Inclusive Society

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA. What a tremendous debate has been brought here today by my noble friend Lady Lister, a leading expert on poverty and social policy. Her powerful opening speech demonstrated knowledge and experience in a devastatingly accurate way. It was inspirational, thought-provoking and an opening for many noble Lords to speak from their own expertise on these most important subjects. I am sure we will return to these topics time and time again as our country tries to recover from what has happened to us and we build back a better and more inclusive society—a society for all, as noted by my noble friend Lord Touhig.

This pandemic has shown us all who we truly are as countries. The sheer determination of people to help others in need has shone a light on the community spirit found in every town, village and city across our nations and regions. The kindness of not only nurses and doctors but of all key workers, such as supermarket staff, teachers and delivery drivers, has made us all aware of who really keeps our four nations running. The vaccine, from the scientists of Oxford to all the workers and volunteers involved in the rollout, has shown us the tremendous success we can find if we unite behind a common purpose.

However, the pandemic has also made it all too clear that we live in an unequal society. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said, it has been a magnifier of every inequality and injustice. The IFS estimates that, during the pandemic, black Caribbean deaths are 1.8 times those of white British; Pakistani deaths are 2.7 times as high; and black African fatalities three times higher. The same study also found that Bangladeshi men are four times more likely than their white counterparts to have jobs in industries which have been closed. On top of this, research by the BMA revealed that almost double the proportion of BAME doctors have felt pressurised to work in settings with insufficient PPE, compared with their white counterparts. The comments made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, referring to Trevor Phillips were somewhat partial when talking about racism and racial inequalities. The point Trevor Phillips made was that racial inequalities are a feature of UK society, but they are being exploited in different ways by people with extreme views and those wishing to exacerbate cultural divisions in society. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, summed it up perfectly just now when she said that protected characteristics need to continue to be protected in our unequal society.

Women too have been disproportionately impacted by the effects of the pandemic, especially since they are more likely to work in sectors which have been hit hardest by lockdowns. According to the Autonomy think tank, over 77% of “high risk” roles during this crisis are occupied by women. The closure of schools and nurseries has impacted millions of parents’ ability to work. This particularly affects women, who are more likely to have unpaid caring responsibilities.

The Committee will also no doubt be aware of the impact of the pandemic on disabled people, who have made up around six in 10 of all deaths involving Covid-19, with the risk of death three times greater for more severely disabled people. In addition to this, disabled people have had significant reductions in the support they need to live independently. Last August, Mencap found that, during the first lockdown, 69% of people with a learning disability had had their social care cut or reduced.

There is also a class divide, which has been brutally exposed. The number of fatalities in the most deprived areas is proportionately far higher than in more affluent ones. On top of this, living with restrictions has been more difficult for those on lower incomes, due to digital exclusion and smaller living spaces, as powerfully expressed by my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lady Drake, who noted that adults are three times more likely to rent, rather than buy, houses than 20 years ago. Both emphasised the huge digital and technological gap, with limited skills and access to technology. We have seen problems across our school systems, with pupils being unable to access blended learning provided by their teachers. Schemes produced to adjust this imbalance have been woefully inadequate.

While it is true that, at times, the pandemic has shown the absolute best of our countries—as a kind, compassionate and determined society—we must also recognise the brutal inequalities which have been laid bare. These divisions intersect: we know, for instance, that black and disabled women are overrepresented in precarious labour. To truly understand how unequal our society can be, we must look at how inequalities connect and relate to each other, rather than considering them as stand-alone issues. Instead of accepting these inequalities as an inevitability, as this Government so often seem to, we need to use this moment to confront them.

My noble friend Lady Sherlock likened the pandemic to the effects of Hurricane Maria, with the longer-term impact of the storm causing a huge shock. Covid disproportionately affected the poorer in our society and will continue to do so. Some 6 million people have been swept into debt, seeing wages fall fastest among lower-income families. I was so struck by her comment about those children who have “chosen their parents with care”. That was a typically understated line from my wise and compassionate noble friend, who always gets to the heart of the matter when supporting those with the greatest need in our society, and she is right when she says that the flourishing of each depends on the flourishing of all.

