Cross-departmental Strategy on Social Justice

Debate between Fiona Bruce and David Burrowes

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered cross-departmental strategy on social justice.

I am delighted to have secured this vital debate, which I applied for with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), on the importance of joined-up thinking on social justice. I am delighted, too, that we have obtained it so early in our new Prime Minister’s tenure, because my right hon. Friend has already made it abundantly clear that she is personally interested in social reform and in continuing the one nation tradition that has been a consistent and defining strand of 21st-century conservativism.

I propose to use family policy as an example of an area in which greater cross-departmental strategy, involving several Ministers and one Cabinet-level Minister with overall responsibility as a primary element of his or her portfolio—not only as an adjunct—could reap exponential benefits, in particular for the poorest families in our society. That is crucial, because as many Members present today know—I thank those attending for their support, in particular those on the Government Benches—family breakdown is a key driver of poverty. It causes so many problems, not least financial ones, but also problems in health, including mental health, educational difficulties—leading to employment disadvantages—addiction and housing pressures.

In taking charge of the newly minted Social Reform Cabinet Committee, the Prime Minister has put social justice right up there on her list of priorities, alongside Brexit and the economy. The message could not be clearer. She stood on the steps of No. 10 and talked about governing for everyone:

“That means fighting against the burning injustice that, if you’re born poor, you will die on average 9 years earlier than others”.

She also highlighted the fact that

“If you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university.”

She has indicated that she intends to take personal responsibility for changing such unacceptable realities. To my mind, that is not only encouraging, but exciting.

Moreover, I applaud the Prime Minister’s stated ambition, a

“mission to make Britain a country that works for everyone”.

Most, if not all constituency MPs must have completely agreed with her when she said:

“If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than many people in Westminster realise.”

We all very much want to work in harness with a Government who see it as their duty to deliver success on behalf of everyone in the UK, not only the privileged few, and who also have social justice explicitly at their heart.

Let me explain what I mean by using the example of family policy. I am sure that other hon. Members will have other policy areas to share. For too long, there has been a view in Government that an aspiration to help families struggling to nurture their children and to hold down stable relationships was indefensibly interventionist and intrusive. Before my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) laid bare the social, financial and emotional costs of family breakdown in our poorest communities in his paradigm-shifting reports, “Breakdown Britain” and “Breakthrough Britain”, fractured families were simply not considered policy-relevant. He punctured the myth that relationship breakdown was none of the state’s business by pointing out that the public purse was picking up the tab and by exposing the easy complacency of those who are better placed in our society.

I accept that no social stratum is immune to family difficulties. I know that from almost 30 years of leading a law firm specialising in family law. Many people in this House, for example, come from broken homes or have seen their own marriages falter, and no one judges them. However, the social justice narrative articulated so eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green and the Centre for Social Justice highlights how more advantaged people tend to experience family breakdown somewhat differently from people in our poorest communities—although I have to say from my own experience that children can suffer grief from relationship breakdowns however affluent their background.

When the family relationships of those from better-off backgrounds experience shipwreck, they or their parents can deploy reserves of social and other capital to soften the potentially harmful effects on them and the children involved. For example, in good schools, staff are less embattled than in deprived areas and have more time for each individual pupil; or the family might have enough cash that a split does not plunge the people involved into poverty or they can pay for counselling.

All that stands in stark contrast to what happens for the poorest 20% of society, where debt, educational failure, addictions to substances, and under or unemployment often conspire together to compound the damage of broken relationships. Such pressures make relationships hard to maintain, or for parents to spend time with their child to encourage interaction between them. As a result, half of all children in communities of the 20% least advantaged no longer live with both parents by the time they start school—seven times as many as those in the richest 20%.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Her words are important and resonate with those in a recent speech by the noble Lord Sacks, who referred to the “two nations” we now have—those, perhaps the preserve of the rich, who benefit from the association of children with two parents, and those who do not, the 1 million children who have no contact whatever with their father.

[Fiona Bruce]

Yes, Jonathan Sacks, who is so respected and speaks from a heart of compassion, indeed said that. I very much support those words, because we know that about 1 million children have little or no contact with their fathers, and they are vastly over-represented in our poorest communities.

What I said about the poorest 20% on the income spectrum holds true for those who have a bit, but not a lot more. The Institute for Social and Economic Research found that, on average, women’s incomes dropped by more than 10% after a marital split, and that family breakdown is a route into poverty for many. The single fact of family breakdown can tip people out of a degree of financial security and into a much more precarious and uncertain set of circumstances, in which they are also far more dependent on the state.

As I always state in such debates, I make no criticism or condemnation of single parents. So many of them strive so valiantly to support their children and to do their very best for their family, often in challenging circumstances. However, the fact is that lone-parent households are twice as likely to be in poverty as couple families. In 2015, 44% of children from lone-parent families were in households living on less than 60% of median income, as compared with 24% of children from two-parent families. Inevitably, single parents struggling to juggle their time will face greater challenges to spending time with their children.

Some might suggest that parents raising children on their own should simply receive more support from the state, but single parenthood is a risk factor for poverty internationally. Swedish statistics show that parental separation is the biggest driver into child poverty, by a large margin, and that is in the country with the most generous welfare regime in the world. The state does not and cannot protect a child against the absence of a relationship missed with one parent or another. As this Government’s emphasis on life chances has made clear, however, we cannot look only to the effects on income. Poverty is not only about income, but about many other things in life, not least, particularly in a child’s life, poverty of relationships. How are the nation’s children and young people faring in terms of their mental health and wellbeing?

