Tackling Poverty in the UK

Anne Begg Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is an important point. We must encourage and work with employers, and we should start at home. Whitehall and Government Departments and agencies should be at the forefront of finding the best ways to provide opportunities for people with disabilities, and that will be a priority for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. If we do not lead from the front, no one else will, and that is something that we certainly want to see happen.

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

How will the Minister encourage employers to employ people with mental health problems when the stigma is so great? We have had recent examples of discrimination against people who have disclosed mental health problems.

[Chris Grayling]

First, I congratulate the hon. Lady on her election to the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. My colleagues and I look forward to being grilled by her in the months ahead, but I hope that we will have a constructive relationship. I hope that we can listen openly to the ideas that come from her Committee and that we can work together to make a difference on some of these issues.

I very much agree with the hon. Lady on mental health issues. One thing that I hope will come through the Work programme, where we have established providers with specialist skills working with employers and people who have had mental health challenges in their lives, is that we will have the kind of partnership that will break some of these barriers down. Once a provider starts to work with a group of employers, starts to bring good people to them, and that works well, more doors will be opened. The hon. Lady makes an important point; more than 2 million people are on incapacity benefit and many have supplemental health problems, and they must be looked after in the Work programme and we must ensure that it delivers opportunities for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Let me begin, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by welcoming you to your new position in the Chair. I noticed a glint in your eye when two maiden speakers, the hon. Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), managed to mention, respectively, the opening of a pub and the brewing industry in their constituencies. I am sure that both those things are very dear to your heart, and I hope that you will enjoy yourself in your new role.

As the first Back-Bench non-maiden speaker to speak today, I think it only fair, before I turn to the matters in hand, to pay tribute to the five maiden speakers whom we have heard this afternoon. I am very impressed: all the maiden speeches that I have heard over the last few weeks have been superb, and I think that that augurs very well for the future of the House of Commons and its importance in the life of Parliament.

The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole spoke in a very easy style, with plenty of humour. I suspect that that is because he was once a teacher. As a former secondary school teacher myself, I can tell him that the behaviour in the House of Commons is probably far, far worse than that of his worst secondary school class.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), a fellow Co-operative, paid tribute to her predecessor, Patricia Hewitt. I hope that she will continue the work that Patricia did, particularly in regard to the equalities agenda. Patricia certainly caused a stir when she was Business Secretary, because she was the first woman to fill the post. I clearly remember her coming to Aberdeen to open one of the offshore oil and gas fields in a very male-dominated industry. She was a breath of fresh air, but I am sure that the new Member for Leicester West will be as well, and I welcome her to the House.

The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) waxed lyrical about the beauty of her constituency. If hon. Members do not appreciate their own constituencies, no one else will, and it was clear from her speech that she loves the area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) has inherited what I believe is the second-longest constituency name in the House. I think that the longest belongs to the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander), but I have not counted the letters. I know that the right hon. Gentleman and Rosemary McKenna, my hon. Friend’s predecessor, had some arguments as to whose constituency name was the most difficult to pronounce. I was glad that my hon. Friend paid such a warm tribute to Rosemary, because she was one of my close friends in the House and I miss her very much. I hope that he will pass my best wishes on to her in her retirement. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make her retirement dinner, as it is on the one weekend that I have off in the next two months, but I would have loved to have been there. My hon. Friend might not remember his predecessor but one, Norman Hogg, who came from Aberdeen. He returned to Aberdeen to retire and played an important part in my election campaign, particularly in 2005. Unfortunately, he has since died, and we missed him during this election.

My hon. Friend was not shy in stating his views in his maiden speech. He was clear in the way that he argued his case—certainly in what he said about there not being a false divide between the private and the public sector. I imagine that he will add a great deal of intellect to future debates in the House.

The last maiden speech up to now, by the hon. Member for Burton, was very impressive. He spoke without any notes, which will stand him in good stead, as one of the worst things that can happen when a Member speaks is when Members from the opposing side shout “Reading!” at them. Perhaps it is just as well that the rules of the House have changed and that Members can no longer make four-hour speeches such as the one by his predecessor that he mentioned. The hon. Gentleman will also be a credit to his constituency and we welcome him, as we do all the others. I, too, was very friendly with his predecessor, Janet Dean, and his description of her as a mother figure was all too accurate.

I, too, have a new job this afternoon, Mr Deputy Speaker, as the new Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, and I thank those hon. Members who voted for me. Let me also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who was a formidable opponent. It was a very close fight, and she would have made an excellent Chair of the Committee. We worked well together in the 2001-05 Parliament. This afternoon, she showed her talent for holding the Executive to account in questioning the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). I would have liked to welcome him to his job, but unfortunately he is no longer in his place. Such questioning is clearly the role of Select Committees, which are the workhorses of the House. They play an important role and I hope that the Work and Pensions Committee does its job well in holding this Executive to account. Shadow Ministers all say that Select Committees are very important when they are in opposition, but they might change their mind when they get into government.

I was a little disappointed by the way in which the Minister of State handled the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North, because he managed to avoid answering it. I hope that he was not setting the tone for the future. He failed to answer what she was clearly asking, which was what this Conservative Government, albeit a coalition Government, would do differently from the previous Conservative Government, after whom there was an increasing level of poverty, particularly child poverty, an increasing divide between the rich and poor and an increasing dislocation in many communities. As he did not answer that question, I, too, would like to put it to the Government.

As far as I can gather from what the Minister of State said, the Government will do what the Labour Government did, but a lot better with a lot less money. I did not hear what I expected to hear—new ideas and what will be different. For example, what will be different about the way in which the Government deal with mental health issues? I asked about that in my intervention, but his answer could have come from a Minister in the previous Government, because it was about what the previous Government were doing. So, what they were doing must have been working, if the new Government are not saying that they would do anything different that will work better.

We know that these issues are difficult and need to be tackled, but let me say what the Labour Government did. We introduced the minimum wage, tax credits, child care credits, the child trust fund and pension credits. They were all introduced through practical legislation that tackled the issue of poverty. They were not just warm words or aspirations—they were things that made a difference. On top of all that, we introduced a number of universal benefits to make sure that everyone benefited from the welfare state, not just those at the bottom end. For example, we made sure that there was an increase in child benefit. I do not whether the new Government intend to tax child benefit or whether it will continue to rise at the rate it was rising under the previous Government. Those were all important, practical measures that tackled poverty.

The last Government did other important things such as introducing Sure Start, which we have not seen the results of yet as the first generation of Sure Start children are only just leaving primary school. My worry is that the longitudinal, intergenerational, changing measures that we put in place will be undermined by the new Government, and I seek assurances that they will not, because we know that early intervention works. Indeed, it is one of the few ways in which to tackle the intergenerational poverty that has blighted our society. I hope that the new Government will do more than just say the warm words that we have heard this afternoon. I hope that they will do practical things to make sure that those of our citizens who still live in poverty soon no longer will.