Disadvantaged Communities

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Westminster Hall

11:05

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Colleagues can look around the room and see how many people are seeking to participate in this debate. I am giving you warning that after the opening speech, there will be a time limit of two minutes. I am sorry that it is so short, but we have the alternative of not accommodating everybody, and Mr Speaker likes everybody to be accommodated.

09:31

[Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for disadvantaged communities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the Minister for taking the time to come and listen to us, and we can see by the attendance today that this issue truly resonates in all our communities across the country. It is a tremendous honour to lead this important debate on a subject that resonates deeply with many of us here who represent places that have faced long-term social and economic challenges, including my constituency of Wolverhampton North East.

Whether we live in Low Hill or Bushbury, Heath Town or Park Village, New Invention or Short Heath, these stories will be familiar, but let me be clear from the start: I am fiercely proud of where I come from. I have said it time and again: I am not just a Wolverhampton girl; I am an Ashmore girl. I grew up in a community on the Ashmore Park estate, and I started my own family in Park Village—the very kind of neighbourhoods that we are here to discuss. Too many of our neighbourhoods—not just those in Wolverhampton, New Invention and Short Heath, but around the whole country—have been left behind and left to decline, as communities that are no longer a Government priority, where children and young people have nowhere to go, and there is rising antisocial behaviour, theft and burglaries, while the number of good, secure jobs has declined.

[David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

In Stoke-on-Trent, £11 is spent per young person per year on youth services. In inner London, the figure is £111. Meanwhile, Staffordshire police is one of a handful of forces that has fewer police on the beat than it did in 2010. Does my hon. Friend agree that when this Government look to invest, they must understand the starting point of our communities in order for any investment to have a meaningful impact?

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I certainly agree. Communities like ours have borne the brunt of these cuts, and we see this playing out on our streets, in our schools and, unfortunately, in the criminal justice system. This should never have happened. It cannot continue, and it must never happen again. That is why I am calling for a project of national renewal for our neighbourhoods, designed to work with communities.

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I will.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady is quite entitled to give way, but where Members choose to intervene, it will affect my judgment on where in the batting order they are called.

[Luke Akehurst]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that we should pay tribute to the work of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, led by Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top? Based on its detailed statistical research, the commission has identified 613 of the most left-behind neighbourhoods around the country—one of which is South Stanley in my constituency—where funding is essential if we are to achieve the Government’s five missions. If investment is not made in those neighbourhoods, we can never achieve our national targets.

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I agree. Hon. Members will hear more about ICON’s work in my speech, because it paints a picture of our communities.

This is a project of national renewal that is designed to work with communities, to rebuild from the ground up and to restore hope and dignity to our places. It is a strategy about the huge importance of cultural capital and social infrastructure for social connections. What makes those communities special? They are resilient, largely because they have had to be. They have felt the brunt of 14 years of austerity. They have been disproportionately affected because they disproportionately rely on good public services, which were stretched to breaking point under the last Government.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree that it is important to recognise the interconnected barriers in such discussions? The dearth of post-16 education and poor transport connectivity blunt young people’s ambitions and further entrench the disadvantages of which she speaks in areas such as my constituency.

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I absolutely agree. I signpost hon. Members to yesterday’s meeting of the Education Committee, where we heard from a representative from the National Union of Students about the clear link with the barriers that certain young people face to get to college or school. I beg hon. Members to look at that.

What makes those communities special? As I said, they have borne the brunt of 14 years of austerity. They saw Sure Start snatched away, cuts to neighbourhood policing, record NHS waiting lists, the decimation of youth services, a crisis in special educational needs and too much more. But our communities are full of potential; they are close knit and packed with people who graft and work hard.

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Child poverty rates in Florence in my constituency have reached over 60% in recent years—the highest rate across Stoke-on-Trent, which routinely scores highest for infant mortality rates. Does my hon. Friend agree that as we publish the child poverty strategy in the autumn, Stoke-on-Trent South needs sustained investment to tackle high rates of child poverty?

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who is clearly a champion for families and children in her constituency.

Our communities are burdened with deep-rooted barriers—obstacles caused by poverty, economic inactivity, inequality, educational disadvantages, poor access to healthcare and years of systematic under-investment. The scale of the challenge is clear: Wolverhampton North East ranked 73rd out of 543 constituencies in England in the index of multiple deprivation. One in three people in my constituency lives in one of the highest need neighbourhoods in the country, and they are not alone. Across England, 345 of 543 constituencies contain at least one neighbourhood in the most deprived 10% nationally. Those left-behind places are not isolated pockets; they are widespread.

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a tremendous speech. Does she recognise that some of our most deprived communities are right next to areas where we are seeing rapid growth? It is vital that a test of our £113 billion investment—a once-in-a-generation opportunity for infrastructure—must be its impact on our most deprived communities.

[Mrs Brackenridge]

Investment has to go where it is most needed. Hon. Members feel strongly about that, which is why we see such representation in this debate.

Child poverty in Wolverhampton North East tells a clear story. In 2014-15, 22% of children were living in absolute poverty. That figure now stands at 31%, which should shame us. More than that, however, it must galvanise us. Nationally, the situation is no better. In 2023-24, 18% of people in the UK were in absolute poverty after housing costs. According to the Resolution Foundation, another 1.5 million people, including 400,000 children, will fall into poverty by 2030 unless bold action is taken. Those are not just statistics on a spreadsheet; they are real lives. They are children going to school tired and hungry. They are young people who are poorer now than their parents’ generation, with less hope of buying their own house. They are families stuck in insecure housing or waiting years for mental health support. They are opportunities lost and represent an injustice at the heart of our society.

That is why the work of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods—ICON—has been so vital. Under the leadership of Baroness Armstrong, ICON has helped to shine a light on what is really happening in the most disadvantaged areas of our country: mission-critical neighbourhoods. It reveals what people are facing, how they feel about Government and what can be done differently. Its recent polling in partnership with Public First is a wake-up call. Just 5% of adults in England believe that the Government care about “neighbourhoods like mine”: a damning verdict on decades of decisions made too far from the people they affect.

It is not just a question of neglect; it is a fact of inequality. Nearly seven in 10 people believe that the Government care about some neighbourhoods more than others: the wealthier ones, the connected ones, the places where voices carry weight. They have lower crime, higher economic activity, higher intergenerational wealth and higher life expectancy.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

On life expectancy, in my constituency, the lives of men and women in the most deprived neighbourhoods are nine years shorter than in the more affluent ones. Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the strategy has to be around narrowing those health inequalities?

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I absolutely agree. If I drive 10 minutes in my constituency, the life expectancy increases by more than seven years, which is shocking. This is not the politics of envy; it is the reality after the politics of inequality. This is about restoring people’s chances to participate in Government, making it something that is done with them rather than to them.

