Social Security

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Brendan O'Hara

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

As much as on one level I would love to say otherwise, with some reluctance I say that we will not oppose this statutory instrument this evening. However, just because we do not seek to block these paltry, parsimonious increases to some social security benefits, Government Members should not think for one moment that we think that these miserable, inflation-linked rises are in any way adequate or go far enough to assist those in our society who are in most need of help.

[Alison Thewliss]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the WASPI women are one such group who deserve a pay rise and deserve the money that they have paid in but have not received? Does he pay credit to the women who came to march in Govan a couple of weeks ago not just from Scotland, but from other parts of these islands?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I absolutely do. My hon. Friend and many other Opposition Members have been fantastic champions of the WASPI women. I pay tribute to the WASPI women—in my time as a Member of Parliament, I do not think that I have come across a more co-ordinated, invigorated group. Those who attended in Govan should be left in no doubt that we know that they have not gone away and that they will not go away until justice is done.

As far as the Scottish National party is concerned, the Government stand accused of deliberately widening the gaps in the social safety net. If they push on with the final year of the benefit freeze, they will do so in the full and certain knowledge that those gaps will get wider. As they widen, low-income families, children, the sick, the working poor, the unemployed, the vulnerable and disabled people will continue to fall through that net—the collateral damage in the Government’s ideological crusade to seek to balance their books on the backs of the weakest in our society. I believe that, along with the catastrophic Brexit that we are about to face, entrenching poverty across the UK will be this Government’s legacy. I reiterate that these cuts are not a necessity. This is a political choice. These cuts are simply ideological.

Almost two years ago, the Prime Minister said famously, in response to a nurse who asked why she and her colleagues had not been given a pay rise, that

“there isn’t a magic money tree that we can shake that suddenly provides for everything that people want”.

Really? No magic money tree? You could have fooled me, because as far as I can see, there always seems to be a magic money tree handy when the Prime Minister needs £1.6 billion to bribe English MPs to back her appalling Brexit deal. There always seems to be one when her Government need to find £1 billion to buy off the Democratic Unionist party in order to keep themselves in power. Of course, there is always a magic money tree around when the historically hopeless Transport Secretary needs to be bailed out when he—as we know he will—messes things up again. Perhaps a more accurate answer to that nurse would have been, “Of course there’s magic money tree but not for the likes of you and those others who need it most.” Perhaps an even more honest answer would have been, “Of course there’s a magic money true, and you and the millions of people across the UK hammered by this Government for almost a decade are that money magic tree,” because the billions of pounds taken from the poorest and most vulnerable in our society have gone to bankroll much of the Government’s programme, and it has left deep wounds across many communities in the United Kingdom.

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[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is making some very good points about the cost of living. Is he aware that the UK Government’s cuts and their restricting of the child element of universal credit to the first two children in a family mean that a single mum with three kids working 16 hours on the Government’s pretendy living wage will have to work 45 hours to make up the difference from the cuts?

[Brendan O'Hara]

I was aware of that. The statistics are shocking, as I will come on to shortly.

In this, its final and most punishing year, the benefits freeze will claw back nearly £4.5 billion. That is nearly £1 billion more than the amount for which the Government budgeted. Late last year, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that, by lifting the freeze a year early, the Government could take 200,000 out of poverty. Given the economic turmoil that is expected as a result of Brexit, the Government know that the quickest way in which they could get money to those who need it most would be simply to lift the freeze. It is not too late to do that. As we heard from the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), they could introduce primary legislation as soon as they wanted in order to remove the four-year freeze section from the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, and they could introduce a statutory instrument to uprate benefits ahead of April. Like the hon. Lady, I can guarantee the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends if the Government were to take that bold and imaginative step.

We said at the outset, back in 2015, that the imposition of a benefits freeze was morally reprehensible, but to continue that freeze in the face of the almost unprecedented economic uncertainty caused by Brexit would, in my opinion, be an unforgivable abuse of the weakest and the most vulnerable in our society. In his report of November 2018, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights wrote:

“Given the vast number of policies, programs and spending priorities that will need to be addressed over the next few years, and the major changes that will inevitably accompany them, it is the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society who will be least able to cope and will take the biggest hit.”

