Just a few of the interesting comments from the debate that again demonstrate that we are living in an age

where those that have are determined to re-introduce feudalism in the pernicious form they can imagine.

From Hansard:

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Committee (2nd Day)
5 Mar 2013 : Column 1435 Lord Touhig: At the general election, the leader of the Opposition, Mr Cameron, now the Prime Minister, said that we lived in broken Britain. I paid little attention to him at the time because I believed he was wrong. However, after two and a half years, we live in a Britain where multi-millionaires are about to receive thousands of pounds a week in tax cuts; we live in a Britain where corrupt bankers who fiddled the LIBOR rate are rewarded with pay-offs when they should have gone to prison; we live in a Britain where those who operate our transport system cannot run the trains on time but get big bonuses; we live in a Britain where energy companies have more than trebled their profits yet require pensioners to pay an extra 6% for gas and electricity; and we live in a Britain where hardworking low-income couples with children will now see their weekly income slashed, the unemployed and poor will have their benefits cut and disabled people will see what help they get now cut or taken away altogether. Now, in 2013, I have started to understand what Mr Cameron meant by broken Britain.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the Minister regularly makes the point that if we do not have these savings the money must come from somewhere else, such as nurses' salaries, teachers, the NHS, schools or whatever. I hope that she appreciates that most of us on this side believe that the Government are making a political policy choice. It does not have to fall on children, disabled children or statutory maternity pay. As some of us argued at Second Reading-there were different shopping lists-we are spending 32 billion on tax relief for private pensions, of which 8 billion goes to subsidise the tax relief that higher-rate taxpayers currently enjoy. To continue that is a political policy choice. The money would pay for most of these cuts twice over. Baroness Stowell of Beeston: As I have said on several occasions, these cuts are necessary because of the financial situation that we found ourselves in. They are not something that we want to have to do, but we believe that these are the right cuts to make because we have made sure that we have, wherever possible, protected those who are least able to increase their income by different means. While these are not cuts that we want to introduce at all, we think that we have done so sensibly and by addressing people in the right way, as anybody would expect us to do. That is the situation that we have found ourselves in and the decision that we have made.

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Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I do not think that anyone doubts the Minister's goodwill, integrity or concern about these issues. That is not the issue. All that I am sayingand she has not answered this-is that those cuts could fall elsewhere, and she, on behalf of the Government, is choosing for them not to fall elsewhere on people who could afford to pay for them. Baroness Stowell of Beeston: I would say to the noble Baroness that while she and the right reverend Prelate are willing to put forward their alternatives on where they would target cuts if they were in a position to make those decisions-and I respect them for doing that-her colleagues on her own Front Bench have so far refused to do so. We have made these decisions in this area. We have done so in a way whereby we have protected those who are most vulnerable. We would much rather not have to do this but we believe that it is necessary because of the economic situation that we find ourselves in and because we think that this is, in the end, the right thing to do to secure a strong economy for the future.