Wales Westminster News

• UK
• London
• Westminster

• Politics
• Welsh Assembly
• Westminster

Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire Glyn Davies has welcomed the debate on the current welfare system, saying there are issues that 'must be addressed'.

He explained: "A lot of people are very concerned because they're working hard, doing the right thing and paying tax.. and then somebody else is just living on benefits and not being prepared to work.

"There is a real issue there we've got to look at, and what David Cameron has done is begin a debate about this."

• Politics
• Welsh Conservatives
• Welfare reform

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood says that the party is completely opposed to the introduction of regional benefit rates. She's claiming that it will institutionalise poverty in some areas of Wales.

The UK Government is working hard to create an anti benefits culture. But it makes no sense to cut support to people when there are so few jobs and opportunities available to them. I and my Plaid Cymru colleagues are seeing more and morer people coming to us for help because they have lost their benefits and introducing regional benefit levels will mean that even more people will struggle to cope in Wales. Introducing regional benefit levels would create low pay areas, institutionalise low ambition and punch a hole in the local economy.

She went on to call on the First Minister Carwyn Jones AM to protect the people of Wales from the proposals:

Today the civil service unions have been out on strike against job cuts. The PCS union has pointed out that tax evasion costs the UK £120 billion each year. Tackling this would be a much more effective exercise for the Government, but it seems that they are more interested in persecuting benefit claimants than the tax evaders among the elite.

How will Wales' First Minister make good his promise to protect the people of Wales from cuts to welfare provision? Too many people are already struggling in Wales yet Cameron's latest pronouncements threaten to push them harder.

• Politics
• Welfare reform
• Westminster

Plaid Cymru's Hywel Williams MP has given his response to the Prime Minister's welfare reform comments:

David Cameron’s plans to cut housing benefits for young people under 25 are illogical and short-sighted.

Most young people getting help with sky high housing costs are actually in work. He says they should 'move back in with their parents'. How will this encourage young people to take work? And what if they have ‘got on their bikes’ and the family home is hundreds of miles away from their place of work?

Equally the Prime Minister’s pet project of regionalized benefits is plain barmy. This would further institutionalise poverty and create employment ghettos in which the existing lack of jobs, prospects and ambition would be intensified rather than addressed.

• Politics
• Hywel Williams MP
• Plaid Cymru

Wales Office Minister David Jones MP has been defending the Prime Minister's decision to open up debate on the future of the benefits system. Mr Jones said,

He's highlighted concerns that all politicians will recognise. People are becoming increasingly resentful of benefits that seem to penalise hard work and thrift. He's not prescribing but is opening up a long overdue debate. We expect other parties to contribute constructively.

• Politics
• Welfare reform
• Westminster