Ben Spencer
Main Page: Ben Spencer (Conservative - Runnymede and Weybridge)Department Debates - View all Ben Spencer's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I congratulate the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) on securing this debate. Although we might disagree on the ways of tackling poverty, I think we all agree on the need to do so.
I want to start by defining what I mean by in-work poverty. It is important that when we talk about poverty we use the correct definitions. The Work and Pensions Committee’s report on children in poverty goes into different definitions and how they are used and misused. I will use the standard definition of relative poverty. Many have focused on financial poverty, but I do not think that is the best definition. I prefer multi-modal models because I think poverty is about more than just money. It is also about educational and societal resources, but this debate has very much veered into the financial side.
On the financial side we look at inputs and outputs. Inputs are about wages, benefits and benefits top-ups, and outputs are about living costs. I want to focus on the outputs and what I call the two big beasts, which I have been campaigning on for some time—affordable housing and childcare. For affordable housing we need to sort out affordable rents. It horrifies me that in my constituency the No. 1 cause of someone being at risk of homelessness remains affordable rents, which we need to get sorted and fixed.
Childcare is also a particular challenge in terms of a big beast. It costs a lot. It is difficult for people to administer, particularly the requirement to pay up-front costs and then claim retrospectively when one is on benefits, as opposed to directly invoicing the Department for Work and Pensions. The 85% cap for people on benefits is not enough to cover childcare costs for many people. For those in receipt of 15 to 30 hours’ free childcare, certainly if they live in my constituency, lots of childcare providers require top-ups, so the idea that it is 15 to 30 hours of free childcare is illusory. Many people need financial top-ups over and above that provision. The provision is very generous, but it could be more generous still.
Childcare is also a barrier to in-work progression. Lots of people who work part time face childcare costs. When they want to increase their hours, there is a diminishing return in terms of the taper. I welcome the reduction of a taper in terms of UC payback, but that on top of increasing childcare means that when someone moves from 36 to 40 hours a week, they see relatively little return for the extra hours of work. That acts as a substantial disincentive; we need to look carefully at how we can support people who want to work—and make sure that work always pays.
Besides cost, availability of childcare is a huge problem; it remains a disincentive to work for people who are not on the breadline. I speak to lots of people on the doorstep who tell me about the challenges of childcare provision and costs when returning to work—people previously in quite high-flying careers. There are some areas where we can fix that. We can look at ratios of childminders to children. We can look at increasing school hours; I would support a move to a more continental model around that. Reducing the cap on benefits and providing more childcare support for people who are on benefits is another area we can look at.