Alternative Measures to GDP

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Savage]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s perspective that, in rural areas in particular, the aspects of our quality of life that are not measured in financial terms are very much overlooked by GDP. He makes an excellent point that, in fact, using GDP as the pre-eminent metric disproportionately impacts on rural ways of life.

As I was saying, if my assumptions about what Governments are for are correct, how well does GDP measure whether Governments are succeeding? My answer to that would be: poorly, partially and, in some important respects—as already mentioned by others—not at all. I want to take each function in turn, looking at how GDP either misses or distorts it, or actively points in the wrong direction. First, on safety, GDP cannot measure whether people feel safe, whether crime is falling or whether justice is accessible. However, it counts the cost of building more prisons and policing more disorder, so a rise in violent crime, followed by the state’s response to it, actually adds to GDP. Secondly, on fairness, GDP is just an average; it tells us nothing about distribution. A country could have record growth, but the majority could be growing poorer while a handful are growing extraordinarily rich. It counts the billionaire’s yacht and the foodbank donation as contributions to national output alike.

Thirdly, public goods are where the distortion is most severe. GDP has no entry for clean rivers, unpolluted air, well-functioning flood defences or thriving natural ecosystems. Instead, it records the cost of remediation when things go wrong, never the value of prevention. In my South Cotswolds constituency, the Thames headwaters and the Cotswolds water meadows absolutely underpin food security, flood resilience and community health, but GDP is blind to all those things. Logging a forest, draining a wetland and concreting a floodplain all register as economic activity and contribute to GDP, while the loss of the natural ecosystems that made those landscapes valuable disappears without a trace.

Fourthly, on stability and risk, GDP counts healthcare spending, but it cannot tell us whether people are getting and feeling healthier. It counts anti-depressants and ambulance call-outs as contributions to output. By the logic of GDP, a pandemic is an economic opportunity. Fifthly, collective choices about the future are possibly where GDP fails most completely. It has no mechanism for accounting for the harm to future generations. By design, it rewards short-term thinking, and it is constitutionally incapable of answering the question, “What kind of a country do we want to be 50 years from now?”

The conclusion is inescapable: GDP was designed to measure the volume of economic activity, no matter what form that activity takes. Using it to assess whether a Government are fulfilling their five core functions is like using a thermometer to tell us whether a patient has recovered. The patient’s temperature may be perfectly normal, but their leg may have fallen off.

I have a couple of quotes worth remembering. Robert F. Kennedy put it with devastating precision in 1968. He said that GDP

“does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play…It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Meanwhile, Simon Kuznets—the economist who actually invented GDP in response to the great depression of the 1930s—had already warned that it should not be used as a measure of national wellbeing, yet we have been ignoring his advice ever since.

Unfortunately, GDP is not just partial; it can be actively misleading, because it creates perverse incentives at the heart of Government. As the Wellbeing Economy Alliance observes, our current system has four interlinked flaws: it is unsustainable, unfair, unstable and creates unhappiness. Critically, neither the brake nor the accelerator works any more. Faster GDP growth will only worsen biodiversity loss and accelerate climate change. In a system where a fabulously wealthy former Prime Minister pays an effective tax rate of just 23%, it will almost certainly also worsen inequality. That is the trap that GDP has built for us. It is a metric that makes it structurally challenging to do the right thing, because doing the right thing does not always show up as growth.

Moves have already been made in Britain in this direction, and we already have the data, but we do not use it. I will give credit where credit is due. When he was Prime Minister, the former Member for Witney, Lord Cameron, launched the Office for National Statistics national wellbeing programme, and also quoted Robert Kennedy. Since 2011, the ONS has published a framework tracking national wellbeing across 60 measures and 10 topic areas, across personal wellbeing, health, relationships, environment, governance and more. In February of this year, the ONS launched a new set of seven headline measures to be updated quarterly, explicitly aligned with the UN high-level expert group’s recommendations.

We have the data and what it tells us is striking. Since the pandemic, self-reported health has been in sustained decline. Trust in Government rose briefly after the last general election before falling back to lower than pre-election levels. Those trends are invisible to GDP yet are essential to any honest assessment of how our country is doing. Sadly, those measures, no doubt laboriously collected, sit on the ONS website largely unread and almost entirely ignored by Government. I suggest that it is time to use them.

Elsewhere in the world, countries are moving ahead. They are building better measures, embedding them in law and using them to govern. Last week, I was at the Wellbeing Economy Forum, two days of serious exchange with policymakers, economists and practitioners from across the world. It was tremendously inspiring. Three things were unmistakeable: we have the intellectual case and the technical frameworks but the only thing missing in too many countries, including this one, is the political will.