There is cause for hope. In January, I had the pleasure of welcoming Baroness Armstrong to the Scotlands Estate in the Fallings Park ward of my constituency. We visited the Big Venture Centre, an anchoring institution in the neighbourhood. It is an inspiring community-focused project that is changing people’s lives every single day. From the pink ladies—and men—who volunteer there to the WV10 community chefs who support healthy eating education, to the community shop helping with the cost of living, that is what every neighbourhood deserves. It was a chance to see how the findings and principles behind ICON’s work can be implemented in practice and, with the right support, that those places can thrive.

We have the insight and the evidence; action is what we now need. What we have had has clearly not worked. Let us look at education. In 2024, only 46% of disadvantaged pupils met the expected standard at key stage 2, compared with 67% of their peers. A growing divide that has set in by year 6 continues to widen in year 11 at GCSE.

After school, it gets worse. Disadvantaged young people are 65% more likely to be NEET—not in education, employment or training. If they leave school with fewer than five GCSEs they are 131% more likely to be NEET. Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of people in destitution are in receipt of social security. That tells us everything we need to know about how broken the safety net has become.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s call for a project of national renewal; I think that is absolutely excellent. I also welcome her comment that these communities are special—they are, and we need to focus our attention on them. Does she agree that the closure of Sure Start centres, including in my constituency, had a significant impact? They changed people’s lives. We have heard from so many people who have done well as a consequence of having access to those services, so it is essential that we revitalise them.

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I thank my hon. Friend. I speak from personal experience, and I will always champion the excellent work that Sure Start centres did. They were there for me, my neighbours and my community. We must learn lessons from the past.

We need strategic, neighbourhood-based investment, not competitive bidding pots that lead to the most disadvantaged areas often losing out due to a lack of capacity. So how do we respond? The Government’s recently announced £1.5 billion plan for neighbourhoods is a welcome step. In the words of Baroness Armstrong,

“This is a good first step in the right direction”,

but it must not be the last step. That is why I am calling today for a £1 billion neighbourhood renewal fund in this Parliament. It should be strategic, long term and locally led. We must have no more fragmented, competitive pots that pit community against community, and no more centralised decision making that misses the mark.

People in my constituency know their neighbourhoods and what they need. We need to trust them, back them and invest in them. This is a defining moment. The public are asking not for favours but for fairness. They want clean, safe streets, decent, safe homes, good schools, secure jobs and pride in the places they call home. We must turn neighbourhood renewal from a slogan into a mission. I call on the Minister to take the evidence from ICON as a road map for delivery. I call on the Government to give every community, no matter its postcode, the respect, resources and responsibility that it deserves.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. If hon. Members intervene, injury time is added, which means that not all Members will get called. If you look at the clock and the number of Members who want to intervene, you can do the sums for yourselves. It is up to you whether everybody gets called or not. If we stick to two minutes, we should be able to get everybody in. I hope that is clear.

09:47

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) for setting the scene and for her enthusiasm and energy about the subject, which was evident in her speech. I will take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), Sir Roger, but I will keep within two minutes and not take any extra time.

There are areas across the UK that are undoubtedly disadvantaged and that must be urgently addressed. Northern Ireland still faces complex challenges across many areas of life, including health, education and poverty, not to mention underlying historical factors, so it is great to be speaking in this debate. Poverty rates in Northern Ireland are a massive problem: the Department for Communities states that 14% of working-age adults are in relative poverty and 12% are in absolute poverty.

Among pensioners, poverty increased from 13% in 2020 to 16% in 2022. I say this with kindness to the Minister: the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment grieved us greatly. There are also health and education inequalities, where outcomes are lower in disadvantaged or deprived areas.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On lower educational attainment areas, does my hon. Friend agree that young men in particular find it difficult to go back to education after leaving school, and that apprenticeships can be used to address poverty in the areas that he is describing?

[Jim Shannon]

I am happy to endorse what my hon. Friend says, and I hope the Minister will do the same.

There is no doubt that the environment in which a child is raised has an impact on the opportunities available to them and where they choose to go in life. Housing infrastructure is a huge problem.

To conclude, in a world where millions of people live in poverty, we have the means in Westminster, and therefore across all the regions, to support our people. It is important that we do that and that we also support the agencies that already do it.

09:49

[Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with your Chair, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) on securing the debate. Poverty has affected the work that I have done over the last decade, and I probably would not be in the House today had it not been for some of the things I have witnessed over the past 10 to 15 years.

While I was researching for the debate, I found a report on child poverty dating back over a decade. The foreword reads:

“In the UK today, millions of children”

and

“adults are daily experiencing the crushing disadvantage that poverty brings. They are living at the margins of society, unable to achieve their aspirations and trapped”.

The report goes on to say that that is unacceptable in “today’s” society—obviously, it was written over a decade ago. It is not usual for me to quote the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), but those comments are particularly pertinent. In 2013, when the report was written, poverty in Nuneaton stood at around 18%, but it is now 33%—almost double—and in some communities it is over 50%.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the question of barriers to opportunity, the potential for growth in some areas is high, but access to funding and education—particularly further education—can be difficult, as it is in Cornwall. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as a result, the people who live in an area cannot always take advantage of that growth potential?

[Jodie Gosling]

I thank my hon. Friend for her valuable intervention, and I absolutely agree. One challenge is under-skilled children who have left school without the right qualifications. As a result, they experience a lag in getting qualified and being able to access opportunities.

In one of my wards, Chilvers Coton, over 65% of households—two out of three—live with one marker of deprivation. The majority of them are defined as living in deep poverty and destitution, and they are not able to meet basic needs. That is not my understanding of the word “eradicate”, and it appears that the strategy that was laid out over a decade ago actually perpetuated significant poverty, rather than eradicating it.

Poverty eats into every corner of people’s lives. It drains people and grinds them down, and it makes every aspect of life harder. The physiological and psychological impacts are profound. As poverty has soared, we have seen healthy life expectancy fall by over four years, with cardiopulmonary conditions, diabetes and preventable death statistics among those affected by poverty well above the national average. Poverty strips people of their dignity and their power to shape their lives and livelihoods and those of the people they love.

Living in poverty is a full-time job, as people juggle making sure that they can pay their debts, get their kids out, do the daily shopping—which involves having to look for the yellow stickers in the aisles—and deal with the chaos of managing arrears, evictions and sleepless nights, as they worry about how to just get through tomorrow. Despite that, the vast majority of Nuneaton households in poverty still work, with over 60% of affected households having at least one working adult.

Poverty is also wasteful. It is expensive; it costs more to live in poverty because people cannot access cheaper supermarkets and might not have the data to order online—

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I call David Chadwick.

09:53

[David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I sincerely thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) on securing this debate on behalf of communities that have been left behind across Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Too often, rural disadvantage is overlooked, but in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe it is a daily reality. The constituency is grappling with the legacy of deindustrialisation and the drain of rural depopulation. The Government’s proposed changes to personal independence payments risk deepening that disadvantage, making it even harder for many to live independently, let alone escape poverty.

