Social Security

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Matt Rodda

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I will come on to.

We have talked about children, but disabled people are another cohort who have been punished over the last 14 years. Again, that is disgraceful—I apologise for repeating the same phrases, but I cannot think of adequate vocabulary to express my rage about what is happening in different terms. Ethnic minority communities are also disproportionately affected.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a deeply important speech. Does she agree that it is also important to consider the effect poor-quality housing has on all the groups she mentions, in particular the combination of poverty and poor-quality housing, which leads to actions such as parents turning heating down?

[Debbie Abrahams]

That is a very good point. The Department for Work and Pensions has the largest spending across Government. The state pension accounts for the largest part of the Department’s spending, followed by universal credit, but third on the list is housing benefit and the support provided through the housing element of universal credit. Given that the Government are investing a large amount of taxpayers’ money in housing, one would think there was some way to safeguard its quality.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South made important points about the escalation in the use of food banks. As I have said before, we did not have a food bank in Oldham before 2010; we now have several to meet the need. We are aware of the impact of poverty on the labour market, which I know is of interest to the Minister. We need a healthy labour market to be able to provide the growth we all want to see across the country, but, again, all the evidence suggests that will not happen for the reasons set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell).

This is becoming an increasingly unhealthy country. Our healthy life expectancy is declining and our life expectancy is declining, and that has been happening since 2017. At the time, Professor Sir Michael Marmot warned what the consequences would be, and he was right. In the report that he produced at the beginning of the year—I asked the Prime Minister a question about this just last week—he said that

“if everyone had the good health of the least deprived 10% of the population there would have been 1 million fewer deaths in England in the period 2012 to 2019. Of these, 148,000 can be linked to austerity”—

directly linked to austerity.

“In 2020, the first year of the covid pandemic, there were a further 28,000 deaths”

that could have been prevented. Those are the consequences of the poverty and inequality that we have in this country.

The Select Committee is undertaking an inquiry into the adequacy of social security support. With that in mind, I once more commend the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust, which have put together some interesting recommendations on the essentials guarantee. They suggest that what we provide should be based on need rather than on some quite subjective view of what the level of support should be. I hope the Work and Pensions Committee can support some aspect of that. Finally, I will just mention that £120 per week for a single person, instead of the £70 currently, would be a good step in the right direction. Thank you for your latitude, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Matt Rodda

Report stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I wish to speak to my new clause 3, which would compel the Chancellor to assess the impacts of the Bill on poverty and inequalities, and, subsequently, our health. It states:

“The Chancellor... must review the public health and poverty effects of the provisions of this Act and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) The review must consider—

(a) the effects of the provisions of this Act on the levels of relative and absolute poverty across the UK…

(b) the effects of the provisions of this Act on socioeconomic inequalities and on population groups with protected characteristics as defined by the 2010 Equality Act…

(c) the effects of the provisions of this Act on life expectancy and healthy life expectancy across the UK…

(d) the implications for the public finances of the public health effects of the provisions of this Act.”

Most notably, it must consider those implications on the NHS. So the ask is simple: that the Government should disclose their evaluation of the impact of their economic policies on the health of our constituents—that is it. It is fairly straightforward, and I think we are all aligned on that; these are ambitions the Government have professed to have in their levelling-up agenda. My new clause would contribute to that and to the achievement of the reduction in health inequalities to which the Government say they aspire. They should have nothing to fear from the transparency that this new clause would bring.

As we know, there is overwhelming evidence that socioeconomic inequalities are the key determinants of our health and, consequently, our health service use; inequalities in income, wealth and power will determine how long we are going to live and to live in good health. It is, therefore, only reasonable that the Government report on how the Finance Act will have an impact on those inequalities. For example, life expectancy for men is four years lower in Oldham than it is in the Prime Minister’s constituency. In the past 13 years, Oldham Council has had £230 million in funding cut from its central Government funding—that is 29% of its total budget in 2010. It has received funds through the competitive bidding processes for the towns fund and levelling-up fund totalling £44 million. A GCSE in maths is not required to see the shortfall there. However, in Surrey, where the Chancellor is an MP, people have seen their council budget cut by just 8.3%. The issues are clear when we compare that 8.3% with that 29%.

How can it be right that in the sixth richest country in the world people are dying younger because of their socioeconomic position? Poverty and inequality are not inevitable; they are political choices that can have deadly consequences. The pandemic revealed that stark reality, exposing how our structural socioeconomic inequalities impacted on who was infected by covid and their experience of the disease. People on low incomes were more likely to be infected and to die of covid; within that, and at every other level of the income hierarchy, people of colour and people with disabilities were disproportionately represented in case numbers and deaths. If we are to prevent the same mistakes from happening, the Government must listen. If they do not listen to me, they should listen to Professors Sir Michael Marmot, Clare Bambra and Kate Pickett, and to countless others. There is overwhelming evidence to show that structural inequalities in our country drove the unequal death toll from covid.

Michael Marmot revealed that instead of narrowing, health inequalities, including how long we are going to live and to live in good health, were getting worse; prior to covid, our life expectancy and healthy life expectancy was getting worse. Most significantly, his analysis showed that unlike the situation in the majority of other high-income countries, our life expectancy was flatlining. For the poorest 10% of the country, including in my part of the world, it was actually declining, with women being particularly affected. He showed that “place matters”; living in a deprived area in the north-east was worse health-wise than living in an equally deprived area in London.