Research commissioned by the previous Labour Government shows that children who experience family breakdown are more likely to experience behavioural problems, to perform less well in school, to need more medical treatment, to leave school and home earlier, to become sexually active, pregnant or a parent at an early age, and to report more depressive symptoms and higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during adolescence. The most up-to-date research also demonstrates those associations. The recently published “Longitudinal Study of Young People in England” found that young people in single-parent families had greater mental health challenges than those with two parents, and there was a greater likelihood of them being above the “caseness” threshold, which means that someone is suffering from such psychological distress that they need clinical help.

Adult Stem Cells and Life Sciences

Debate between Fiona Bruce and David Burrowes

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burrowes]

The hon. Gentleman and I have for a number of years been party to reports recommending to Government that we need to invest in research to provide better long-term outcomes in transplantation and future therapeutic treatments.

One key area is Alzheimer’s, and some of us may have received a briefing from the Alzheimer’s Society. We know from our constituencies the huge impact of Alzheimer’s. There are 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK today, and this is forecast to rise to over 1 million by 2025 and to exceed 2 million by 2050. A technique was developed in 2012 to turn adult cells into nerve cells, which again highlights the curative potential of stem cell transplantation. That can be particularly helpful in understanding and testing potential treatments for Alzheimer’s.

The Minister will know that the estimated cost of Alzheimer’s is a staggering £4.3 billion, which is approximately 3.4% of total NHS spending in the UK in 2013. Observing the initial stages of Alzheimer’s in nerve cells can give scientists clues to help them identify genetic risk factors. It can also be used to test potential treatments to see whether the damage from Alzheimer’s can be stopped. We are a long way from that, but it is an illustration of how important it is for us to carry out further research into adult stem cell transplantation. Indeed, it is vital; it makes economic sense and will save lives.

I wish to focus on my involvement with the all-party group on stem cell transplantation and to highlight the potential of cord blood donations to transform our ability to meet the needs of every patient who requires a stem cell transplant, including black, Asian and minority ethnic patients, who have suffered from such poor transplantation outcomes. It is a scandal that, in 2010, just 40% of BAME patients were able to find a well-matched stem cell donor. That figure has increased now to 60%, which is really welcome, and the Government can take plaudits for that. The £4 million that was pledged in 2013 and the total investment of more than £12 million since 2011, along with all the investment from the charitable sector, have made a difference, but we still face a situation in which four in 10 people from the black, Asian and minority ethnic community are unlikely to find a match, which is not good enough. We must do more, and I urge the Minister to support continued and sustained investment as we approach the next spending review.

We need to focus on the outcomes. Of the 6,200 patients who will receive a stem cell donation between now and 2020, one in three will not survive their first year after transplant. Of those who do survive their first year, many will suffer a number of post-transplant complications, including relapse, infection and graft versus host disease.

Since 1993, the collection of stem cells from cord blood and bone marrow has increased at impressive rates, meeting the needs of many patients in the UK. Over the past three years, we have seen progress in a number of areas. Cord banking rates have tripled, a quarter of all cord transplants in the UK are now sourced domestically, and the cost of transplants to the NHS has decreased dramatically. But the urgent need for improvements in long-term outcomes remains. In order to make the necessary progress, the UK needs to ensure that the early-stage advancements are sustainable by investing in long-term research, which is the focus of this debate, identifying improvements to treatments and developing potentially new life-saving therapies. So what needs to be done?

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He referred to the fact that the potential for about 80 treatments has been discovered through adult stem cell research. Does he agree that it would have been preferable to have put all the resources that have gone into embryonic stem cell research, which has produced negligible results, into the work on adult stem cells?

[Mr Burrowes]

My hon. Friend will know that I was very much making that case in 2008 in the debates that we had on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Strong lobbying went on in relation to therapeutic treatments. I remember being in Central Lobby when many charities said that we had to pass that measure to provide immediate treatments. I do not want to get too involved in that debate today, beyond saying that adult stem cell transplantation is saving lives now, and has potential for the future. We need to have a really good mutual circle of which everyone can be part. Such a circle must lend itself to looking at the big ask of the Government today, which is a national stem cell transplantation trials network to ensure that we save more and more lives. We also need to look at future therapies as well.

I urge the Minister, as he steps up to the Dispatch Box, to show his support for a national stem cell transplantation trials network. This will not only provide a turbo boost for improving patient outcomes and make the UK a world leader in stem cell transplantation, but also support the economy by growing the life sciences industry, and I know how seriously the Minister takes that.

The UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum, which was established at the request of the Minister of State for public health in 2010, stressed the need for further research into stem cell transplantation in 2014, and that included the recommendation that the network be established. Furthermore, the all-party group on stem cell transplantation has called for a clinical trials network a number of times over the past few years. Last year, the all-party group heard from experts in the field who pointed out some of the barriers to research into stem cell transplantation in the UK. They identified inadequate research infrastructure and inefficient data collection. Currently, the small number of patient cohorts and the complex regulatory environment—I ask the Minister to look at that aspect as well—mean that fewer than 5% of stem cell transplant patients are recruited into prospective clinical trials of any kind. Also, data collection at transplant centres is inefficient owing to inadequate staff training. The poor quality of the data means that they are unsuitable for research purposes, which significantly undermines the potential to achieving good outcomes in transplantations.

The infrastructure is ready to provide support for a national network, which would allow for the rapid recruitment of participants, standardise procedure and provide a central data hub to manage and evaluate research and share information which could be used to improve patient outcomes.