I will cite three examples of countries showing what is possible. Iceland rebuilt after the economic collapse, not by chasing GDP recovery but asking its people what they wanted. It is now one of the wellbeing economy Governments, alongside Scotland, New Zealand, Wales, Finland and Canada, all of which have introduced wellbeing metrics to guide public policy and budgetary processes. In Wales—not so far away—the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 legally requires every public body to act in the long-term interests of the next seven generations. That was initiated by Jane Davidson, a woman I am proud to call my friend. While I was at the conference last week, I had a long conversation with Sophie Howe who was Wales’s first future generations commissioner, and is now an internationally respected voice. If it can be done in Cardiff, I see no reason why it cannot be done in Westminster.

Thirdly, in Sabah, Malaysia, my good friend Cynthia Ong began the Forever Sabah movement, with a single simple question: where will Sabah be in 50 years if it continues down its current development trajectory? That question should be the founding question of every Government; not how fast are we going, but where are we going and what will we leave behind?

I have requests of the Government that would make a significant difference to my constituents, to every person here in Westminster, to the country and to the generations not yet born. The first is to use the data we already have. I am delighted we have a Minister from the Treasury here. Maybe he could relay the request to ask the Treasury formally to integrate the ONS wellbeing dashboard into spending decisions, alongside GDP, not instead of it.

Secondly, to require natural capital accounting in all major infrastructure and land-use decisions, so that the destruction of a flood plain, a peatland or a water catchment carries a recorded cost on the national balance sheet, not just a planning objection. If we value it, we must measure it. Thirdly, to introduce a parliamentary committee for the future, as called for by a coalition of organisations, including the School of International Futures and the Policy Institute at King’s College London. The committee would consider the long-term wellbeing of those who will inherit the consequences of today’s decisions. It should be not just a gesture but a committee with real teeth. Wales has shown that that is entirely achievable.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Lady add to her list a request that the Minister consider a formal target to cut inequality in this country? We will never grow our way to a good life for all our citizens while we have a fundamentally unjust society; we will only break the environmental boundaries we are already rapidly burning past.

[Dr Savage]

I thank the hon. Member for his very insightful intervention. In the doughnut economics model, we are in many ways in “overshoot”, while the basic needs of many in our society are not even being met. That is one of the major failings of GDP: it does not show how the benefits of growth and the wealth of the country are being distributed. I have been very impressed by the work of Kate Pickett, who spoke at the recent Lib Dem spring conference on this very subject. She spoke about her “spirit level” concept and argued that greater equality in a society works better for everybody, including the people at the top.

If we are honest with ourselves, we can now see the cost of ignoring the warnings of Simon Kuznets and Robert Kennedy. We can see that warning embodied in polluted rivers that once ran clean, in communities that feel left behind and in a politics that too often measures success in pound signs rather than human outcomes. We have the evidence, and we have the frameworks; we just need the willingness to change the definition of what we value, because what we measure shapes what we prioritise, what we prioritise shapes our decisions and our decisions shape the country that we will be in five years, 10 years and 50 years from now. Let us take an active choice to measure what matters: the wellbeing of our people, the health of our planet and the future we hand on to future generations. Let this Parliament be the one that finally aligns how we measure success with what success actually means.

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under you, Sir Alec. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on securing this debate and on her speech. I am glad to be here for three reasons. More than most Ministers, I enjoy a chance to discuss statistics, so that is high on the list. The second reason is that I agree with lots of what the hon. Member said about the broad purpose of government and the need to reflect all that in how we govern. The third reason is that everybody likes a quote from Bobby Kennedy, and she has supplied one.

I will start with some of the areas of less agreement and then come to our agreement, so that we can end on a high. A good summary of my view is that there is a very large amount more to life than GDP, but that the lack of GDP growth in recent years has been a very big problem for ordinary working people. That was the big absence in the hon. Member’s speech: she did not wrestle with the fact that the lack of GDP growth over the past 15 years has been a huge problem for the British people that has had real effects on all our constituents, particularly those on the lowest incomes. Much of her speech could have been given in 2010; it did not engage with the real world as we have lived it for 15 years, and the catastrophic consequences of a lack of productivity growth feeding through to a lack of wage growth, feeding through into food bank use and the rest. Those are really important things that her speech did not do justice to.

