Department for Work and Pensions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am glad to be speaking for the Scottish National party in this debate, because it is an important issue on which I have campaigned for some time, particularly in relation to the two-child limit. I will discuss that in my speech.

It is perfectly clear that the welfare state is no longer a safety net for those who need it. It is a labyrinthine maze of bureaucracy, traps and loopholes to cheat people out of ever feeling safe or supported. The safety net is full of holes. This Chancellor, like the one before him—and, no doubt, the one to follow—has attempted to balance the books on the back of sick, disabled and vulnerable people. Even by the UK Government’s own flawed criteria, they have abjectly failed. The IFS has said that the Chancellor’s plan of running a budget surplus by the mid-2020s is no longer a sensible proposition. Public spending was as high in 2018 as it was in 2008, but what have we got to show for it? We have a rise in child poverty, in homelessness, and in food bank usage. In the fifth richest country in the world, that is a shameful situation. The two-child policy alone is expected to push thousands of families into poverty by the end of this Parliament. The Child Poverty Action Group has said that if we were to intentionally design a policy to put children into poverty, we could not do much better than that one.

The report “All Kids Count: the impact of the two-child limit after two years” was issued last week by the Church of England, CPAG, Women’s Aid, Turn2us and the Refugee Council, with support also from the Interlink Foundation, representing the Orthodox Jewish Community. It paints a stark picture: of families forced into poverty, debt and borrowing money from friends and family. I have to say that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) is absolutely incorrect in so many of his assertions on this policy, because it will affect families in so many different ways and it absolutely traps them in a situation where they cannot work their way out of poverty. I commend this report to him, because it has modelled this. I recommend that he read all of its details, because it makes it absolutely clear that families cannot compensate for the two-child poverty through work.

The report gives the example of a single parent with three children working 16 hours a week at the national living wage—the pretendy “living wage”—and says that she

“cannot ever compensate for the loss of a child element by increasing her hours, if she incurs childcare costs from doing so (because these are never covered in full by universal credit). Only if she can access free childcare (e.g. by using help from family members in addition to the free entitlement for 2-4 year-olds), can she compensate for the loss, but she would still have to more than double her hours from 16 to 40 per week.”

This is also true for families where there is a couple and for others: nobody can work their way out of the poverty caused by this policy.

The findings from a survey done on the two-child limit by those who are claiming are stark—the impact on those families is dreadful and in some cases it results in family breakdown. That ought to concern the Tories, who seem to like to maintain the family in all circumstances. I will read out some of the quotes. One read:

“I’ve recently split with my long-term partner and father of my four children. When I had my children, I did not intend to be a single parent— and now that I am, I feel like I’m being penalised by the government.”

Another read:

“My partner became ill and unable to work due to disability and I’m now at home having to care for him and our four children. Me and my partner are literally not eating at all during the day to feed the children.”

I would like to see the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland try to justify why that is fair, because it is absolutely not.

The report shows 95% of families who responded reporting that the two-child limit has affected their ability to pay for basic living costs, with 88% saying it had affected their ability to pay for food, 88% saying it had affected their ability to pay for clothing, 71% saying it had affected their ability to pay for gas and electric—and the list goes on. This is absolutely catastrophic for these families and they cannot do anything to get out of the situation.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing that report to the House. Does she not agree that, contrary to what the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland said, life is full of unforeseen and unintended occurrences and the welfare state is simply there to help us out with all of them?

[Alison Thewliss]

None of the families in this report could really have predicted their circumstances when they had their children, and this has been acknowledged by the Government, because they said that if the child was born after the cut-off date in April 2017, it would be unfair to bring this in. They have acknowledged that it is unfair for some families but not for all families, but if they acknowledge it is unfair for some, they should just scrap this brutal policy for all and for ever.

Despite all this, families are trying to cut back. They are trying their best to get by. One parent said:

“We try our best to make sure

the children

“are well fed and pick up the leftovers if they leave anything, or just toast.”

So families—parents—are living on just toast, at best. What kind of society is this that the Minister presides over? Families are not able to pay their bills and are going into arrears—into debt—which means they risk going into homelessness and losing the roof over their head. They are relying on other members of the family to try to support them. One woman said:

“At 36 years old you shouldn’t have to rely on your mum and dad”

to feed the children. People are going into debt because they are not able to pay for things because there is no spare money. They are going into debt on credit cards and with the other types of lenders. Families are so far away from being able to pay for these things that it puts tremendous financial strain on them.

The two-child limit also has an impact on other members of the family. Other children feel as though they are losing out because of their baby brother or sister. That is really quite sad. It gives me a lot of pain to think that children feel as though they are losing their ability to go out and have fun, to live their lives, to go swimming or to do anything else they want to do, because their parents were unfortunate enough to have a third child. That is absolutely appalling, and it affects families’ mental health and wellbeing, as I have said.

