Child Poverty

Debate between Dan Jarvis and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely agree. Just as I am seeking to build a cross-party consensus in the campaign against child poverty, I am seeking to build a consensus in every corner of our country. Again, I will say a little more about that later.

By seeking to understand the experiences of those who live in poverty every day, we can help to build a fairer country—one that delivers the vision set out by the Prime Minister as she took office. Let us be clear: that is now urgent. The Institute for Fiscal Studies projects the biggest increase in relative child poverty in a generation: the number of children growing up in poverty is expected to grow by 50% by 2020.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am really pleased that my hon. Friend has secured this debate, because it is very easy at Christmas-time for there to be an orgy of consumption and we need to think about the families who are not going to share in that. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about what is coming down the tracks. Does he share my concern that, having dissed the idea of relative poverty, the Government have been trumpeting the fact that relative poverty did not fall in the last five years? More important, does he share my concern that changes made in the Budget by the previous Chancellor after the general election mean that every family in the bottom third of the income distribution is going to be worse off?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I know that she has a long-standing interest in the subject of child poverty, which I will refer to a bit later in my speech. She raises the issue of poverty being relative, which reminds me of a quote:

“Even if we are not destitute, we still experience poverty if we cannot afford things that society regards as essential. The fact that we do not suffer the conditions of a hundred years ago is irrelevant… So poverty is relative—and those who pretend otherwise are wrong.”

That quote was from David Cameron.

I was reflecting on the projection from the Institute for Fiscal Studies of the biggest increase in relative child poverty in a generation, with the number of children growing up in poverty expected to grow by 50% by 2020. The Government have a choice to make and the power to stop that increase happening. Their decisions will shape what kind of country we live in.

Yet what have we recently learned of the Government’s approach from their response to my parliamentary questions? We have learned that the child poverty unit has been closed. Eliminating child poverty is no longer the goal of policy. The Government admit that no money is being directly invested by the Department for Work and Pensions to develop evidence on what early interventions best support children and that a maximum of only seven civil servants support the Government’s Social Mobility Commission. That is not a record that matches the Prime Minister’s rhetoric.