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The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)
It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) for bringing this important debate. It is testament to his judgment and to the importance of this issue that fully 20 Members of Parliament have chosen to speak; in fact, we could have gone on for hours, because of the importance of the issue.
I will deal briefly with a couple of questions that were put to me in the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, asked if I will meet him, which of course I will. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) also asked that I meet the Stoke Members of Parliament to discuss the issue, which of course I will. The Lib Dems spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), asked about asylum seekers and where they will fit in, and I will ask the Home Office Minister responsible for asylum seekers to write to her on that subject, because she raises an important point.
Labour’s election-winning manifesto said:
“Good work will be the foundation of our approach to tackling poverty and inequality. We will create more good jobs, reform employment support, and make work pay so that many more people benefit from the dignity and purpose of work.
Labour is committed to reviewing Universal Credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty. We want to end mass dependence on emergency food parcels, which is a moral scar on our society.”
And these are my words: no one in the United Kingdom should have to beg for food.
Our first Budget in 14 years was a down payment on our approach to tackling poverty. As hon. Members have mentioned, we extended the household support fund for a further year, to help people currently struggling with the cost of essentials, including food. We saw a pay rise for more than 3 million lower earners, with a 6.7% increase to the national living wage, making work pay. We introduced a fair repayment rate on deductions in universal credit—a point that is very important to me—which will help about 700,000 of the poorest families with children to keep more of their universal credit. As Members have also mentioned, the roll-out of breakfast clubs and improved access to childcare will help parents have more choice in order to get better jobs.
The manifesto commitment and what we saw in our first Budget explains our approach to the issue. These first steps will make a real difference to people’s lives, but the scale of the challenge is huge.
Members have mentioned what has happened to emergency food help over the past five years. Ms Vaz, you and I have been around a while now, and you will remember that in 2010 the Trussell Trust distributed 61,000 emergency food parcels. Last year, it was 3.1 million. Either my maths is wrong, or that is a fiftyfold increase. I simply ask, what happened in those 14 years? I think Members have set out the case well—the combination of failed economic and social policies.
In Opposition, on the Back Benches and from the Front Bench, I travelled around the country speaking to people running food banks and supporting those who needed them, to try to understand what on earth was going on with this massive increase in the need for emergency food help. Before the pandemic, my experience was that families were experiencing really significant challenges in their budgets. Post pandemic, deteriorating help has made it 10 times worse.
In Government, I have spent time with many of our volunteers who are addressing the family incomes crisis that we are facing. From listening to them, I know this: not one of those volunteers wants emergency food help to go on being given in this way for ever; not one of them wants our fellow citizens to be so vulnerable; and every single food bank volunteer that I have met—a number of whom have volunteered because they needed help themselves at one stage—wants a country where people live never in destitution and always with dignity.
I want to talk about children. About 800,000 children live in households in the United Kingdom that have used a food bank in the last 12 months. That is a devastating statistic. That does not just harm children today; it has a lasting effect on their life chances—their long-term health, their education and their employment outcomes. They cannot fulfil their potential if they are going to school hungry or worrying about the family at home, and we will not fulfil our potential as a country if the next generation is held back.
Ensuring that every child is safe, well fed and has chances and choices in their life is not just a moral imperative, but an economic one too. It is a priority for myself and for the Secretary of State. That is why we have got the child poverty taskforce up and running, led by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions alongside the Education Secretary. We know that the causes of child poverty are wide-ranging and we are looking at all the levers we can pull to increase family incomes, reduce family costs and give our kids the best start in life.
Only yesterday, we met employers, trade unions and think-tanks to discuss options to increase incomes and family resilience in low-income households. We are hearing from a very wide range of people and organisations, including those who are experiencing poverty today. That approach will inform our strategy, which will be published in the spring, but despite the dreadful inheritance and the £22 billion hole in public finances, we have not waited until next spring to help people in desperate need of support.
