Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I should start by saying a few words about the three maiden speeches that I have recently heard. All were passionate, witty or lyrical, and one was all three. We will look forward to hearing more from those hon. Members in the future.

I want to concentrate my remarks on young people, especially those in Knowsley. Three years ago I carried out a project over the summer in my constituency. I think we called it, “What young people in Knowsley think”. It is not a very original title, but it summed up what we were trying to do. Without going through the whole process and perhaps spending too much time on an analysis of what we did, I just want to talk about two conclusions that I drew from the questions that we asked some 80 young people.

The first conclusion was that young people in Knowsley are no less ambitious than young people anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Like other people, they want to have their own business, to join one of the professions or to be in the entertainment business. Some of them were remarkably specific about what they wanted to do: one young man wanted to be a diesel fitter in Canada. I never did get to the bottom of that story. In any case, they were all very ambitious.

The second conclusion, however, came from asking the young people what barriers they saw to achieving what they wanted to achieve in their lives. Most of them were between 14 and 18, and it was staggering that at that young age they recognised that in an area such as Knowsley—one of the poorest in the country—the barriers to achieving what they wanted in life were enormous. Some of the barriers were to do with educational qualifications—they thought that they would not get the requisite number of GSCEs to go on to do A-levels or to higher education, and that there was a lack of availability of training in the things they wanted to do.

Others feared that they did not have the right connections to get into professions they wanted to follow. In other words, mum and dad could not buy them an internship in a firm of national accountants so that they could get a head start to put on their CV. I say that not with any sense of bitterness, but at the tender age of 14 to 18 young people in Knowsley already know the limits of their potential owing to the poverty of their background. I am not saying that some will not get out of that—some will—but at that point in their lives they realise that there are enormous barriers to their achieving what they want to do.

What will the Budget do for children and families with children, particularly for those in receipt of tax credits? There are 9,900 such families in Knowsley, compared with the average in English constituencies of about 3,342—we have more or less three times the number. The number of families affected by the changes to tax credits will be nearly 10,000, which is an enormous number. That will have an impact on the children in those families. The percentage of children in families receiving tax credits in Knowsley is 71%, compared with 55% for England as a whole. On top of that—I am grateful to the Children’s Society for these statistics—the Government have allocated just £6.8 million in early intervention funding to Knowsley Council for the current year. That is £10 million less on early intervention than in 2010, yet we know that to overcome the sort of barriers I referred to earlier early intervention support is crucial. Children need that head start at an early age, but fewer resources will be available.

We also know from the Children’s Society that nationally there are 3 million children living in poverty. Some 5,290 of them are in Knowsley alone, of whom 3,840 are living in families who are the working poor. In other words, the families are in employment but they are still classified as being in poverty. I know the Government might like to redefine poverty in such a way that a lot of these statistics fall out of the definition, but there is real poverty in many of those families. We know that from some of the things that have already been mentioned.

For example, two weeks ago I spent Saturday morning collecting food for the Big Help Project food bank in Knowsley. As always when I do that, I am struck by the incredible generosity of people. They were going around Tesco, as it happened, buying their own food and then setting aside one or two bags full of food to donate to the food bank. Other hon. Members have referred to food banks. I am a huge supporter of the Big Help Project and I recognise the necessity of food banks because of the situation some families are in—many of them, by the way, are in employment, not on benefits. I never thought—a number of customers in Tesco made the same point to me—that I would live through a time when we saw families dependent on food banks to feed their children.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in many communities across the United Kingdom the food bank is the only growth industry?

[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman is probably right. In some areas, a food bank has an enormous impact. It is something I honestly never thought I would live to see.

[Mr Anderson]

rose—

[Mr Howarth]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and then I will press on, because I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you do not approve of interventions in added-on time.

[Mr Anderson]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Conservative Members would probably say that going to a food bank is a lifestyle choice?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I do not mind interventions, but I want to ensure that speeches come in below 10 minutes.

[Mr Howarth]

I shall try my best, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend is right; of course it is not a lifestyle choice. Who would choose a system where they have to get a voucher, turn up somewhere and give it to someone they have never met before in return for food to take home to their family? It is not a lifestyle choice. Of the 7,000-odd people—a staggering number—who have used the food bank in Knowsley, 700 are in employment. It is definitely not a lifestyle choice for them, and I do not think it is for the others either.

In conclusion, I have set out the reality for many children in Knowsley, and Knowsley is not unique—I am not making that argument—but even at the end of it all, what sort of employment opportunities are available? For many, there are zero-hours contracts under which the person does not know when they are expected to turn up for work, or even how many hours they are going to work, and in some cases—I have spoken to people for whom this is the case—the person gets a call at 11 o’clock at night telling them to go 10 miles away to do a two-hour shift in a packaging factory, the first hour’s earnings from which go on a taxi because public transport does not start until after 6 o’clock. Is that the sort of work these children should inherit? I think not. And these are often major international firms. For those not lucky enough to go into higher education, the other option is a rolling contract. That sounds great, doesn’t it? Why would anyone not want to be on a rolling contract? Actually, it means that every now and then the person gets sacked, so they do not have any continuity of employment rights. Sadly, that is the future for many young people, and this Budget does nothing to take away the fear of that future.