Part of Orders of the Day — Social Fund (Maternity and Funeral Expenses) Bill – in the House of Commons at 7:45 pm on 9 February 1987.
My hon. Friend has given us a number of examples of how people have costed the basic needs of looking after a child in its first few weeks of life. The Government always claim that taking away universal benefit and means testing it—or "targeting" it, as they like to call it—means that they can make that targeting generous enough for the people at the bottom of the pile. My hon. Friend's speech is helpful in showing how false that claim is.