Worryingly, he also wrote that, on the basis of his meeting with UK Government officials,

“it was clear…that the impact of Brexit on people in poverty is an afterthought”.

If, back in 2015, the Government intended those receiving benefits to suffer the effects of austerity more than most, they have certainly succeeded. Recently published statistics from the Resolution Foundation make sobering reading. According to the foundation, basic support for jobseekers will be equivalent to 14.5% of average earnings in 2019-20, its lowest ever level. Only once since its introduction in 1979 has child benefit for a first child been lower, and for a family with two children, its value has never been lower.

We all know that the 2015 Budget contained some of the most punitive cuts in social security that this country has ever seen, which are now beginning to actively reverse previous reductions in child poverty. Today, in some of the poorest areas of the United Kingdom, child poverty rates are running at 50%. That is an unbelievable figure in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, although, sadly, it is all too believable in one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. According to Oxfam’s analysis of the 2016 Credit Suisse report, just 600,000 of the UK’s richest people are worth 20 times as much as the poorest 13 million combined.

It is predicted that, if the Government continue on the same path, 200,000 more children will be growing up in poverty by 2020. The Resolution Foundation has said that child poverty is projected to rise by a further 6% by 2024, which would mark a record high. I understand that the Government will soon publish some very damning child poverty statistics, but must we wait for those figures to come out before the Government start to listen to calls for them to change direction? According to the Child Poverty Action Group and the Institute for Public Policy Research, Government policy, particularly the two-child policy, will be responsible for pushing hundreds of thousands of children into poverty. When giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee in December 2018, CPAG said of the two-child policy:

“You could not design a better policy to increase child poverty than this one”.

[Alison Thewliss]

That is absolutely right. It is welcome that the Secretary of State rowed back on making the policy retrospective, but it will still have a huge impact on child poverty in the future. If it is unfair to some families, it should be deemed to be unfair to all of them, and the policy should go altogether.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Absolutely. I could not have put it better myself.

What the Government have created is a social security system that believes people can be punished out of poverty. They have created a system where benefits are fraught with the threat of sanctions, and where disability assessments are psychologically and physically distressing and involve an appeals system so complex and drawn out that they actively discourage claimants from accessing the support they are due.

This is not a system based on dignity or respect; it is a system where all too often compassion is the exception. This is a system deliberately designed to afford the individual claimant as little personal respect as possible, and a system deliberately designed to make the poorest and most vulnerable in our society pick up the tab for an increasingly incompetent Government as they desperately cling to power.

Exiting the European Union (Structural and Investment Funds)

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Brendan O'Hara

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara]

My hon. Friend is right that it is vital that our farmers have the ability to plan into the future. At the moment, we enjoy that ability to plan long term, and the fear is that that is being taken away.

The common fisheries policy is co-financed in Scotland through the European maritime and fisheries fund, and Scotland is allocated 44% of the total UK figure, with £42 million—over 80% of the Scottish allocation—already committed to projects. Competitive funds are awarded directly by the European Commission to organisations, and that includes significant research, innovation and education exchange programmes. Since 2014, Scottish organisations have secured €533 million of Horizon 2020 funding, €65 million of Erasmus+ funding and €58 million of European Territorial Cooperation funding. Even since 2016, the European Investment Bank group has signed loans worth €2 billion for projects in Scotland.

These EU-funded programmes represent a vital source of funding to communities right across Scotland, but as I said earlier, they are particularly important to peripheral communities, which are in greater need of support. That is why, when the question was asked in 2016 whether we wished to remain part of the European Union, every single part of Scotland, without exception, urban and rural, said yes to staying in the EU. Our communities knew—and still know—the benefits of being a member of the European Union and the significant difference that that has made to their lives, economically, socially and culturally.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making some great points. Is he aware that urban areas such as Glasgow have hugely benefited as well? Since 2010, regional selective assistance grants to businesses in Glasgow have provided more than £83 million of investment and created 7,292 jobs.