As the United Kingdom exits from the pandemic, we have an opportunity to ask ourselves who we want to be as a country. We cannot afford to rebuild Britain on the same foundations of inequality which have left so many people vulnerable. We must instead build a more inclusive society, reflecting our values as a country. My noble friend Lord Mandelson offered good advice to the Government when he said that policies require coherence rather than disjointed ventures and that government ideas need scaling and continuity with vision and vigour. My noble friend Lady Royall spoke expertly about the need to build back better and the great determination to bring about an inclusive economy in the work done in Oxford with the Inclusive Economy Partnership, as an ambition to hardwire into the economy.

As a former council leader, I am acutely aware—as I am sure the Minister himself will be—of the power of public procurement. However, the Government need to divest themselves of some of their powers, as indeed the Welsh Government have done in their local government Act, and move them to local authorities. Provisions in that Act, particularly the introduction of a general power of competence and corporate joint committees, will enable Welsh councils to build on the innovation and joint working which have been instrumental in and successful for dealing with the pandemic in Wales.

My noble friend Lord Hendy spoke powerfully about the need to heed the advice of the OECD and fulfil the commitment to reintroduce collective bargaining and social dialogue at work, which will bring opportunities to develop an appropriate and respectful work environment. We have seen during this pandemic the utter dependence upon so many of our key and front-line workers, and they must be rewarded appropriately and dealt with fairly.

My noble friend Lady Lister noted, among her many excellent and thoughtful points, that in her work as a social policy analyst she had previously been critical of how successive Governments had looked to the USA for their social policy inspiration. However, she said that her view had now changed significantly with the new presidency of Joe Biden, who has reasserted the importance of government at all levels and who understands that building back better from a society riven by inequalities and insecurity is not just about building the physical infrastructure; it means investing in the social infrastructure of care services and what his Administration have called the “human infrastructure” of financial support for children and people in poverty. It is indeed inspirational.

When my noble friend Lord Griffiths referred to my noble friend Lady Lister’s published work on the topic of poverty, he found the most apposite idea, that mere statistics will not tell the whole story of poverty. However, one statistic that I believe is worth repeating is that of my noble friend Lord Grocott, who reminded us that 27 of the past 55 Prime Ministers of the UK have been educated at one of only two schools. That is a tiny, unrepresentative source, and indeed is a waste of talent from across many of our wonderful schools in the UK. I can assure the Committee that no former or current First Minister of Wales was educated at either of those two schools, but instead at Colwyn Bay Grammar School, Whitchurch Grammar School, Brynteg Comprehensive School and Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Carmarthen—a much wider range and balance of intake and demographic.

The nub of the challenge is: how do we change? What can we do to rebalance our society? To make a standing start we need to begin the following initiatives as a matter of urgency: a new race equality Act to end structural inequalities, as well as a proper strategy to address health and social care inequalities. We need equal pay reporting to be brought back immediately to monitor the impact of the pandemic, and we also need to tackle the violence against women and girls that has become endemic in the UK. Above all, we need a UK Government who acknowledge that the inequalities which exist in Britain today must be addressed, and if that means taking direct inspiration from the American playbook, then let us do so.

Of course, local government is also an essential part of physical, social and human infrastructure, and I am pleased that Labour candidates across the country are determined to make this happen and have demonstrated how local government leads in practice despite the savaging cuts in services over the past decade. As many noble Lords have said, the effects of the pandemic have not been felt equally. I am glad that Labour in local government is taking note of this as it works to rebuild our country. My noble friend Lord Haskel noted the precariousness of work, with some one in 10 workers facing losing their jobs and being rehired on far worse terms with this fire and rehire syndrome that will inevitably expand when the furlough ends. This is inequality in practice.

We sincerely hope that the restrictions we are currently living under will soon end and never return, but at present there is little hope that the inequalities brought to the surface by the pandemic will similarly disappear. I reiterate the call by my noble friend Lady Lister, at the conclusion of her speech, for the Minister to relay these key messages from this debate to his colleagues in other departments and ensure that they understand that it is all our responsibility in every Government and in every local authority. We are indebted to her for bringing these vital issues for debate to this House today. Let us use this moment to confront these issues, which have always existed but have now become more apparent than ever before. Let us build back a better Britain, which is confident enough to confront these inequalities, rather than accept them as inevitable.

I will conclude with a favourite line from the playwright JB Priestley, from a text that I taught to hundreds of school children over many years, and one that we must keep remembering in these uncertain times. We are a community, and

“We are responsible for each other.”