Women (Government Policies)

Debate between Claire Perry and Glenda Jackson

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

One might just take the hon. Lady’s intervention back a little. Sure Start was invented in the United States in the early 1990s, where it was targeted, as she knows, at the children who needed it most, and it was a great success. If I had been in Parliament when Sure Start was introduced I would have supported it in its early incarnation. It is a very sound idea, but of course it had to grow from something that was very useful when targeted to something that became a universal political point.

Let us hear what happened. In 2010 the National Audit Office found that

“there was no reduction in inequality between child development achieved in the 30% most disadvantaged communities and in the rest of England, against a target to reduce the gap by four percentage points”.

We must remind ourselves that Sure Start was introduced to intervene in the lives of the most vulnerable and needy children and families, and that that target was completely missed. Did any discussion take place about how to target Sure Start better? Was there any acknowledgement that one of the huge issues related to the lack of trust going out and reaching in to the most disadvantaged communities? We know that more than half of the Sure Start centres were failing to reach out to vulnerable families. What should people do in those circumstances? Should they think about how to change that, or should they keep spending and criticise a Government who want to target the money better? The 4,700 extra health visitors jobs—almost 5,000 of them, which will largely be filled by women—represent the way to get from the Sure Start centre out into the community and really help the most disadvantaged children, who absolutely need that intervention. That is what we are planning to do, but we hear no support for it. Again, that is because of the rank hypocrisy that we are hearing from Labour Members today.



The other thing we are hearing today is that the Government have no policies in the area of equality. This is a House of very intelligent people—I keep saying that so it has to be true. There are Members in all parts of the House who work on a cross-party basis on unbelievably important issues, be it child protection or trying to stop the pernicious influence of pornography on the lives of our families. We should be working together on how to make Sure Start centres more effective —on what we can actually do to make a difference—instead of getting involved in this bandwagonism. I find it incredibly demeaning for the House to be participating in that.

We are dealing here with unbelievable hypocrisy, given that it is coming from a party that maxed out on the nation’s credit card. Its approach means that we are spending 39 times the annual operating budget of Sure Start on servicing Labour’s debts. That is the legacy that we are having to deal with. Do we hear any innovative or sensible suggestions about how to deal with it? No, we do not.

We have a benefits system has been created to trap many women in the sorts of poverty from which we would all want them to get out. We know that the benefits system is costing everyone £3,000 a year, but do we get any positive recognition and support for our welfare reform policies and the universal credit that we are proposing? I do not think so. Let us put aside this bandwagonism and hypocrisy, and let us talk about what this coalition Government are actually doing.

First—this is obviously the elephant in the room—the Government are taking action to pay off the previous Government’s crippling debts, which did not pop up overnight as a result of the credit crunch. The Labour Government spent more than they took in taxes every year from 2002, wishfully thinking that post-endogenous growth theory—I went to Nailsea comprehensive school and do not have a clue what that means—would somehow bring us out of the mess. Well, guess what: it does not. A Government have to live within their means if they are not to burden our children with debts, as the profligacy of the Labour Government did. This Government will live within their means. We are making the spending reductions that the Labour party left us with in a way that focuses the scarce resources on those who need them most.

We are facing a public sector pay freeze, and that is tough. Some 35% of the employment based in my constituency is in the public sector, so Members should not think that I do not get a lot of letters about that. However, I also hear from the women, many of whom work part time, who are grateful to be excluded from the pay freeze because they are low earners. They recognise that in these scarce times things have to change, but they think that it is important that the pay freeze excluded the lowest paid, and so do I. The Government have also taken 880,000 people out of taxation completely and definitively with a one-off move—it was not the fiasco of the 10p tax rate—and that benefits lower-income women and families in this country hugely.

We have heard a lot from Labour Members about child tax credits—I am confused, because I thought that the Government were raising child tax credits in absolute terms and ahead of indexation for the most disadvantaged families, who need them the most. I believe that that benefits 4 million of this country’s poorest families. We are examining Sure Start centres, ring-fencing the funding and investing in 5,000 additional health visitors, who can stop Sure Start centres being a nice thing thrown on the wall and make them work.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Lady tell me which Sure Start centres have their finances ring-fenced?

[Claire Perry]

As the hon. Lady knows, it is for the local authority to decide what it does. I do not know what her local authority is doing, but in Wiltshire not one Sure Start centre is closing and funding is being maintained completely. I might submit that political machinations further down the system are leading to these changes, but the funding and the additional investment is certainly there. If her local Sure Start centres would like to operate better and have some additional health visitor investment, that money is also there.

We have also heard about a Government who are protecting NHS spending. We know that in general women consume more NHS resources, and that money is being protected. International development spending, which I particularly support and about which we heard so eloquently from those on both sides of the House during the international women’s day debate, is also being ring-fenced. It is my belief that investing in schools for women in Pakistan is a sensible thing to do locally and it will increase overall economic security and prosperity. Having a women-focused aid policy, as we have, is the right thing to do.

We have heard about the universal credit, which will bring 1 million people, including 350,000 children, out of poverty. We have also heard about the sustainable funding for the rape crisis centres. I have been involved in some of the discussions that have taken place on rape, sentencing and tariffs and the policy person from the head of the UK rape crisis centres says, “This is the first time we have had sustainable funding for our centres for as long as we can remember, and we absolutely support this.”