Government's Management of the Economy

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

I am afraid I am worried that the Minister showed in his opening remarks that he is living in some parallel universe with no understanding of what millions of people are going through. However, in the run-up to next week’s Budget, I put on record not just the moral imperative to protect our citizens from poverty and destitution through our security system, but the health and economic imperatives, too.

Yesterday, the all-party parliamentary group on health in all policies published our report investigating the health effects of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. Even before covid, there was a poverty crisis driven by savage social security cuts spanning nearly a decade. Our children—the very children the Government are now saying we need to protect—have been disproportionately affected, as have our disabled people.

The overwhelming evidence shows that the immediate consequence of this epidemic is epidemic levels of mental ill health. For our children, we know that for every 1% increase in child poverty, an extra six babies out of 100,000 will not see their first birthdays. For those children who survive this poverty, their educational attainment and even their behaviour and future longevity will have been affected. Longer term, as Professor Sir Michael Marmot spelt out last year, we will see the UK’s already flatlining life expectancy, which is declining in our poorest areas, decline even further—one of the worst in any advanced economies.

As Professor Marmot also said, the UK’s high and unequal covid death toll can be related to the poverty and inequality across the UK driven by 10 years of severe austerity, including cuts to social security. Since 2010, £34 billion has been taken out of social security support for working-age people. Even with the £20 a week universal credit uplift, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that the UK has the least generous out-of-work support in the OECD. The welfare budget may have made savings, but that has resulted in our NHS, schools and local councils having to pick up the pieces as a result of the devastating health impacts and human costs.

I reiterate that the health impacts of this social security-mediated poverty were covid-driven. This week’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research report shows the doubling of households living in destitution to nearly half a million and emphasises the inadequacy of social security support. It adds to the call that many of us have been making: we need a new social contract with the British people fit for the 21st century—a new Beveridge.