A parliamentary question tabled by the Liberal Democrats revealed that 90% of people in Wales receiving the standard rate of PIP for daily living are at risk of losing that support. One of my constituents, Karen Harris from Ystalyfera, put it plainly in one of my constituency surgeries, when she said that most disabled people would love to work, but that there is just no suitable work locally. She is certainly right. Across the coalfields in south Wales, we have only 44 jobs per 100 people of working age. That is why the Government must reverse their course on changes to PIP and introduce an industrial strategy that focuses on bringing good jobs to every corner of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

09:54

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) for securing this debate. I started my career working for Oxfam, whose mission was to make poverty history.

Across the country, including in my constituency, we have seen what over a decade of neglect looks like: community centres gone, local shops shut down, public services underfunded and overstretched. In Tamworth, youth centres were left to crumble—they were not repaired; they were closed—so young people lost a safe space. That is what happens when investment dries up.

Since 2012, more than 760 youth clubs have shut nationwide. That is not just a number; it is a message that says, “You don’t matter.” That is how it feels in places such as Glascote Heath, Belgrave and Stonydelph. The Government promised levelling up but the most deprived areas have seen little support, and some none at all. How can we talk about levelling up while cutting back support for the people who need it most?

We are the sixth-richest country in the world but, I ask, rich for whom? In my constituency, as a union organiser for over 11 years, I saw people working long hours and relying on in-work benefits. Disabled people are now worried that their support may be stripped away while they face rising bills and shrinking safety nets. I ask the Government to rethink their approach in this area.

This issue is about more than just poverty; it is about inequity and exclusion, and how they breed division. Last summer, we saw unrest in Tamworth, communities divided, and tensions that had been building for years. Work must now get under way to rebuild, with the local authorities and the support that goes with them. Let us be honest: inequality cannot be patched over with slogans; it is fixed by investing properly in schools, housing, the NHS and jobs that people can build a life around.

09:56

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. When I was a child, my hometown was thriving, the high street was teeming and there were places to go and things to do. The British Insulated Callender’s Cables factory was at the top of my street, and employed perhaps 1,000 people. In contrast to my thriving hometown, the inner cities were in an awful state, with botched town planning, derelict street corners and subways that people did their best to avoid.

If we fast forward 30 years, things have changed utterly. In my hometown, the factory closed and the workers were all made redundant. The factory site became a retail park and took trade away from the high street, leaving the town centre having seen better days. The youth clubs are gone. The library that helped me to learn to read has been demolished.

Such places look depressed because they are depressed, but the cities are transformed. They are places of economic activity, cultural events and a huge amount of residential living. They are teeming with life. The domestic challenge is to bring up to that standard the hundreds of smaller conurbations that have seen better days—to work to reopen the youth clubs, to invest in our neighbourhoods and to bring back a sense of pride in place for the vast majority of our people.

In too many places, there are obvious, visible manifestations of austerity, but the rot goes deeper than that. State investment has fled our towns, and street drinkers and rough sleepers have arrived. In my constituency, there is one youth club in a town of 85,000 people and there are too few places for people to go to socialise, whether they are 18 or 80. It falls on this governing party to do for our towns what previous Governments did for our cities. The British public are fair and they will give us a chance to put it right, but they will not give us too many chances. If we do not put it right, they will be unforgiving in their assessment of us.

09:59

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

The very premise of my values and beliefs is that where we are born should not determine our future, yet unfortunately that is still the case in many communities across the country, including my constituency of Sherwood Forest, where even the difference between being born in the south part of the constituency compared with the north is the difference in how long someone lives. Places such as Ollerton, Rainworth and Clipston in the north of my constituency face poorer health outcomes, particularly for mental health, and lower opportunities for skills and decent and secure jobs. They are battling with long-term social and economic decline.

Other equally important areas in my constituency include Hucknall, Bilsthorpe and Blidworth. These former coalfield communities, previously decimated, are still some of the most deprived areas in the country. Almost one in 10 people in coalfield communities are in poor health, and nearly one in five are economically inactive.

For too long, disadvantaged communities have been forgotten by previous Governments, often leaving it to the communities to step in for themselves. For example, the Social Action Hub in Rainworth has made it its mission to improve the life chances of, and increase sustainable opportunities for, the most deprived and marginalised in our society.

If we are to tackle child poverty, it must start in the most disadvantaged communities, and it starts at the very beginning of a child’s life. It has a huge impact on where they go in life and how they make it out of poverty. We must go back to an early intervention strategy that runs through every single children and young people’s service.

10:01

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

I was not expecting to be called to speak, Sir Roger, as I made an intervention, but I will make some additional points.

I have already paid tribute to ICON, and I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) having reinforced the point about mission-critical neighbourhoods. Given the level of deprivation in neighbourhoods such as South Stanley in my constituency, which is ranked 41st most in need out of 34,000 super output areas in the Government’s growth mission, it is unsurprising that my constituents tell me that they feel left behind and that our area is not getting the targeted investment it needs.

I welcome today’s announcement about major investment in transport infrastructure, but we need to recognise the limitations of that when it comes to deprived communities that are more isolated and away from major conurbations. Too often, big infrastructure projects benefit the core cities, not isolated towns and villages like those that make up North Durham.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

I am proud to represent wards such as Newgate, Carr Bank and Ransom Wood—mission-critical neighbourhoods as identified by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods—and I welcome the signs that the Government are increasingly focused on those places. Does my hon. Friend agree that the spending review must make mission-critical neighbourhoods an absolute priority?

[Luke Akehurst]

I absolutely agree. We need investment in social infrastructure, such as parks, leisure centres and community centres, that will deliver rapid economic improvements and change how communities look and feel. Communities need to be at the heart of the decisions, cutting through the bureaucracy and red tape, and they must decide themselves what will make a real difference in their areas.

After the recent local council election results in County Durham, I spoke about people feeling impatient for change, including economic regeneration, good-quality jobs and the new local infrastructure that they have needed for not just years but decades. The Government are starting to deliver many great things through the plan for change, but we will deliver on their missions faster if we target deprived and mission-critical neighbourhoods —areas with the most concentrated problems in economic activity, health, educational achievement and crime. It is economically, fiscally and morally right to target those neighbourhoods, and it would be a clear demonstration of this Labour Government’s social democratic values.

10:03

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Disadvantage comes in many forms, and today I want to talk about child poverty. I grew up in poverty caring for two disabled parents. It took me a very long time to say that, and every time I do my mum will text me afterwards to say that she loves me, she is sorry and she did her best. No mum should ever have to text their son that. Enough is enough, and I want this Labour Government to stamp out child poverty.

There are five quick solutions that we could take forward. The first is nothing less than the resurrection of Sure Start. We know the benefits and impacts: a recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report found that access to a Sure Start centre significantly improved children’s educational outcomes and reduced hospitalisations; children with Sure Start access in their early years were less likely to have depressive and anxiety disorders in their later years; and the impacts were remarkably long lasting.

Let us do as the 1998 comprehensive spending review did and commit to 250 Sure Starts in the most disadvantaged communities, within a pram push of a person’s home. Let us resurrect our town and district centres by, wherever possible, filling empty shops with spaces where we can co-locate and integrate services once and for all.