Sir Michael also emphasised that it is predominantly the socioeconomic conditions that people are exposed to, not the NHS, that will drive their health status and how long they will live. Analysing the abundant evidence available, he attributed the shorter lives that people in poorer areas such as my north-west constituency are predominantly living to the disproportional Government cuts to local public services, support and income that they have experienced since 2010—and then the pandemic hit. As the National Audit Office and others have outlined, it was always a question of when, not if, there would be a pandemic. Like many of us, Sir Michael has pointed out that the Government’s hubris can be seen not only in their pandemic management but in the high and unequal covid death toll. Improving our health and wellbeing must be a priority of this Government and an outcome of our economic—and other—policies.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent, powerful speech. Does she agree that the inequality she has described also extends across a range of other fields, such as the quality of housing and of food?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. When we look at the socioeconomic inequalities and the social determinants of health, we see that they include both the quality of housing and people’s opportunities for healthy living. That all has an impact, but we know that our socioeconomic determinants are the key drivers—the most important ones—of our health outcomes. There is indisputable evidence about that, which is unfortunately not reflected in some of the choices the Government are making.

I am glad that my party has recognised that, along with the importance of tackling socioeconomic determinants of health, in our health mission. We will take a health-in-all policies approach to tackle the socioeconomic inequalities driving health inequalities across our country. We will create a Marmot England and introduce new mission-delivery boards to ensure Government Departments work together to tackle health inequalities. My new clause is about ensuring that the Chancellor also recognises this and publishes a review into the impacts on poverty, inequality and, ultimately, health. After covid, that is the least the Government can do.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Matt Rodda

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda]

In conclusion, these are sensible amendments which recognise the risks in the approach being taken by the Government. They offer a way of providing important information to Ministers and they could indeed alert them to potential problems with the Government’s approach. The new clauses also offer important safeguards for pensioners, and I hope the Government will consider them thoroughly. Given the Government’s dreadful record of playing fast and loose with manifesto commitments, it is the very least we can expect from them.

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

I rise to speak to new clause 1 in my name and on behalf of my colleagues.

New clause 1 compels the Secretary of State to assess the impact of the Bill on poverty, inequality and, subsequently, our health. In particular, I request that a report be laid before the House within six months of the passing of the Act, and that the effects of the provisions in the Act on socioeconomic inequalities and population groups with protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010 are considered.

We have heard a lot in recent months—it seems like many years—about levelling up and building back better. We even heard from the Prime Minister himself that he supports Professor Sir Michael Marmot’s call to build back fairer. To do that, however, we need the Government to be able to assess whether their policies will actually do that. We heard, in the Work and Pensions Committee, that that is difficult to do. I argue very strongly that that is not the case and I know there are many others who would argue similarly.

The House will recall that, in February 2020, Sir Michael published his review of health equity in England 10 years after his initial study. In it, he revealed that instead of narrowing, health inequalities, including how long we are going to live and how long we will live in good health, have actually got worse. Most significantly, his analysis showed that, unlike the majority of other high income countries, our life expectancy was flatlining. For the poorest 10% of the country it was declining and women were particularly badly affected. We heard earlier that 2 million pensioners live in relative poverty today; among women of state pension age it is one in five. For women of colour, the figure is even higher. Black and Asian pensioners are also twice as likely to be living in poverty as white pensioners.

Sir Michael also emphasised that it is predominantly the socioeconomic conditions that people are exposed to, not the NHS, that will determine their health status and how long they live. Analysing the abundant evidence available, he attributed the shorter lives of people in poorer areas, including in parts of my constituency in Oldham and in the north-west as a whole, to the disproportional Government cuts to local public services, including cuts in social security support that they have experienced since 2010.

And then the pandemic hit. As a former public health consultant, I can say this with absolute certainty: it was always a question of when, not if there was going to be a pandemic. The lack of pandemic preparedness, going back to the Cygnus report and before, as well as the woeful pandemic management, laid bare the pre-pandemic structural inequalities that are rife across the country.

Many believe that the structural inequalities driven by the Government cuts that I have referred to, including social security cuts, will be found responsible for the UK’s high and unequal covid death toll, with the fifth worst covid mortality rate in the world and the worst in the EU. In an early analysis of the reasons for that, Sir Michael’s Covid review last December summarised four key pre-pandemic factors.

The first was pre-existing and widening inequalities in social and economic conditions, particularly in power, money and resources; Sir Michael stated that those inequalities in life had led to inequalities in health. The second was our governance and political culture, not just before the pandemic but during it, which he described as divisive, damaging social cohesion and de-emphasising the importance of the common good. The third was Government austerity over the last 10-plus years; he referred particularly to cuts to social security and local authority budgets, including in adult and children’s social care, public health and education. The final factor was our pre-existing poor and declining health.

Sir Michael makes a number of recommendations to build back fairer, including increasing the adequacy of social security spending. Our focus in this debate has been on state pensions, but the cuts of £36 billion to working-age social security support over the past 11 years and the impact that they will have on increasing poverty rates—including as a result of the universal credit cut that we are expecting—must not be underestimated.

Improving our health and wellbeing must be a priority for this Government and an outcome of all our policies, including our economic and public spending and social security. My new clause is about ensuring that the Secretary of State recognises that and publishes a review of the impact of social security spending on poverty, inequality and, ultimately, our health. Given that the Prime Minister and Health Secretary have already stated that they support Sir Michael’s recommendations and that this is a means to implement levelling up, I hope that the Secretary of State will adopt my new clause in the Bill.