The cost of living crisis does mean that pressure on household budgets is at an all-time high. We have seen inflation spikes, including in energy bills and the cost of shopping. Those are not luxuries that anyone can easily cut out; everyone needs a warm home and everyone needs the basics, which is why—as mentioned—within two months of taking office we announced a six-month extension to the household support fund. We have extended it again for a further year.
Members have mentioned the need to consider the future of the household support fund and of crisis support. I look forward to having those conversations with Members. We will invest £1 billion, including the Barnett impact, to extend the household support fund and to maintain the discretionary housing payment fund for a further year. I know that such support is a lifeline for many, and I am grateful to all the charities and local authorities who work hard to distribute it.
Douglas McAllister
On local charities, will the Minister join me in congratulating Old Kilpatrick Food Parcels, which last week was awarded the King’s award for voluntary service for 2024? That accolade recognised its outstanding work in support of communities in West Dunbartonshire, providing food and comfort.
Alison McGovern
I send my congratulations to those receiving that wonderful award in West Dunbartonshire. Well done to them.
We will always need some form of crisis support. My worry is not just the consequences of day-to-day crisis, but the chronic challenge. People need an income that they can live on, and that is why in last month’s Budget the Chancellor announced that we will introduce a fair repayment rate to help households on universal credit who are having deductions made from their benefit keep more of their money to help them budget for essentials. More than 1.2 million households on universal credit will benefit from that—a reduction in the deductions cap from 25% to 15%, which is worth about £420 a year on average. As my dad used to say, “Out of debt, out of danger.”
That will make a big difference for some of the poorest people in our country, but we understand that more change will still be needed. That is why we are committed, as Members have mentioned, to reviewing universal credit. I know, and Beveridge wrote in his report, that social security can only work well when we have policies for full and fulfilling employment. We have to make work pay. It is ridiculous to have a queue at the food bank door when our businesses are crying out for staff. We have millions of people locked out of work, not getting the support they need to build a better life.
Alongside the reforms I have set out, therefore, we have set an ambitious long-term goal of an 80% employment rate, towards full employment. To achieve it, we have kick-started the biggest reforms to employment support for a generation. We will build a new jobs and careers service to give people proper, tailored support to help them get on in work. Our White Paper will bring forward a youth guarantee for our young people, to ensure that they are not left on the scrapheap. We will empower our local areas, towns and cities so that they can be in the lead with their work, health and skills plan. We will set out all that detail in our “Get Britain Working” White Paper shortly. I cannot wait to talk to Members and colleagues about it.
I want to make one more point about making work pay. It is not enough to get people into any job; it must be a good job. In 2022, 2.3 million people lived in a household that had used a food bank in the past year, and 40% of them were living in families where at least one adult worked. That is not acceptable to me. Too many people in our country are being denied the dignity of decent and fair work. Too many are stuck in insecure jobs with unpredictable working patterns. That is why we introduced our Employment Rights Bill.
I do not agree that we have to make a choice between high unemployment and poor-quality work. We will have the biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation, including an end to exploitative zero-hours contracts, which often see people not just low-paid, but unsure about what pay they will get next week. That stress and instability tip people into destitution. As I said, we are also putting up the living wage, which will benefit 3 million workers and be worth £1,400 next year for the average full-time worker.
In conclusion, as I have set out—and as Members know from their experiences talking to people in their constituencies—the inheritance of this Government could hardly be worse. It is not really the 3.1 million bags of shopping handed out to people in desperate need that is the problem, but the social and economic failure that that represents. We cannot accept it.
Tackling poverty and ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels is not just a manifesto commitment that we made to the British public; it is our priority every day. It is vital to all this Government’s missions to break down barriers to opportunity and to deliver economic growth, because you cannot grow a country on shaky foundations. The action we have already taken to support those most in need—to spread opportunity and make work pay—shows that we will take that challenge head-on. I look forward to working with all Members present to deliver that change.