Let us think again about our libraries. Some 800 have closed in recent years and the number of librarians has been slashed. Let us reinvigorate our libraries as a place for the imagination to develop and roam, and let us centre Sure Start right there.

Let us involve the integrated care boards. They have a duty to tackle health inequalities and can do that work. [Interruption.] Time is short; I am going to be fast.

We need to invest in playgrounds, which are more likely to have been cut in deprived areas. We need to tackle the two-child benefit cap. I am glad to see that the Labour Government are looking at that again; it would have a significant impact overnight. We need to consider bus travel for children and younger people. Let them have free bus travel so that they can access opportunities. Let us, once and for all, stamp out child poverty.

10:05

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger.

State failure can come in many different forms. When he was Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said,

“we must restore the sense that this is a country that can rectify injustice, particularly when carried out by institutes of the state.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2024; Vol. 750, c. 668.]

He was referring to the infected blood scandal, but lack of investment is a different form of state failure, and the sentiment therefore still stands. The state has failed so many of our communities. We must restore the sense that this is a country that can rectify injustice.

This is not a new idea. In 2009, the Labour Government launched the Total Place initiative to improve the delivery of local public services and to increase the focus on communities. Frontier Economics analysis shows that a £2 billion investment in mission-critical neighbourhoods would deliver £2.4 billion in fiscal benefits to the Treasury. We reduce the cost of failure by investing in these communities.

I am the chair of the coastal parliamentary Labour party, and co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coastal communities, alongside my good friend and ally, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume). The ICON report highlighted yet again the need to invest in our coastal communities. Of the 613 mission-critical neighbourhoods in the report, almost half are on the coast. The 25 neighbourhoods identified with the highest need in all of England are all coastal—every single one.

Part of the reason why we have missed out on funding in Thanet and in other coastal areas is that the deprivation in coastal communities is often hidden by the upper-tier local authority statistics—forgive me for being a bit of a data nerd on this. East Thanet is one of the most deprived areas in the south-east, but because it is in Kent it is lumped in with Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks. The existing Treasury orthodoxy has meant that coastal communities have often missed out on vital funding.

I was encouraged by reports that the Green Book is being reformed in ways that will allow communities that have been overlooked for investment for decades to finally share in funding. If done right, that could be transformational for unlocking potential and economic growth in coastal communities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I notice that the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) is standing. Under the rules, I am afraid we are not allowed to call Members who were not here at the start of the debate. That is not a criticism; I fully understand that Members quite frequently have good reason for coming in late. Now the hon. Member has been here for long enough, I am more than prepared to allow him to intervene on another Member, should he choose to do so.

10:08

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

I have sat through many similar debates about communities that have challenges. They are often cathartic but also a Top Trumps of misery in which we each seek to parade around the acute nature of the challenges we face in our communities, not because we want to say how challenging things are in our communities, but because the funding situation the last Government implemented basically meant that unless we could demonstrate that we were the poorest of the poor, the most disadvantaged of the disadvantaged, or in some way an outlier from statistical norms, we got nothing. The barrel was left empty or, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge), we had to go through the ignominy of begging bowl politics.

We were put into competition with our nearest neighbours, and ended up trying to deprive them of what they needed so that we could get a little more of what we needed. That often led to a lack of joined-up working among communities whereby we could have had structural and societal change in the places we all call home and love and represent. Instead, we ended up trying to demonstrate why Stoke-on-Trent should get something and Derby should not, because we are slightly poorer than Derby is. That has to fundamentally change, because the systemic problems that we face in our communities—which derive from poverty, if we are being entirely honest—are going to be solved only if we are able to come together collectively, with a national programme of investment that targets the root causes of those problems and allows communities to have the skills, resources and opportunities to build themselves up.

There is a catalogue of concerns in Stoke-on-Trent: we are first for fuel poverty, routinely in the top 10 for child poverty and food bank usage, and in the last year our Lord Mayor had to raise £50,000 to pay for kids to have beds in our city. That is a symptom of a struggling society—one that was let down by the last Government and one that I hope, under the leadership of the Minister and the new Labour Government, we can start to turn around. We owe it to a generation to tackle poverty head on, so that we do not have more debates about how disadvantaged we all are.

10:10

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) for her impassioned speech, which I very much associate myself with.

Salford is the 18th most deprived authority in England, and that deprivation is juxtaposed against immense growth: gleaming tower blocks, the highest productivity in Greater Manchester and 11,000 businesses—an 85% increase since 2010. So why is the growth that we have created not benefiting everyone? The Government should ask themselves that question.

Although many of the strategies the Government have outlined so far—from housing through to our employment rights programme and the neighbourhood plan—are all very welcome, the Government can take immediate measures now, while they are waiting to develop their anti-poverty strategy, to help to alleviate the suffering that many families in my constituency face. First, it is welcome that the Government have suggested they will look again at the cut to the winter fuel allowance, but the detail must be fleshed out urgently to avoid the anxiety that many pensioners face in my constituency.

On child poverty, only this week a report by Loughborough University showed that at least a quarter of children are in poverty in two thirds of areas across the UK. Experts found an extremely high correlation between child poverty and the two-child benefit limit. It is clear that the Government’s priority must be to scrap the two-child benefit cap and, ultimately, lift 470,000 children out of poverty overnight.

Thirdly, on disability poverty, although it is welcome to have programmes to assist people into work where it is possible, cutting people’s support is not the way to incentivise that. It will push 250,000 people into poverty, and I urge the Government to rethink their proposals.

10:12

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) on securing this debate. I appreciate the points that she raised, but I have to say that I have concerns about the outcomes of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods.

I speak today as the Member of Parliament for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, but also as a voice, alongside other MPs, for the people of Cornwall’s remote coastal neighbourhoods—communities that are proud, resilient and hard-working but all too often overlooked. If we are truly to succeed in our mission to fix the foundations of left-behind neighbourhoods, we must start by recognising the unique challenges faced by places such as Cornwall.

The commission identified 613 neighbourhoods across England that are at risk of falling behind on the Government’s five missions for national renewal, yet only one of those is in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, despite my constituency’s profound socioeconomic deprivation. I worry that the commission’s conclusions do not reflect the levels of poverty in remote coastal areas such as Cornwall. Without targeted support, these communities risk being left behind in terms of health, education, housing and economic opportunity.

Our neighbourhoods face deep-rooted, overlapping challenges, and we see that every day. Wealthier pensioners who retire to Cornwall from up country are masking underlying deprivation, while at the same time increasing the pressure on health and social care. The housing market is severely lacking in affordable homes and is distorted by second homes, Airbnbs and migration from people moving from up country, pricing out local families and workers.

There is a chronic workforce shortage in essential services, from teachers to care workers, as a result of our remoteness and high cost of living. We also have a seasonal economy that stretches public services beyond breaking point for four months of the year, with no recognition in funding to meet our needs. This is not just about numbers on a spreadsheet; it is about the future of our towns and communities, and our shared manifesto commitment that no neighbourhood should be left behind.