[Brendan O'Hara]

It is absolutely remarkable that all 32 Scottish local authority areas—urban and rural, with the vast differences that exist between them—said with one voice that we as a nation wished to remain in the European Union. That cannot and should not be ignored. Its significance cannot be underplayed.

The loss of the funds I listed earlier could be absolutely devastating for our farming and fishing communities. As yet, there are no guarantees about the continuity of these funds beyond 2020. Here we are, a month from Brexit day, and there is still no certainty for our farming and fishing communities as they plan for the future.

Yemen

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Brendan O'Hara

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes, and that incident was absolutely appalling and shocking. Nobody can fail to be upset by the pictures of those Somali people, who have suffered enough without being bombed.

Ministers must make sure that the cranes, which have been bought and paid for, are installed in Hudaydah. That would turn on the taps: it would get aid and commercial operations flowing again, and get things moving.

Hudaydah’s strategic importance is recognised by both the Houthis and the Saudis. Aid agencies, including the UN, fear that the conflict in and around Hudaydah is ramping up, which must be prevented at all costs. Half a million people would be displaced and it would make aid efforts all but impossible. Yemen’s primary port cannot be a frontline in this conflict, and I seek the assurance of Ministers that they will pursue the matter.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. We have already heard about the ridiculous situation of the UK Government giving aid with one hand while arming the antagonists with the other. Does she agree that famine relief and a ceasefire can come about only with the immediate suspension of the Government’s selling of arms to the Saudi regime, which has already been found to be guilty of breaches of international humanitarian law?

[Alison Thewliss]

Absolutely. As I said in Foreign Office questions earlier, £3.3 billion has been made from arms licences over the past two years, which dwarfs the £85 million in Government aid, welcome though that is. The arms sales must stop now. Peace will not happen if bombs continue to rain down on the heads of people in Yemen.

The UK Government’s role in establishing the UN verification and inspection mechanism at the port of Hudaydah, inspecting the goods entering Yemen’s ports while they are still at sea, is welcome, but Save the Children told me yesterday that that has not prevented the Saudi-led coalition from carrying out its own inspections, thereby delaying vital aid shipments. That can mean a delay of up to three months in delivering aid and medical supplies, leaving aid workers making life and death decisions on the ground about who they can help with dwindling resources.

Some shipments have been diverted from Hudaydah and around the coast to the smaller port of Aden, meaning that convoys have instead to complete the dangerous journey overland, via checkpoints and across the frontline, adding at least another three weeks to the time taken for that aid to reach the people it needs to reach and risking the lives of everybody on the convoy.

Moving goods and people across the country also requires confirmation of deconfliction from authorities in Yemen, without which the convoy will become a target in the war, and nobody wants that to happen. Other Members will no doubt outline the grave mistakes and errors that have happened during air strikes. NGOs based in the country tell me that they are fearful for the lives of their workers at every single checkpoint where they get stopped. They become targets, regardless of the assurances given to them by the governing parties and their warm words.

All the organisations I have met have stressed the difficulty of moving around Yemen, the complications with visas and the delays caused by petty bureaucracy. Some agencies have not been able to make field visits to support their operations on the ground and to bring back evidence that will enable funders to encourage more people to donate to their campaigns. They are not being well enough supported by the Government agencies that should be facilitating aid.

There are increasing problems in getting to Yemen, with limitations on travel by land and sea. Sana’a airport is also closed and people cannot leave, including those who seek urgent medical assistance. I ask the Government to speak to the Saudis about removing that blockage so that people can get in and out by air and receive treatment.

All the delays are costing lives and leaving the population with long-term health problems as a result of severe malnutrition. For want of clean water and a suitable diet, people are less able to fight off disease and their immune systems are more susceptible to cholera. There have been a suspected 22,000 cholera cases in 15 governorates in the past six months alone, and at least 100 people have died as a result. Tragically, UNICEF estimates that 63,000 children died in 2016 from preventable diseases linked to malnutrition. That is 8,500 more children than were born in the whole of Scotland last year. That is a generation. The future of Yemen hangs in the balance, and the Government must do more.