All of that does not mean that I do not agree with lots of the points she raised, but I see those as being entirely consistent with the Government’s view that economic growth does matter, but not as an end in itself. It matters because it remains one of the most reliable ways to raise living standards and because, for example, wages in Swansea, where I am a representative, did not grow between 2009 and 2023. That is what a failure of Government looks like, and it is a failure of GDP growth, not because of too much focus on GDP growth.

GDP is also important because it is very highly correlated with—I am not saying it is a cause of them—other things that we do care about: health and wellbeing. The correlation between longevity and GDP over time and across countries is very strong indeed. We all, I think, care about longevity because we are hoping to go on for as long as is humanly possible—not in speeches but in life generally.

It is good news that the UK has seen some signs of progress in GDP. It had the highest GDP growth among European countries in the G7 last year. The hon. Member will have seen recent GDP statistics for the start of this year, which show more significant growth than people expected. But—this is where I am in complete agreement with her—there is much more not just to life but to government and statistics than GDP. We care about secure power, clean water, lower poverty and lower inequality, not just higher GDP. All those things are incredibly important and we should care about all of them; Government’s job is to focus on them.

Let us turn to GDP and some arguments that that the hon. Member made about it. I will explain why I do not quite agree, even though I agree with many of the big-picture arguments that she made. Her argument was that there has been too much focus on GDP recently and that has led to bad outcomes. Has there been too much focus on GDP? If so, it has not had any effect because there have been the lowest levels of GDP growth that we have seen in a very long time. GDP per capita fell in the last Parliament—so there was apparently a huge focus on it but it fell. Growth in GDP per capita over the 10 years prior to that Parliament was incredibly sluggish. Was that because there was too much focus on it? No. That is why people oppose the building of houses: they do not care about younger generations or care enough about GDP; they just care about themselves, in some cases, and that is not acceptable any more.

Why, if we cared just about GDP, would successive Governments, disgracefully including the Liberal Democrats after 2010, have slashed public investment levels? Such public investment boosts GDP in the long run. That would be the target. It is a good thing for our society. It would make our country cleaner and help with clean water and the energy crisis, yet public investment levels were slashed. People were not motivated by GDP; they were motivated by easy politics. That is what happened in that Government.

The hon. Member gave the specific example that building prisons would boost GDP. Is that what actually happened? The last Governments, from 2010 onwards, did not build any prisons. They were not motivated by GDP; they were motivated by easy answers. That is why we have had to come into Government and deal with the prisons crisis that was left to us. What actually happened was the opposite of the argument that the hon. Member made.

It is sometimes argued that GDP and the other things that we care about are in tension. I totally agree. But remember: there is one area where they heavily overlap. GDP, in many ways, measures the effectiveness with which we turn resources into output. That is what we who are environmentalists should care about. We want things to become more productive. Fewer resources going in to produce the same output gets us higher GDP and a better environment. That is a really important point to hold on to. We have had a 17% fall in energy usage in the recent past. Some of that is because we have become more efficient at using that energy. That is absolutely the kind of productivity growth that we need; it helps GDP but it really helps the environment.

[Chris Hinchliff]

On the point about statistics and what GDP measures, I ask the Minister to take away the issue of imputed rent. A fairly strange part of GDP, it measures hypothetical rent on the value of existing houses, inflates the value of our GDP as a country, and could be part of what we are measuring when we say that we are trying to achieve GDP growth, though it is actually entirely theoretical.

[Torsten Bell]

A debate has come on to imputed rent; we can tell it is nearly 4.30 pm on a Tuesday. The hon. Member is tempting me—and I will engage with the question. What is the big picture that matters regarding the state of Britain when it comes to housing? I will come to why imputed rent is relevant to that and tells us something important.

Housing in Britain is too expensive—incredibly expensive —but most of the population of Britain do not face market housing costs because they are homeowners who bought a long time ago. The negative effect of those high housing costs is very severe for a subset of the population. If I am honest, I think that is why Liberal Democrats oppose house building left, right and centre: the consequences for younger generations of not having built, over the last 20 years, homes that they can live in, that keep their housing costs down and that let them and their children lead a decent life have been ignored because we did not care enough about—forget GDP—actual people and their families. That is what happened. Imputed rent tells us the effect of that, which is that those people who do not face market housing costs but do live in a property that they own, are receiving a stream of benefits from owning that property. By living in it, they are consuming that; that is all that is telling us. The important lesson from GDP and housing is, “Get on with building some houses because younger generations are getting stuffed over,” not, “We paid too much attention to GDP.” That would be the opposite of what it teaches us.