10:15

[Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

My constituency has enormous potential, but it has been held back by the last 14 years of austerity. That represents a shameful neglect of not just my community, but the country. It is the duty of this Government to fix that. The industries that sustain reliable work for so many have long disappeared, with nothing to replace them. Without investment in communities like mine, the Government cannot meet their missions. Crucially, that investment needs to make a difference now.

It is not good enough to pump more money into just the cities in the north of England; our towns need support too. It is certainly not good enough for the headlines about Government plans for growth and investment to be dominated by plans to expand airports in the south-east of England. Blackpool North and Fleetwood deserves better. The Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower is the right one, but it must mean investment in places like Blackpool North and Fleetwood.

Fleetwood, once a thriving port, has been the victim of a managed decline over many years. We can take advantage of the offshore wind in the Irish sea, providing operations and maintenance for decades. Like so many of the country’s ports, ours needs investment to rebuild its capacity. We have one of the highest tidal ranges in the world, giving us the opportunity to harness the power of the sea to generate clean electricity. A tidal barrage would also work as flood defences, stopping flooding on farmland, and supply us with a much-needed access road, which would benefit the whole Fylde coast.

[Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Nowhere is this issue more stark than in my constituency, where we have 34 critical neighbourhoods—more than any other constituency. They cover every part of the town, with 98% of its population living in them, including my own family. Does my hon. Friend agree that the impact of this issue is felt daily across Blackpool, in my constituency and hers? Does she also believe that this Labour Government finally have a chance—and have a responsibility—to turn the tide for coastal communities like ours?

[Lorraine Beavers]

I do.

We have a disused railway line. Were it to be reopened, it would finally give Fleetwood the connectivity that it has so badly lacked for decades. I am heartened by reports that the Chancellor will be rewriting the rules that have diverted investment away from constituencies like mine, but the effect needs to be felt by my constituents here and now.

I hope the Government will do what 14 years of the Conservatives failed to do, and give towns like mine hope once again. That is what I stood to do. That is why we are in this place. We came here to serve our people and rebuild our communities. Let us get on with delivering the future we promised.

10:18

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

People in Rumworth, Farnworth, Little Hulton, Great Lever, Walkden, New Bury and Kearsley are proud and hard-working, but they have been left behind. Rumworth is the 10th most deprived ward in the United Kingdom.

These problems resulted from 14 years of Tory austerity. We have seen youth centres shut, local services disappear and councils stretched to breaking point. Despite that, local groups are helping young people to build their futures, and faith groups and charities are running food banks, warm spaces and support services. Groups such as Urban Outreach, Wharton and Clegg’s Lane church, and Farnworth and Kearsley food bank go beyond handing out food; they help with debt, benefits and homelessness and even help ex-offenders.

The challenges that the people face are all connected: a lack of childcare and transport, homelessness and many other issues. That is why I support ICON’s call for, first, a national neighbourhood renewal strategy with local voices at the centre and, secondly, a commitment in the spending review to fund areas such as Rumworth, Farnworth and Little Hulton. Farnworth is receiving investment through the Government’s plan for neighbourhoods, which is very welcome, but we also need to rebuild local services that were lost through austerity. People in Bolton South and Walkden are not asking for a handout; they are asking for fairness.

10:20

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

I welcome the Government’s renewed focus on place-based policy through their plan for neighbourhoods, and the commitment of £1.5 billion to tackle deprivation through long-term investment, rather than bungs and short-term sticking-plasters. The plan rightly recognises that some communities have borne the brunt of economic decline for far too long, and that we cannot deliver growth unless we uplift those places too.

I welcome the transparency and accountability of a data-led, mission-based approach, and I have long believed that trust is built when policy is not simply delivered to people, but brings them along with it and explains why we are doing what we are doing. However, although I am greatly encouraged to see 11 mission- priority neighbourhoods identified in my mid-Cornwall constituency, I am concerned that none is classified as mission critical.

Anyone who spends time in Cornwall knows that, beyond its picture postcard beauty, parts of our region still suffer from some of the lowest living standards in western Europe. For example, St Austell, although not a crime hotspot by national standards, faces severe deprivation and challenges, from antisocial behaviour, weak public transport, poor per pupil funding, poor investment in healthcare, poor integrated care board funding and 10-year lower life expectancy than in other parts of the UK.

Cornwall has a crucial role to play in our clean energy ambitions and in helping Britain to become a clean energy superpower, but that potential will fall flat without real investment. I therefore urge the independent commission to do two things: be more transparent about how scoring decisions were made, particularly when certain neighbourhoods were not deemed mission critical, and reflect better in the methodology the rural disadvantage that colleagues have described. Rural deprivation can be just as entrenched in areas like Cornwall as in urban areas.

Finally, I urge the Government to unlock more investment to ensure that that mission-priority status transforms into targeted funding, turning Cornwall’s once-in-a-generation promise into progress.

10:22

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) for securing this important debate; she is a huge champion for disadvantaged communities in her constituency.

I am proud to represent the beautiful constituency of Scarborough and Whitby. However, away from the tourist lens, we have deprivation. My constituents suffer high rates of chronic illnesses like heart disease, and have lower life expectancies. In Scarborough, life expectancy for people living in Ramshill, where child poverty is prevalent, is 10 years less than it is for those living in Ayton, a mere 10-minute drive away.

Despite that, my constituents struggle to access healthcare, and even emergency care, in a timely manner. Since the closure of Scarborough hospital’s stroke service in 2020, patients suffering strokes are sent directly to York, which is well over an hour away—if they have access to a car. Hon. Members will know that the first 60 minutes after a stroke occurs is known as the golden hour: the faster someone can be treated, the more likely they are to survive and recover. Despite that, one constituent told me that their partner’s emergency journey to York, in a blue-lit ambulance, took 90 minutes. That is the everyday reality for people in disadvantaged coastal communities.

The chief medical officer warned in 2021 of a crisis in coastal healthcare, but we still have no national strategy to combat it. So this is my plea to the Government: we need a cross-departmental strategy to deliver better access to healthcare in our disadvantaged coastal communities, and we need it now.

10:24

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) for securing this debate. I will focus specifically on the urgent need for more social housing and on the duty of both national and local government to ensure that there are safe, decent homes for vulnerable people in deprived communities, such as those in Cann Hall and Cathall in my constituency.

Far too many of my constituents live in unsafe, overcrowded and unsuitable conditions. One family—a father, his wife, their four children and a baby on the way—are stuck in a one-bedroom flat riddled with mould. The children sleep on the floor. The family have been bidding for a home for years, but in Waltham Forest the wait for suitable housing can stretch for over 14 years.

A single mother in my constituency, who is caring for neurodivergent children, lives in a flat with no safety locks on the windows or the front door. Her youngest once tried to climb out of the window and was hospitalised. The mother is now suffering with exhaustion; the stress is relentless. Another family, raising a disabled child, are dealing with persistent mould, noise and antisocial behaviour in temporary accommodation. There is no outdoor space, no stability and no long-term solution.

