Tackling Poverty in the UK

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling poverty in the UK.

Helping people in the UK to escape poverty is one of the key challenges for the new Government and something that we are passionate about achieving. Although this Administration face one of the biggest financial challenges in our peacetime history, we are determined that we will not act in a way that leaves behind some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. Before Labour Members contribute to this afternoon’s debate, I hope that they will think back to their 13 years in power in times when they felt able to spend money freely, and remind themselves just how little progress was made with so much money.

Within days of taking office we saw the release of official poverty statistics, and what a bleak picture of progress they painted: 18% of people in the UK today live below the official poverty line, defined as a typical family, comprising a couple with two children under 14, having an income before housing costs of less than £342 a week. Official research has shown the number of children who live in families where even the most basic needs cannot be met. Of children in households with incomes in the bottom 20%, more than half live in families who cannot afford to replace worn-out furniture or broken electrical goods, and about two thirds cannot afford to make a saving of £10 a month. Of course, families under pressure to meet their daily needs are likely to see making provision for their retirement as a relatively low priority, which adds further to poverty down the line.

We believe that the last Government went wrong because they simply did not understand the nature of the poverty problem in this country. With one or two notable exceptions—I shall return to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) later in my speech—they seemed to believe that Whitehall knew best: they always talked about poverty simply in terms of money and seldom demonstrated a clear understanding of the far deeper problems that can leave so many people struggling. Behind the facts and figures—beyond the statistics and the measures of material deprivation—lie incredibly complex and challenging issues.

Poverty is not just about income. Family breakdown, a lack of experience of work and education in the home, a lack of experience of parenting in the home—all contribute to a climate of poverty. Some children are brought up without even a single stable family home or in households that are ridden with the challenges of addiction. All of that shapes someone’s chances of getting on or not getting on in life.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

A debate on child poverty, which I introduced, was held yesterday in Westminster Hall. Will the Minister confirm that, according to Barnardo’s, at the conclusion of 13 years of Labour Government the number of children living in poverty totalled 3.9 million?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I say what a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair this afternoon?

I welcome the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), to his new post. I know that on 5 May he thought he would become the Home Secretary, but the Department for Work and Pensions is a great Department, with excellent officials and a fantastic network of dedicated public servants throughout the whole country, and I hope he enjoys his time there as much as I enjoyed mine.

I have been trying to picture how the new ministerial team meetings are going, and I guess that the right hon. Gentleman has a pivotal role in mediating between the Secretary of State, who believes that family breakdown is a key issue that must be addressed, and their new colleague, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), who said:

“To hear Conservative Front Benchers suggest that they even care about this subject...is…unbelievable.”—[ Official Report, 20 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 625.]

I was wondering why the right hon. Gentleman had been given that job, and whether it was because of his famed diplomatic skills, but then I remembered that it was in fact because he used to be a member of the Social and Democratic party—until he was swallowed up by the Conservatives. So he really is the prototype for the new coalition politics.

We have said that we want to be a constructive Opposition, supporting when we agree and criticising when we do not, and I must say that the Minister has not given a fair or accurate account of the Labour Government’s achievements in tackling poverty. Over the 13 years in which we were in power, we reversed the trend of rising poverty and lifted 900,000 pensioners out of poverty and 500,000 children out of relative poverty. On the statistics published only last month, we see that 2 million children were also lifted out of absolute poverty.

[Bob Russell]

Is the hon. Lady aware of early-day motions 61 and 62? The first is on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation audit of poverty, which shows that poverty is at the same level as it was in 2000. The second is on a study by the Fabian Society and the Webb Memorial Trust, which shows that 20% of the population lives in poverty. Is that really a triumph of new Labour’s 13 years?

[Helen Goodman]

The latest year for which we have figures is 2008-09, and the hon. Gentleman must take account of the fact that since then two things have been going on: first, we have had to face the global recession; and secondly, the Labour Government have put in train all the measures from the 2007 Budget. Our calculations were that they would lift a further 500,000 children out of poverty, so the hon. Gentleman slightly overstates his case.

[Bob Russell]

The hon. Lady suggests that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Fabian Society and the Webb Memorial Trust, all of which are nominal supporters of new Labour, have got it wrong.

[Helen Goodman]

No, I do not suggest that at all. I suggest that those statistics are selective and that, if we take the decade as a whole, we see an extremely positive record on poverty across the board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I am of course interested to hear about what is going on in Gloucestershire. I do not know whether DWP Ministers have yet had time to engage with their colleagues at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but the regulatory issues mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) clearly need to be addressed in conjunction with that Department.

I should like to turn to the issue of free school meals, on which I hope to be able to offer the new ministerial team some constructive advice. I do not know if they have seen the letter that the Secretary of State for Education sent to my right hon. Friend the shadow Education Secretary on 7 June, in which he says that he plans to discuss the whole issue of free school meals with DWP colleagues. Labour Members are disappointed that the Secretary of State has decided not to go ahead with extending the eligibility of free school meals to the 500,000 children in primary schools whose parents are on working tax credits. He says in his letter:

“I am sympathetic to the arguments for extending eligibility—though surprised that a decision to do so was taken before any evidence on the impact on attainment could be collected from pilots.”

That argument is not wholly unfamiliar to us. However, I would like the Minister to understand that we decided to go ahead with extending eligibility to those 500,000 children not only because we expected it to have a beneficial impact on their performance in school but because it is estimated that it would lift 50,000 children out of poverty and would be a serious improvement to the quality of work incentives. I strongly urge him to ask his officials if he could look at the analysis of the most cost-effective measures for addressing child poverty, because I believe he will see, as we did, that this is one of the most effective things that could be done. As the Education Department team are not here, I point out that another advantage of the measure is that it does not come off the DWP budget. This delay will be seriously disappointing for large numbers of families across the country. I urge the Government not to begin their tenure by repeating Mrs Thatcher’s snatching of the milk.

[Bob Russell]

I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Lady’s point, but I have to tell her—I researched this for an Adjournment debate that I had in the last Parliament—that it was the legislation of the last Labour Government that paved the way for the withdrawal of school meals services. Certainly, the Tories in Essex used that legislation to go down the route of removing the school meals service. Perhaps she should look at the Education Act 1944, and then she will see what a proper Labour Government used to do.

[Helen Goodman]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman look at the Child Poverty Act 2010, in which we extended the eligibility of free school meals—that was a proper action by a proper Labour Government.

I said earlier that in our 13 years we had a political objective of decreasing poverty together with the policies to make it happen. I welcome the fact that the coalition has said that it will maintain the objective of ending child poverty, and that those living in poverty will be protected as the Government deal with the deficit. Indeed, the Prime Minister has said:

“The test of a good society is how…you protect the poorest, the most vulnerable, the elderly, the frail.”

The Deputy Prime Minister has even said that the cuts will be “progressive”. Labour Members will hold them to that, but I have to say that the omens are not good.