What is GDP a measure of? It is imperfect for lots of the reasons that have been set out by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), but it does represent income flowing into people’s pockets, business revenues, and a tax base that funds our public services. Those things do matter. My hon. Friend is right that they are not the only things that matter—I totally agree with that—but they are real things. They are not abstractions, and we do need to care about them. If people do not care about those things, they do not mind that Britain has seen the lowest levels of business investment in the G7 year after year.

Turning to areas of agreement, I absolutely agree with lots of what the hon. Member for South Cotswolds said about the limitations. I also endorse her praise for the approach of the Welsh Labour Government in this area; lots of my friends have spent years developing that work. On its own, GDP does not capture everything that underpins either our economic strategy or what matters in people’s lives; that is absolutely correct. It does not, for example, tell us how growth is distributed or about wealth inequalities, physical and mental health, and environmental sustainability. As the hon. Member set out, those limits have been long recognised, but we need to keep pushing against them. In 2016, the Bean review set out some of the issues that she has raised about the need to consider broader measures of wealth distribution and natural capital. In response, the ONS has put more resources into some of those things. Some progress has been made over the last 10 years—obviously, we were not in government so I am not claiming credit for that.

The Dasgupta review further encouraged us to treat natural capital as an economic asset, as we absolutely should. Those principles have been accepted by the Government and they are being embedded in decision making. Hon. Members will have seen the supplementary guidance to the Green Book that puts in place the appraisal of environmental impacts alongside economic costs.

The truth is that it is easy to say that everyone just myopically focuses on GDP. I have set out that that is not the case because if they did, hopefully we would have seen a better job over the last 15 years. The truth is that across Government we consider a much wider range of economic indicators. Wellbeing is an important one; I have carried out research on wellbeing data and it does have something to bring to the party. But the strongest conclusion from wellbeing data is that people need a decent income and they need to be healthy. The Government do focus on those things because they should. Because we care about wellbeing, we are lifting the two-child limit. Because we care about health, we are investing in the health service to bring down waiting times. Our tax rises, which are opposed by all the Opposition parties, are delivering those things. We care about wellbeing because health is really important.

Even within economic indicators, what is the truth? We look at indicators not just on GDP, but on income, pay, employment, jobs, regional performance, and the environment. I encourage the Government to continue to do that. Ongoing improvements to the national accounts will also help better capture natural capital and the quality of public services, not to mention AI and the things that tend to get reported in the newspapers. Ministers look at all those things when they make policy. When I am looking at pensions policy, I am definitely into the weeds of health data and healthy life expectancy. I promise hon. Members that GDP is not dominating all those decisions.

To conclude, GDP remains central to how we understand the economy. It tells us something important, but partial. Both of those things are important to understand. It is not remotely a measure of everything that matters. It does not aim to do justice to non-market interactions, which is a technocratic phrase for the fact that it does not do justice to some of the most important things in our lives—not least, caring for each other. That is why this Government are so committed to both reversing the dreadful economic performance seen under the previous Government—performances that left wages flatlining—while also assessing success against a far wider range of measures. The goal is a Britain that is not just growing but thriving.

Question put and agreed to.

Child Maintenance Service

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I am struck, as was the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), by the level of interest in this debate and, indeed, by the specifics of some of the cases that have been raised. I concur with her that this is an incredibly important debate, and one that perhaps could have used more time. I am sure that Members will look where they can at various mechanisms to ensure that we return to this in future.

I want to begin by recognising the vital role that the Child Maintenance Service plays in supporting families across the country, notwithstanding that we all have examples in our casework of challenging cases—cases where the service could do better. The CMS now supports more than 1.1 million children, a figure that rose nearly 5% in the 12 months to September 2025, through both family-based arrangements and arrangements made via the CMS. An estimated £2.9 billion is transferred each year to children in separated families, keeping around 120,000 children out of relative low income after housing costs.

I know that almost all parents want the best for their children, and that, in spite of the difficulties and conflicts inherent in family break-up, a majority of paying parents consistently contribute towards their children’s upbringing, helping to ensure that they receive the support they need. Compliance levels within the collect and pay service remain strong; in the most recent reporting quarter, 74% of paying parents under collect and pay paid maintenance.

To set the scene, it is worth explaining how the CMS operates. The CMS is statutorily obliged to consider all valid maintenance applications in accordance with relevant legislation. To ensure consistency and fairness across the system, the CMS applies a set of broad rules intended to secure the best overall outcomes for all parents. Clear, simple rules are essential; they make the system more efficient, improve customer service and are vital when dealing with hundreds of thousands of cases.

