MPs vote for inquiry into impact of Government benefit cuts

MPs have voted for an inquiry into the impact of Government benefit cuts.

A cross-party motion calling for a proper assessment of the affects of slashing welfare payments was passed by a majority of 123 after coalition MPs boycotted the vote.

Labour's shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Ashworth said the 125 to two result was a fresh evidence that the Government was a "shambles".

Ministers will be desperate to ignore the result but it will fuel demands for the Tory-led coalition to properly investigate what is happening to the poor and vulnerable.

It came after veteran Labour MP Michael Meacher warned that the brutal cuts had brought "absolute poverty" back to Britain for the first time since the Victorian age.

The left-wing former minister accused Chancellor George Osborne of causing the "cruel and unnecessary imposition of poverty".

And he slammed the "Dickensian" bedroom tax and Atos, the firm tasked with carrying out work capability assessments.

"I think it is clear something terrible is happening across the face of Britain - we are seeing the return of absolute levels of poverty which have not existed in this country since the Victorian age more than a century ago," he said.

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Tory MP David T.C. Davies claimed his party was united in backing the welfare cuts - and sparked fury by suggesting that the jobless are "watching television all day".

Unemployed people should have to take the first job that becomes available to them, the Commons select committee chairman said.

"That is the way forward and that is what the Government is trying to encourage at the moment, through the use of sanctions and through, frankly, making it difficult for people to just around watching the television all day."

Labour's David Winnick, said his remarks were proof that the Tories were "in a state of denial over the increasing poverty in this country" as a result of their policies.

Mr Winnick said it was "a repeat" of Tory claims that growing poverty was "a figment of our imagination" that he first heard under Thatcher.

"It wasn't a figment of our imagination then, and it's not now."

Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley, who jointly proposed the motion, said: "What we need is a commission where we have statistics we can all rely on, as we do at the ONS (Office for National Statisitics), IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) and the Office for Budget Responsibility."

Lib Dem John Hemming, who also put his name to the motion, added: "My own preference would be for a parliamentary inquiry."