The two-child limit has lots of other impacts. There is good evidence from the survey—which should concern all Members, regardless of their opinions on the policy—that families are choosing to abort healthy babies because they are worried about how the two-child limit is going to affect them. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) shakes her head on the Front Bench, but there is evidence. She should read the report and do something about it.

There are also issues for women who have come through refuges—through domestic abuse—and who have to use the rape clause to claim for a third child. Nobody should have to fill in a form to prove that they were raped, just to put food on the table. That is unacceptable, and the Government’s policy is despicable. Last year, 190 women were forced to fill out the form. The figures are not yet out, so I do not know how many women are affected this year, but my bet is that it will be more.

The impact of the rape clause is such that those 190 women are not even all the women who are likely to be eligible for support. There is in the report a good and heartbreaking case study about a woman called Sabrina. The name has been changed, but it says Sabrina in the report so that is the name I shall use. It says:

“Sabrina had been experiencing abuse at the hands of her husband for almost a decade when she and her two young children came to a Women’s Aid member refuge in England. Whilst in the refuge, Sabrina discovered that she was pregnant…Sabrina wept at the news—tears of anxiety and worry about how she was going to cope financially when she eventually moved out of the refuge. Sabrina knew that, because of the two-child limit, she would struggle to bring a third baby into the world. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to tell the government how the child was conceived—out of abuse and fear—in order to get the money she was entitled to. Soon, she packed her family’s bag with the few belongings they had and returned to the home she had shared with her abuser, utterly defeated.”

That is not a situation that this Government should be putting women in. They should be helping women out of abusive relationships, not sending them straight back to their abusers for fear of losing out. I do not want to hear about how a form can be changed and what could happen to make the process better; it should not exist at all. There should be a universal support system for everybody, and that is why it is such a fundamentally important issue.

Although I know that others wish to speak, I could go on all afternoon about the injustices of the two-child policy, because it also affects religious minorities who cannot or will not use contraception or abortion, and it affects refugee families, who come here, wait a long time to be processed, and then find that they are not able to get the entitlements that they had hoped to get to support themselves and their families. The impact of the policy is devastating, and it disproportionately affects families who are already in work. The Minister should look at the report, look at the evidence and scrap the two-child policy, and the rape clause that stands part of it, immediately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

I will turn now to some of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Wirral South talked about the WASPI women. This Government have introduced transitional arrangements costing £1.1 billion. This concession reduced the proposed increase in the state pension age for more than 450,000 men and women, and it means that no woman will see her pension age change by more than 18 months relative to the 1995 Pensions Act timetable. As numerous hon. Members have pointed out, if we were to reverse the state pension changes made under the previous Pensions Act, it would cost more than £200 billion up to 2025-26.

Moving on, the two-child policy ensures that parents in receipt of benefits face the same financial choices when deciding to grow their families. As announced in January, we will no longer be extending the policy for new claims for children born before April 2017. Turning to the benefit freeze, I have already made it clear that we will end the freeze in 2020. As for universal credit, the principle is to have a simpler system, with six benefits rolled into one. When it comes to supporting children, I play a role in the early years ministerial group, which was chaired by the former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). That group is looking at numerous options around cross-departmental work on supporting children.

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the Minister give way?

[Will Quince]

I will come to the points made by the hon. Lady.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth raised several points. The Government are spending £55 billion a year on benefits to support sick and disabled people. In 2019-20, our spending on main disability benefits is £9 billion higher than in 2010, and main disability benefits are exempt from the benefits freeze. On universal credit, as I have pointed out already, around 1 million disabled households will receive an average of around £100 more a month.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth, who is no longer in her place, and she will know that we are working with employers through our Disability Confident scheme, giving them the tools and advice to support staff with a disability or long-term health condition. Over 12,000 employers have now signed up. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), will pick up her suggestions. I thank her for the work she did when she was in the Department.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) made an intervention in relation to the Scottish child payment. I understand that the Scottish Government have laid out their plans to introduce an additional £10 a week for eligible children in Scotland, and I should say that we welcome the overall commitment to tackle poverty, but we note the challenge and look forward to understanding the impact of the payment in detail. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government on the impact and introduction of that payment.

Turning to the remarks from the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), the pensions dashboard is a digital interface that will allow individuals to see their pension savings online in one place to assist with their retirement planning, and I welcome the cross-party collaboration on that. On the pensions Bill, we intend to bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows.

We are a Government determined to help the most vulnerable, to support them into work, to support them to stay in work, and to support them when they cannot work. We will continue to do that through all the support that the Department offers, and we will continue to assess and adjust that support by listening, learning and improving. I have met and visited several stakeholders, valuing and taking on their expert views, so we are always listening to colleagues, stakeholders and, most importantly, our constituents, whom we are here to serve and support.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).