That is in stark contrast to previous schemes operated by the CMS’s predecessor, the Child Support Agency, which were notoriously complex and inflexible. Those schemes relied heavily on parents providing detailed financial information that was often difficult to obtain or keep up to date. The result was significant delays and, too often, families being let down.

That said, the Government recognise that there is more that the CMS can do to deliver a fair and trustworthy service that is more accessible to parents, and particularly to those who are vulnerable. That is why the CMS is continuing to make significant and meaningful improvements to the service wherever possible, to ensure that parents feel informed, supported and confident in the actions being taken on their case.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for setting the scene. Would he reflect back to the House that, notwithstanding what he has said, there is a clear pattern of a lack of reliable communication, a failure to enforce payments and what often seems like an inability to keep in line with legislation? Does he recognise that what we are all experiencing on behalf of our constituents is an organisation that does not seem to have basic administrative competence?

[Andrew Western]

I will come to the points about communication and enforcement momentarily. I acknowledge that we all have difficult cases, but the CMS does handle billions of pounds a year in payments to families, and it is important to recognise where it works as well as where change is needed. It is failing for some families, as in the cases that have been outlined, and we want to put that right.

I will now turn to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). I will start with the three asks from Gingerbread. First, on the disclosure of domestic abuse and the handling thereof, the CMS recognises that both receiving and paying parents can be victims of domestic abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour, and it has put a number of safeguards in place to help them use the service safely. All caseworkers receive extensive domestic abuse training, which has been refreshed to reflect the Home Office’s statutory guidance on controlling or coercive behaviour, so that they are equipped to identify risks and signpost parents to specialist support. The CMS also has a domestic abuse plan and a regularly updated list of resources to support victims.

Where safety concerns arise, though—I accept that they arise in some instances—the CMS can advise on non-traceable payment methods, such as accounts with centralised sort codes to ensure a parent’s location cannot be identified. The Government are also taking wider steps to minimise opportunities for abuse within the maintenance system, perhaps most importantly through plans to remove direct pay, reducing the need for any contact between parents and closing off avenues for economic control or coercion.

The second point concerned evidential standards for shared care, which is a contested area. I absolutely accept that it is a difficult space for our caseworkers to operate in. When a dispute arises regarding overnight stays, the CMS must avoid taking one parent’s word against the other and must consider certain types of evidence, such as a court order or an agreement between the parents, but it may consider other types of evidence as well, including in cases where a court order is not in place. Formal evidence will carry more weight than other evidence in establishing whether there is a pattern of shared care, but the CMS will consider each parent’s statements before making a decision.

Where the parties agree in principle that there is a level of shared care but cannot agree on a number of nights, the CMS can make an assumption of shared care of one night a week, but as I said earlier, shared care disputes are challenging. We understand the frustration and the concerns that they present for parents, and we are keeping the issue under active review and looking at how the process can be improved. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East is due a conversation with my noble Friend Baroness Sherlock. She may want to ask Baroness Sherlock for the specifics on that, given that she is the lead Minister on this issue.

Gingerbread’s third substantive point concerned the welfare of the child, and I want to offer reassurance on that. Clearly, the entire point of the CMS is to ensure the welfare of the child as it pertains to financial stability and to ensure the ability of parents to look after their children, but if specific safeguarding concerns arise, there are procedures in place to report them to the relevant authority, which is usually the local authority where the child lives.

There were a couple of other points that I want to touch on, including the question of enforcement. Clearly, there are always improvements to be made. There was a specific question about hidden income. There is a financial investigation unit in place. If there are specific cases that colleagues would like me to refer to that unit, I am happy to do so. We do have, for want of a better description, persistent offenders who are difficult to pin down. We will all have such examples in our caseload, and we are looking at what more we can do to track people down in those cases.

I am conscious of time. This has been an incredibly important debate. The door of my noble Friend Baroness Sherlock is always open to colleagues who want to talk about CMS reform. We are undertaking a calculation review. We are looking to abolish direct pay as soon as parliamentary time allows. That is a very important step to tackle coercive control and abuse in the system. We can always do more. I am happy to speak to colleagues at any point, but I also strongly encourage them, if necessary, to book in with my noble Friend.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)]

Charting a path to national renewal means making decisions today, although the full benefits may not be felt for years to come. In the first few years of life, more than a million new neural connections are formed every second. During that time, more than any other, children must be nourished and supported by the scaffolding of happy, healthy lives. That means a decent, warm home, so that babies use their energy not to keep themselves warm, but to grow and develop. It means parents not being ground down by bills piling up; it means families being shielded from the impacts of poverty; and it means mothers not being rushed back to work before their bodies have even fully healed, as is too often the case.