These are not isolated cases; they are the result of a chronic failure to build and maintain decent housing, especially for those who need it most. I welcome the Government’s commitment to raising standards through the Renters’ Rights Bill and the decent homes standard, but without proper funding our councils cannot meet their statutory duties. Outdated funding formulas fail to reflect multiple occupancy or the real population pressures in outer London.

We all want to see the biggest expansion of social and affordable housing in a generation, so let us start with communities such as Avenue Road and Montague Road in Waltham Forest, where 465 new social homes have been promised and not yet delivered. The upcoming spending review must prioritise housing as critical national infrastructure. Behind the statistics are real people and real families who have been failed by a decade of inaction.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Congratulations. As a result of everyone’s self-discipline, we have accommodated 19 Members and an additional eight interventions. That must be something of a record. It also means that the Front Benchers now have adequate time to respond properly to the debate. Well done.

10:26

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

I think we would all agree that it is a basic human right to have a decent place to call home, a neighbourhood where one feels safe, an opportunity to earn a decent living, access to healthcare and a clean environment. If people have those things, they can thrive and, together, form communities that then flourish. If we empower people to take decisions locally, those communities will make choices that lift up the people in them and protect their local environment.

However, under the last Government, it was made harder for communities to take those decisions. Their resources were slashed and they were forced to compete with each other, with towns set against each another in bidding wars through short-term, race-to-the-bottom policies. The Liberal Democrats are disappointed that the Labour Government plan to take decisions away from communities, using the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to remove local authorities’ power to have a say in planning. We are worried about how proposals for local government reorganisation may move decisions on local services further away from people and their neighbourhoods.

The proposal to provide three-year settlements for councils is reassuring, but only if the funding covers the true cost of providing the services people need—not knowing three years out that the council will be forced to reduce its services is not helpful. Although the 2025-26 settlement offered some additional funding, in many councils—particularly those with high levels of social care spending—the Labour Government’s jobs tax, which increased employers’ national insurance contributions, was not fully reimbursed. The same was true of the packages for fire authorities, and the issue was particularly problematic where high levels of on-call firefighters were on the payroll, meaning that those authorities were seriously disadvantaged.

Turning to the mission-critical neighbourhoods, it is absolutely right that there is a Labour focus—sorry, a laser focus, although I appreciate that there is a Labour focus—on lifting them up and drawing them into every part of society, not just to improve people’s lives, but because if those places are economically active, healthy and safe, the rest of us benefit too.

I want to focus on two main issues for communities: housing and transport. We all know that, for years, people around the country—and not just in those neighbourhoods—have given up. They have given up on the chance of owning a home or of even renting a decent place to call home. They have given up on the opportunity to bring up children and have a meaningful career.

In many rural areas, which may not make up the most deprived areas, there are pockets of extreme poverty that are completely forgotten. There are farmers whose children underperform in schools and are loaned their school uniforms; they live in homes that have not been updated for 60 years.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

My hon. Friend talked about communities being overlooked because they are contained within wealthier communities. My constituency is in the outer London borough of Sutton, which, by London standards, is on the wealthier end. We have two distinct communities in St Helier and Roundshaw, and those estates absolutely need more support, but they consistently get overlooked because of the way that local government funding works. First, it is on a borough-wide basis, so when the deprivation scores are added up, they are not entitled to much. Secondly, the indices used are extremely outdated and fail to take account of the true cost of housing.

Housing prices in London and the south-east have skyrocketed over the last 10 years, and the indices do not take that into account, which means the average Londoner is now worse off than the average person in many other regions of the country, once we take housing costs into account. Does my hon. Friend agree that whatever reforms we make to better target resources at disadvantaged communities, we must ensure that local government funding formulas take housing costs properly into account?

[Vikki Slade]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—there are micro-communities within communities that look wealthy from the outside, and I will come on to some local examples.

In rural and coastal areas, employment opportunities are incredibly limited, as the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) said, with seasonal jobs in limited sectors of agriculture and hospitality. The homes have been snapped up by those fortunate enough to own two or more properties, as we heard from Members representing various areas of Cornwall. That is why the Liberal Democrats want to see the loophole closed on holiday lets, to ensure that they pay council tax, and it is why we want to see the introduction of a separate planning use for both holiday lets and second homes in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, so that we can secure the homes we need for our teachers, carers and police officers, and our farmers are better able to use their assets on their properties to support agricultural workers, so that we can provide food security.

The Government’s move away from the rural services grant has been devastating for so many communities and needs to be urgently rethought. As stated by the Dorset Community Foundation last year in its “Hidden Dorset” report:

“On the face of it Dorset is a beautiful, vibrant county but scratch the surface and underneath there are areas that are among the most deprived in the UK.”

There are 17,100 children in Dorset living in absolute poverty—not relative, but absolute poverty—and I am sure the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) will know where some of those communities are. This is in a place that is not considered a mission-critical area.

The plan for 1.5 million homes is laudable, but the Government must refocus on having the right homes in the right places. The lack of focus on social homes is deeply disappointing, especially for a Labour Government, and I encourage the Department to commit to at least 150,000 homes for social rent, as the Liberal Democrats have. We already have a large number of homes lying empty—1.2 million—and the Liberal Democrats have heard little about what is being done to bring them back into use.

Today’s announcement on transport is great news for some communities, but many are still being forgotten. People living in most of the south-west—and it would appear from the latest announcement that the south-west stops at Bristol—have no access to trains, and where they do have a bus, it only comes a couple of times a day. How exactly are those who cannot afford a private car supposed to get to work? Those aged 16-plus cannot get to school or college. One constituent in Bere Regis in my constituency of Mid Dorset and North Poole had to give up an apprenticeship because there was simply no way to get there. Families living on the minimum wage cannot spare the budget to pay for driving lessons—of course, it is not possible to get a driving test either—or insurance, which can run into thousands of pounds.

Will the Government correct the injustice created when the age of participation was increased by ensuring that home-to-school transport is funded to 18 and accepting Lib Dem proposals to create a young person’s bus card, giving under-25s significant discounts on bus fares? Rural areas are most in need of the bus fare cap, so we hope it will be extended, as journeys are often long and require two or more routes to be used, not just in England but across the United Kingdom—including rural Wales, where, oddly, a project between Oxford and Cambridge was badged as an England and Wales project, potentially costing Wales millions of pounds.

Finally, I want to align myself with the comments made by my neighbour, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East. We must eradicate child poverty. I share the frustrations of others that the strategy has been delayed, and I hope this means that we will have a much more meaningful document which includes the removal of the two-child benefit cap. These children have done nothing to find themselves in the position of having multiple siblings, and I hope the Government will grasp the nettle and deliver real change for our forgotten neighbourhoods and our next generation.

10:34

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) on securing this debate and bringing in many Members, who have articulated clearly their concerns about a variety of issues across their constituencies.

