Andersen Consulting was £60 million cheaper than the next bid. Although the Secretary of State cannot criticise Andersen Consulting, I, as a Back Bencher, am entitled to ask why the company undertook the project. Could not an organisation employing 40,000 people worldwide have appreciated that the NIRS2 computer is the most complex in the world?

The Secretary of State's defence is fundamentally flawed for one reason. I have obtained from the Vote Office the 46th report of the Committee of Public Accounts which deals with the NIRS2 computer and was published in June 1998. The Committee said:

"We are very concerned that the implementation of the new system is already nearly 18 months behind the date agreed . . . and that the Agency face an immense task catching up with their operations".

It recommended that the agency should

"draw up contingency plans to cover the risk that delivery of the system would be delayed."

If that report was published in June, what contingency plans were made by the Department of Social Security, the agency or other Departments in response to the Public Accounts Committee's suggestion? That report sheds a worrying light on what is happening inside government. The way in which such contracts are entered into is worrying, too.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Member could mention such matters in passing. We must remember that there are several specific matters before us. I understand him asking the Minister about contingency plans, but going into a Select Committee report is for another day.

Mr. Leigh: I am coming to the end of those remarks, although, in defence, I should say that the Secretary of State introduced the issue. However, I accept your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and shall move to a different matter.

On the means-testing of incapacity benefit, which is central to this debate, Lord Ashley said:

"The attack on occupational pensions is disturbing. It will hit disabled people very hard and we should make every effort to persuade the Government to change it."

Sally Greengrass of Age Concern said:

"Penalising savers will not encourage prudent planning or saving in the future."

I mention those points because little has been said about the means-testing of incapacity benefit. The Minister's response to those comments would be interesting.

Mr. Webb: The hon. Gentleman will recall that the Conservatives means-tested invalidity benefit against occupational pensions--not if someone had more than £50, as the present Government propose, but from the first pound. Did he accept and welcome that precedent?

Mr. Leigh: The hon. Gentleman once again returns to the previous Conservative Government's record. I had

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hoped that I had made it clear that neither Government's record on means-testing is as welcome as it should be. I also acknowledged--I hope positively--the political pressures on both Governments. Of course I accept that there was means-testing under the previous Conservative Government. I was making the point that what the previous Government did is not of interest to the House. That is history; we cannot put that toothpaste back in the tube. We are interested in what will happen in future. We want to know the Government's plans. Are they intending to increase means-testing generally? What is their response to Age Concern? How can they expect old people to act prudently if means-testing is increased?

The Select Committee also did considerable work on the issue of the benefit integrity project. We received various assurances; the Government told us that it will be replaced with a "fair and sensitive system". We still await an answer from the Government on which "fair and sensitive system" will replace BIP. I have asked Ministers again and again--I have not received an answer, for I fear that no answer can be given. How they can replace BIP with a "fair and sensitive system" but at the same time attack the concept of lifetime awards?

Lifetime awards, on which I have asked Ministers questions, are fundamentally wrong. The Government appear to agree with me that the system is open to abuse. Does that not therefore mean that we must go to disabled people again and again to ask very detailed questions--intrusive questions, questions that will be resented, and questions on forms that may run to many pages? How can we get rid of the system of lifetime awards yet still reassure disabled people that we will not ask over-intrusive questions or put them under stress? I wish that I knew the answer. Luckily, I am not in government. Such an answer would be interesting.

The Government have met their responsibility to upgrade all benefits in line with inflation, which is no mean achievement--it was achieved, too, by the previous Conservative Government, although not by the previous Labour Government, who governed in altogether more difficult economic circumstances--but, what the Government have achieved is not enough. They are simply fulfilling their fundamental duty to the less privileged and the deprived. We on the Conservative Benches were hoping for something far more exciting, such as a fundamental attack on dependency. We were hoping that the new Prime Minister had some creative plans to take people out of dependency and into work. Although the Government will of course reply that they have all sorts of plans and ideas for doing so, very little progress is being made on the ground as a result of the Budget. That is very sad indeed.

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