We hear a lot about family values in this place. That has to mean taking real steps to make daily life easier and to make the sums add up at the end of the month. As a nation, we must improve maternity and paternity pay to genuinely provide all families with security and stability. We must build a country where children are nourished in their early years, parents are treated with dignity through life’s challenges and people are not sneered at for receiving support. We must build a society that offers a helping hand, nurturing rather than sanctioning—one grounded in a belief in the value of every human life, where doing all we can to give a baby the best first steps is seen not as a cost on a Treasury spreadsheet, but as the duty of a decent society and an investment in a more prosperous country for us all.

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, I thank you all for making sure that everyone got in. I hope you forgive me for being tough about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Russell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Hinchliff]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Western]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) and then take one more intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), but then I will really need to move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Western]

I absolutely agree. That is one of the things that I want the review to capture. A particular range of issues is specific to self-employed people. We have already heard about that in the context of adoption, and my hon. Friend raises another example. She is entirely right to champion the rights of self-employed people in this space.

[Chris Hinchliff]

Several colleagues have mentioned Hugh’s law today. As the Member of Parliament for Hugh’s parents, Ceri and Frances, may I welcome the fact that the Government have committed to a consultation on the introduction of Hugh’s law? I urge the Minister to speak to his ministerial colleagues to see whether we can get Hugh’s law in the next King’s Speech so that it is delivered for families who desperately need support.

[Andrew Western]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I gave way because I expected him to raise that issue, given that it pertains to his constituents.

This is probably the most powerful debate that I have attended in Westminster Hall. I will certainly ensure that all the points that have been raised with me are fed back. This is a particularly important issue not just for my hon. Friend and his constituents, but more widely.

Moving through a child’s life, starting from this year, working parents—including those on maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave—can now claim up to 30 hours of free childcare for children between the ages of nine months and four years. Tax-free childcare can also help parents to save up to £2,000 a year on the cost of childminders, play schemes, after-school clubs, nurseries and nannies. All infant pupils in Government-funded schools are eligible for free school meals, as are older children whose parents receive certain benefits. Our child poverty taskforce has been looking at what else we can do to drive down family costs, raise family incomes and give every child the best start in life. Our strategy will be published later in the year.

Work will be at the heart of our approach. Good work is vital to achieve lasting change and to our central mission of growth. That is why our review of parental leave and pay is a key part of our plan to make work pay. It will build on the progress we are already making through our work to tackle low pay, poor working conditions and job security. We are breaking down barriers for parents so that we can raise living standards, and so that they can raise the next generation.

Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities etc.) (Amendment) Order 2025

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 General Committees

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I would like to ask a few questions about article 3 of the order. In practice, its current drafting means that the order would regulate Klarna, if it offered buy now, pay later agreements to customers shopping on Amazon, but it would not regulate Amazon, if it offered such agreements in the future to its own customers.

Given that FCA research shows that adults with vulnerable characteristics are disproportionately likely to use buy now, pay later, with 44% of the most frequent users of buy now, pay later already over-indebted, there is concern that the consumer focus of buy now, pay later is not about informed borrowing but engineered overconsumption. I accept that the Minister may feel that it is not currently an issue, but would it not be wise to regulate proactively and take action now to prevent buy now, pay later being offered directly by merchants in a way that would cause the very harms that we are currently trying to avoid from third-party providers?

Disabled People in Poverty

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

The level of destitution among disabled people in England is not just a problem—it is a national disgrace. Three quarters of adults receiving health-related universal credit are experiencing material deprivation.

Poverty among the disabled is the deliberate outcome of an economic model and a style of governance designed to serve the interests of ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations. Under this Labour Government, there can be no moral or fiscal justification—none at all—for maintaining the lowest corporation tax in the G7 alongside a social security net so threadbare that hundreds of thousands of disabled people have already fallen into poverty, let alone cutting back further the support that it provides, which would result in even more widespread destitution.

Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I will call Chris Hinchliff to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered financial support for parents caring for seriously ill children.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Ms Jardine.

I begin by paying tribute to my constituents Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, who are in the Public Gallery today. Their tireless advocacy, following the tragic loss of their six-year-old son Hugh to cancer in 2021, is an inspiration to me, and I know this feeling is shared by colleagues across the House.