We all recognise that relieving poverty is one of the oldest and most central functions of our country’s local authorities; it has been enshrined in their duties since their inception. Many Members have referred to programmes of the past—under the last Labour Government, the coalition Government and the Conservative Government —and this debate, fundamentally, is about how we tackle this most effectively. There is no view that these issues are not important; it is simply a question about the most effective way of bringing about that relief, which we all wish to see. Indeed, levelling up, which was fundamentally about all these issues, was a key policy priority for the last Conservative Government, although it was one which, I have to acknowledge in all humility, we did not succeed in delivering in all the ways we wished to. None the less, there were some successes.

When we debate these issues in a political context, we always need to remember that it is not simply a matter of funding, as important as that is. In Wales, for example, the Government have had the benefit of an £1,800 premium over the rest of the UK in public spending. Wales has had a Labour Government for 25 years, and these issues are consistently worse in Wales—where I grew up—than they are in England. So how we spend the money to address these issues is almost as fundamental as the quantum of that spending.

[Gareth Snell]

I have always found the hon. Gentleman to be a diligent shadow Minister, and I appreciate him taking this intervention. He mentioned levelling up, and Stoke-on-Trent was one of the cities that genuinely got one of the larger allocations. The challenge was that it was mainly capital, so it allowed us to build things, but it did not allow us to have the revenue stream to staff those things to provide services. Would he welcome any move by this Government—I suspect that this is coming—to put more into revenue funding to support communities, rather than giving them the capital for big shiny things that look nice but do not actually improve the lives of people in our communities?

[David Simmonds]

That is a really good example of where the “how” matters. The theory, which was certainly built into the funding formula under the last Conservative Government, and indeed, the coalition Government, was that growth in housing numbers, which many Members have spoken of as important, came with the new homes bonus. So that was additional revenue funding coming into the local authority as a result of that growth. The theory was that the infrastructure spending would be followed by growth in revenue as a result of those locally made decisions. Clearly, I understand that the Minister’s Department has taken the decision to cancel that as part of the funding formula, and she will no doubt set out what the Government’s new strategy will be. But what the hon. Gentleman describes is a really good example; it is no good having one without the other.

When we look at the ICON report and other consistent reports about this issue over the years, they highlight the significance of businesses as the backbone of any local community. The availability of work, in particular, is critical not just to the economic wellbeing of a community, but to the physical and mental health of those who live there. There is ample evidence, from the UK and all around the world, of the benefits that that brings. As we all know, it is a statistical fact that no Labour Government have ever left office having reduced unemployment—it is always higher when they leave office than when they take it—and the early-warning signs so far are not good. None the less, I hope that the Government will succeed in that agenda.

[Tom Hayes]

This Labour Government have seen 500,000 people added to employment since the election in July, which is a point that we should reflect on. But does the Conservative party commit to ending child poverty? Is that an explicit goal of the Conservative party under the current leadership?

[David Simmonds]

Ending child poverty has been a long-term commitment of the Conservative party. Reference has been made, positively, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the work that he did with the Centre for Social Justice, which enshrined that as a policy agenda during the years of the coalition Government. Again, this comes back to the question of how we most effectively achieve that. Evidence from across the country shows that growing up in workless households is one of the things that creates intergenerational poverty. The opportunity to grow up in a household where somebody works, even if it is only part time to begin with, is a fantastic boost to a child’s life chances. There are many other points within that.

[Ms Billington]

Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to accept responsibility for the significant increase in child poverty caused by the two-child benefit cap that was introduced by the last Tory Government?

[David Simmonds]

As Government Members are discovering, having voted to retain the two-child benefit cap as part of the Budget process last year, government is about making very difficult choices. The question becomes: is it fair for those who do not have children and who work in lower-paid jobs to pay additional taxes to cover the costs of other families? All of us who are parents need to face that choice, and I wish the Government luck with resolving that issue as they begin to think about it.

When we look at how Government resources are deployed across the country, it is very clear in our public spending figures—I commend the House of Commons Library for the excellent research papers that it produced on this—that spending is overwhelmingly focused on the relief of poverty. I commend the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) for his contribution. We see in health and social care, for example, that Blackpool has around £2,000 more per capita in public spending than Yorkshire. Governments and local authorities of all parties have prioritised those issues, and that is reflected in spending on all manner of public services. However, we also need to acknowledge that government is about choices and how we go about allocating resources. What we prioritise and the way we spend that will make a significant difference.

On creating opportunity and supporting the long-term delivery of healthcare, I ask the Minister to reflect on whether the cancellation of the level 7 apprenticeships programme, which is what trained specialist nurses for the NHS, has been a good step in creating opportunity for adults who can train to do more higher-paid work, or whether that will—as the NHS and other bodies have highlighted—result in a significant negative impact on the pipeline of specialist nursing and medical staff. Will the Minister reflect on whether the national insurance contributions increase, which leaves councils a net £1.5 billion worse off—a £1.5 billion cut in local government spending by the Labour Government—will contribute to addressing the agenda that many Members have set out?

The winter fuel payment has been touched on. The Prime Minister has hinted that a U-turn is coming; it is clear that many Government Members will welcome that. The same applies to the two-child benefit cap and the Government’s plans around disability. Under the previous Government, there was a programme, which I think the current Government are continuing in a different form, to enable those with a disability who want to work more hours to have that opportunity. But we will all have seen in our inboxes the level of concern that has been triggered among members of the public. Ultimately, it is for Members opposite to decide how they deal with pensioner poverty, the impact of cuts to disability benefits and the impact of the two-child benefit cap, as they are now in government.

There is the fact that rough sleeping has seen a remarkable increase, particularly in England and in London specifically, under this Government—there has been a 27% increase, according to St Mungo’s, since they took office—and there have been widespread reports about the impact of a significant reduction in house building under this Government. Building 1.5 million new homes was always going to be a challenge—I think we acknowledge that across parties—but a recent Guardian investigation highlighted that there has been a collapse in house building since this Government took office.

We are seeing the implementation of all these other policies, which are a choice made by Labour Members and their Government. Will all of those choices help to address and ameliorate the issues that Members have so passionately and eloquently set out? I would argue that that is not the case, and that the negative downward trends in the economy will see more households and families facing significant challenges. I would also argue that the fact, as widely reported, that all of the growth in the UK economy is due to rising household bills—in particular, higher energy costs under this Government—will be a significant headwind for the reduction and addressing of poverty, and that the toxic combination of rising unemployment, debt and taxes will create significant headwinds when it comes to addressing the issues that Members are rightly and passionately concerned about.

[Alison Hume]

The shadow Minister is speaking quite eloquently about the failings, as he sees them, of the Labour Government, who have been in power for 10 months. Does he not accept that the communities that many hon. Members have talked about are disadvantaged because of the profound failure of the past 14 years?

[David Simmonds]

In a word, no. I do not accept that. I do not believe for a moment that we address challenges of long-term poverty and disadvantage in a short-term way, but the purpose of this debate is to ask whether the decisions being made are taking us in a positive direction of travel that will benefit those we are here to talk about or whether they will have a significant negative impact.

I have set out the evidence: the loss of the winter fuel payment, the cuts to disability support, the two-child benefit cap, and the measures in October’s Budget, which all Government Members voted for, that saw every single Department except the NHS receive no extra funding for the duration of this Parliament. Our councils are net £1.5 billion worse off as a result of the unfunded rise in national insurance. All of that will bear down on the capacity of our public sector and public services to respond.