Ceri, Frances and the charity they set up, It’s Never You, have highlighted the immense challenges faced by families caring for seriously ill children. When a child is born, there is a support system in place for parents. Maternity pay provides a safety net for those who must stop work to care for their child, and the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 covers the parents of babies who are admitted to neonatal care within 28 days of birth. However, if a child falls seriously ill outside those periods, parents must navigate burdensome and insufficient systems that were not designed for families facing what is, for most, the very hardest time of their lives.

Ceri and Frances experienced this unfairness at first hand during the 100-mile round trips they had to make to be with Hugh during his treatment. Thankfully, they were financially stable, but they witnessed the harsh reality of our benefits system as they saw other parents being forced to sell their homes and give up work to care for their seriously ill children. Of course, these issues are compounded by the cost of living pressures that all families face, even without family emergencies piling on.

Approximately 68% of women and 57% of men with mental health problems are parents, which highlights the emotional strain that families across the country already face. Last year, a quarter of parents with children aged 18 and under said they struggled to provide sufficient food for their children, and Shelter estimates that 1.7 million private renters do not have enough savings to pay their rent if they were to become unemployed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for securing this debate, and I spoke to him beforehand. Charities such as the Family Fund provide a wide range of grants to families in Northern Ireland who are raising a disabled or seriously ill child or young adult on a low income, to spend on kitchen appliances—a fridge, a cooker or a washing machine—or clothing, bedding, sensory or play equipment, technology or just a much-needed family break.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fact such charities are stepping in no way abdicates the Government’s responsibility to do more to help families when they need help? He is speaking about compassion. Compassionate action is what we need.

[Chris Hinchliff]

I agree that we should commend such charities. The hon. Gentleman shows moral clarity in rightly saying that the Government have an obligation to support families going through this incredibly difficult time.

Research shows that all the factors I have described mean that families are on a difficult footing even before facing the additional pressures of caring for a seriously ill child. When families need extra support during such challenging times, they are often met with bureaucratic hurdles that only add to their mental and financial stress. To access disability living allowance, parents face a 90-day waiting period, a daunting 40-page application form and long waits for responses. Universal credit and shared parental leave are unsuitable options for too many parents in this situation, as the rigid eligibility criteria mean that many parents of seriously ill children simply do not qualify.

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

My constituent Vicky came to my constituency surgery and spoke about Hugh’s law and how she had to take time off to look after her son, who has thankfully recovered. Does my hon. Friend agree that the £750 grant would provide certainty and help parents, by stopping the rigmarole of going through universal credit and those sorts of things? Would the grant help?

[Chris Hinchliff]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I encourage the Minister to reflect on the fact that all the evidence we hear from It’s Never You shows that this very real problem is impacting families right across the country.

The systems that are in place were not designed to accommodate the urgent and unpredictable nature of childhood illness. Studies have shown that delays in financial support during critical life events significantly increase psychological stress and deepen financial instability. Research published in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology found that economic insecurity heightens parental stress, which can in turn hinder a family’s ability to provide the best possible care for their child.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for his excellent advocacy for Hugh’s law since his election to Parliament. I wholeheartedly agree with the campaign. Two families wrote to me in anticipation of this debate. One family’s child was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer at the age of just two. They were forced to drastically reduce their joint working hours so they could not only care for their sick child but also look after their other children. It is an enormous burden:

“No parent should face financial ruin while fighting for their child’s life.”

Does the hon. Member agree that day one support for these parents, as advocated by the Hugh’s law campaign, would be very welcome?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Hinchliff]

The hon. Lady eloquently highlights the importance of this campaign. I wholeheartedly agree with her.

The benefits system available to parents in these situations leaves a gaping hole for the families of seriously ill children, who find themselves with nowhere to turn, grappling with financial ruin, growing debt or the devastating thought of not being able to be at their child’s bedside when they are needed most. The British Journal of Social Work reports that families in medical crises without immediate financial support often face long-term debt, mental health struggles and career disruption, even after treatment ends.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this critical debate. He mentions the significant financial impact on families who are trying to make sure their children get the care they need. Statistics from Young Lives vs Cancer, and from my meetings with constituents in Redditch and the villages, show that some parents actually miss getting their children to appointments because of the financial challenges they face. This is not just about what happens to their long-term financial security; children are missing important appointments because their parents cannot afford to get them there.

[Chris Hinchliff]

I agree that the gaping hole in our benefits system is devastating for families. My hon. Friend once again highlights how incredibly important it is that the Government resolve this as a matter of urgency.

Over 80% of surveyed families experienced a significant decline in household finances due to their child’s illness. The core principle underpinning our welfare state is that nobody should have to consider their bank balance when faced with challenges not of their own making. Benefits exist to ensure that when life deals a cruel hand, its cost does not crush those who are already burdened. Instead, we share the responsibility across society, leaving nobody behind.

There is no group more deserving of support than families caring for seriously ill children. If, as a society, we fail to address this gap and spread the burden, we betray the very principle on which our welfare state was founded. Hugh’s law offers a straightforward solution to plug this gap, by providing immediate, non-means-tested financial support to parents of children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses. It would provide a grant of £750 a month for up to three months, activated from the day of diagnosis. Eligibility would be limited to children diagnosed with life-threatening or chronic conditions requiring hospital care. Applications would be completed by the healthcare provider, cutting out needless stress for families and meaning no more 40-page forms.

There are examples of similar policies across the world, including in Sweden, France and Canada, where the employment insurance family caregiver benefit provides financial support to parents caring for a critically ill or injured child under 18 years old. Benefits are paid for up to 35 weeks, helping families to manage the financial strain while focusing on their child’s care. It is estimated that Hugh’s law would have an annual cost of just £6 million to £7 million and would support around 4,000 families annually.

To put that into context, the figure represents just 0.0025% of the Department for Work and Pensions’ 2023-24 budget. Given the unimaginable challenges these families face, caring for a seriously ill child while grappling with emotional strain, financial hardship and uncertainty, it is clear that the cost of such support is minuscule in comparison with the burden they carry. Life does not stop when a child gets sick. In fact, families often face higher day-to-day costs that impact them immediately—not in 90 days’ time, when support might become available.

Hugh’s law would offer much needed financial relief, allowing parents to focus on what matters most, being by their child’s side, without the crushing weight of financial anxiety. We have heard about the immense challenges faced by families caring for seriously ill children, which go beyond emotional strain to include financial hardship and bureaucratic obstacles. The tireless advocacy of Ceri and Frances, through their It’s Never You charity, has highlighted a gap in our welfare system that we simply cannot ignore.

Hugh’s law offers a practical and compassionate solution: immediate support to parents with a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Some 70 MPs signed my letter to the Prime Minister, and I have since written to the Department for Work and Pensions and met the Minister, who advised that the policy could be pursued with the Department for Business and Trade. I have now requested a meeting with the relevant Minister there.

My request to the Government and the Minister today is simple: embrace this campaign and take practical steps to make Hugh’s law a reality. I will meet with any Minister necessary to advance this policy, but the Government must do the right thing and work proactively to turn Ceri and Frances’s inspiring campaign into law.

Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Hume]

As always, the hon. Member makes a powerful point for his constituents, and I support his wider call for the Government to think again.

Returning to my constituent who was looking after her father who suffered from dementia, had she been aware of the changes she would have increased her personal pension contribution and saved more money to enable her to retire sooner to look after her dad, who has since passed away. The carer’s allowance was simply not enough to live on and pay for food and other essential bills. Her experience caring for an elderly parent is very common among women in their 50s and 60s; I have been there myself. It is extremely likely that many other women in that situation will have been preoccupied with coping with the day-to-day challenges that carers face and will not have known about the change to their state pension age.

Another constituent of mine had to sell her home of 36 years after she lost her husband, as she had planned for the future under the impression that she would receive her state pension at 60. Obviously, she acknowledges that even without the changes there is no guarantee that she could have remained in her home, but all the calculations that she and her husband did indicated that she would be all right. Many others had to work longer than they had anticipated or dip into their life savings and change their retirement plans after years of working hard and looking forward to life beyond work.

I acknowledge the action that the Government are taking to tackle the long-standing problems with carer’s allowance, which previous Governments failed to address. The increase in the state pension this April will make a tangible difference to the lives of many women in Scarborough and Whitby. I also acknowledge that the previous Government failed to set aside a single penny for compensation, and left behind a black hole in the public finances, which I appreciate constrains the ability of this Government to offer compensation.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the implicit argument of Ministers in this debate—that they would rather spend the money on other issues—is producing an incredibly slippery slope when it comes to delivering justice for Government maladministration? Does she agree that it gives the impression that we might be moving towards a situation where we means test justice?

[Alison Hume]

It is important that as a Labour Government we recognise the impact on people, including my constituents, of the DWP’s failure to communicate the change effectively. I urge the Minister to look again at giving compensation that will, in some way, acknowledge that WASPI women have lost out on so much more than money.