The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) talked passionately about housing. I will share an example. My local authority has seen a significant impact, in that 20% of applications for housing are now from approved asylum seekers and Chagossians displaced to the UK by the Government’s deal. All these decisions—I have set out quite a small subset of them—have an impact in the real world in our communities, and it is my contention that that impact is now pushing poverty to a greater degree and making life more challenging for many people in our country.

I will finish with this point—

[Michelle Welsh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. No.

[David Simmonds]

I note your look, Sir Roger.

Much was made in last year’s Budget of a supposed £22 billion funding gap, which was swiftly debunked by those more expert in that field than I am. That is about 1.6% of total spending by the British Government; it is a very small amount in the national figures. I am sure Government Members will have noted that the Government borrowed £20 billion last month alone, to fund the amount by which their spending is exceeding their capacity to raise money. That is £20 billion added to debt by this Government in a single month. I am sure Members will accept, having seen the impact that debt has in local communities, that that is not taking our country in a positive direction.

10:47

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) for securing this important debate on a topic close to my heart. The impassioned speeches from hon. Members show their commitment to tackling disadvantage across our country.

In my role as Minister for homelessness and rough sleeping, I am constantly reminded of the challenges faced by those who face multiple disadvantage. Poverty remains a persistent barrier, affecting not just incomes but, as we have heard, life expectancy, educational outcomes and overall wellbeing. There is a gap of more than 18 years for both men’s and women’s healthy life expectancy between the most deprived and least deprived areas in England. Many residents in the most disadvantaged communities also experience insecure housing and homelessness, poor physical and mental health, and limited access to high-quality public services.

It is a scandal that we inherited more than 127,000 households, including over 160,000—now 165,000—children, living in temporary accommodation. It is also a scandal that 4.5 million children were in poverty in the year to April 2024. Just to remind the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), that was the culmination of 14 years of Conservative government and leadership—or lack of leadership—on this agenda. Those outcomes are the consequence of austerity and economic mismanagement under the previous Government.

We have heard impassioned speeches from hon. Members, but we had to sit through a shocking and disappointing speech by the shadow Minister, who is in denial about the failures of his Government. I remind everyone that during his party’s time in government we saw five Prime Ministers, seven Chancellors and economic mismanagement. We saw the Liz Truss mini-Budget fiasco crash the economy, interest rates go up, people’s living standards go down, and double-digit inflation. The shadow Minister has amnesia about the 14 years of Conservative government. I had hoped that in this debate we could build alliances to tackle the multiple disadvantage that people face in our country; instead, he fails to face up to what his party did in government.

Our Government’s mission, and our commitment to the British people, is to put this country back on a path to success and to support the most disadvantaged in our country. When we talk about breaking down barriers to opportunity, we mean ending the scandal of children being held back by poverty before they have even begun. When we say we will build an NHS that is fit for the future, we mean making health equity a reality, not just an aspiration, so that someone’s postcode or income does not determine their life expectancy. And when we commit to delivering economic growth, we are committed to creating jobs and driving up productivity in every part of the country.

Our mission to break down barriers to opportunity is rooted in the belief that every child, no matter where they are born and no matter their parents’ income, should have the chance to thrive in life. Millions of children are growing up in poverty, and in classrooms around the country children are turning up hungry. That is not by accident; it is because of the failure of the previous Government over 14 years. It is shameful that the shadow Minister talked down this country and spoke about Labour, which has been in government less than a year, rather than taking responsibility for failure under his Government.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Minister is making an excellent speech. She said earlier that we had had five Prime Ministers and seven Chancellors—I think there were about 10 Lord Chancellors. Does she agree that the reason for all the problems is that the past 14 years were always about the Tories’ own psychodrama, as opposed to running the country?

[Rushanara Ali]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Furthermore, billions of pounds were wasted in personal protective equipment scandals, contracts for donors and much else.

We are determined to address the issues affecting people across the country. We are building family security. It is essential to ensure that every child has a safe and loving home, and that is why we are committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable homes and to delivering 1.5 million homes. Earlier this year, we committed to injecting £2 billion from 2026-27 to build up to 18,000 new affordable and social homes by the end of this Parliament.

[Ms Billington]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rushanara Ali]

I would like to make some progress, because I want to make a number of points about what this Government are doing.

We believe that everyone deserves to live in a safe and decent home. We have already invested in homelessness funding, which the Budget increased by £233 million to a total of £1 billion. That was a recognition of the mess that was left behind after 14 years of Tory government, when homelessness and rough sleeping skyrocketed. The previous Labour Government cut homelessness and rough sleeping by two thirds; the Tory Government increased it. We are having to clean up their mess.

We are investing in post-16 education, because children and young people from deprived backgrounds have been left behind and we are determined to tackle that. We are also introducing a youth guarantee for all young people aged 18 to 21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training and education opportunities to help them find work. We will publish an ambitious child poverty strategy, working across Government through an inter-ministerial group of which the Deputy Prime Minister and I, along with other colleagues, are members. We are taking action to make work pay and ensure that people are earning more; we have already increased the minimum wage.

Truly addressing the unique challenges faced by the most disadvantaged communities requires targeted and sustained support. My Department’s recently launched plan for neighbourhoods will turn the tide on decades of decline in our most deprived communities. It provides £1.5 billion of funding to 75 communities across the UK to tackle deprivation and turbocharge growth, ensuring that every area joins the decade of national renewal that we committed to in our plan for change. That funding will help revitalise local areas, support growth and fight deprivation at its root by zeroing in on three goals: thriving places, strong communities and taking back control. We will also unlock investment opportunities in every region through local growth plans. The interventions and investments developed through them will build on local sector strengths to boost productivity.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East, I thank Baroness Hilary Armstrong for continuing to make the case for our most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and communities. I remember her work in the last Labour Government, and I agree wholeheartedly with her that our plan for change must be rooted in neighbourhoods.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, and I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East for securing this debate. This Government are taking action to support the most disadvantaged communities as part of our long-term plan to deliver a decade of renewal by investing in our healthcare system, helping people get into employment and fixing the mess that the previous Government left behind. I look forward to working with colleagues across parties to take further action to tackle the disadvantage faced by people across our country, particularly in the most deprived communities. I know how much devastation is caused by those who face multiple disadvantage, because my constituency in the east end of London has the highest child poverty in the country. I am committed to working with colleagues to address these challenges and I am grateful for their commitment to tackling this issue, which is demonstrated by the excellent turnout at this debate.

10:58

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I thank every Member who attended the debate. I am sure the Minister will heed our voices, because we speak for and serve our communities.

It is really disappointing that not one Conservative Back Bencher attended the debate. I will not get drawn into the denial that I heard from the shadow Minister. We have heard powerful voices from post-industrial towns, proud coastal communities and struggling rural communities. They are full of pride but desperately in need of targeted intervention. That is why I am calling for a project of neighbourhood renewal.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).