Single-Parent Families

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. The sad reality for many single parents is that working in even a very good job does not pay enough to make them better off than they would be if they stayed at home, because of the cost of childcare. For many parents, that is at the root of their ability not even to work and thrive, but just to survive.

[Alison McGovern]

Of course, the hon. Lady is right. The knock-on effect for British businesses is really quite big, because they are missing out on all the talent that exists in single-parent families.

The United Kingdom has a good story on single-parent employment, which has been on a generally upward trend since the mid-1990s, having previously been falling since 1979. In 1997, 45% of single parents worked; by 2010, that had risen by 12 percentage points to 57%. I am not sure what happened between 1997 and 2010, but I think it was probably quite good.

That was obviously a bit of a joke about the Labour Government and how they were brilliant on lone-parent employment, particularly in relation to jobcentres, which I will come to. The numbers have continued to grow, which is good; again, I hope that represents a cross-party consensus. Worryingly, however, single-parent employment has fallen since 2019. We need to focus on it again and work out how to turn that around.

Single parents are also likely to be underemployed. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), many single parents could do more and offer more to our economy if childcare were available. We know that single parents are more likely to be women, and the kind of work that women are more likely to do militates against their having better pay. We need to work on employment segregation. The jobs that women do mean they end up being paid less, which has a massive knock-on effect on single parents. If we could change that so that women’s time and talent were valued properly, as they should be in our economy, we would give single parents and, crucially, their children a much better chance.

Childcare has been mentioned because it is the glaringly obvious cause of many of the challenges that single parents face in our economy. The Institute for Fiscal Studies points out that there are at least eight different programmes to help with the cost of childcare and many families are eligible for more than one form of support simultaneously. That complexity makes it hard to understand what someone is eligible for. However, despite the plethora of schemes, the supply of childcare is not really any good, because there are failures in the way that the schemes run.

We need to have a root-and-branch look at childcare. We are all hopeful that we might hear something in the Budget. There are things, such as reforming the way it works through universal credit, that we could have done already. Labour wants to invest in breakfast clubs, which could be funded by savings that we have identified from changing tax arrangements for non-doms. That would help single parents to do a job that starts at 9 am and give them a lot more flexibility.

In addition to the extremely important issue of childcare, our success as a nation in helping single parents to have a choice of jobs and success in employment was driven by Jobcentre Plus services. In recent years, I have worried that the focus on supporting single parents has declined. I hope that is not the case, but we need to make improvements. Gingerbread found recently that just a third of single parents agreed that contact with Jobcentre Plus was personalised and relevant to their specific situation. That is not great. Lone parents face specific barriers, and they need specialised support. Gingerbread found a lack of continuity in relationships with work coaches, and that people were being pushed to apply for unsuitable jobs. That is problematic. We know that Jobcentre Plus works best when it provides tailored and specific support.

Of course, we also need workplaces to change, with more part-time and flexible working. Will the Minister say how he sees the DWP making that happen? Do the Department’s own flexible working policies support single parents? What does the Department advise work coaches to suggest to employers on flexible or part-time work to support single parents? There is a huge amount of skill and life experience available to businesses, if only they can ensure that the employment they are offering is fully inclusive. There is no better time to address this. We have businesses crying out for staff. Why not look for talent in single-parent families?

We await tomorrow’s Budget, and I live in hope that we will see expansive, brilliant childcare reform that will really help—I am slightly sceptical after 13 years in this place, although perhaps my Pollyanna-ish tendencies should be tempered with a bit more scepticism—but whatever happens tomorrow, we also need action far beyond childcare, including reform to the support that Jobcentre Plus offers; improved public transport, because fewer single parents are likely to have their own car; and big changes on flexible working, so that everybody is fully included. In this time of staff shortages, making employment more inclusive and ensuring that it involves more people would be a big win, which could help our labour market to be sustainable into the future. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say as a precursor to tomorrow’s excitement.

Implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I rise to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of Wirral South in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South—the brilliant Member for that constituency—with sincere thanks to the WASPI women of Merseyside.

The Petition of residents of Wirral South.

[P001817]

Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)

- Hansard -

I rise on behalf of the residents of Livingston to present this petition of 530 signatures in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. May this Government listen to the WASPI women across this country, and do them justice.

The Petition of residents of Livingston.

[P001819]

Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

In this debate, several hon. Members have reminded me of my previous contributions, and I thank them for doing so. I will not shut up about this because these people matter. In response to what we said in 2013, 2014 and this year, the Government have demonstrated that they have the capacity to change their mind. All I ask is that they show what sensible, reasonable people they are and change their mind again.

We need to play such a role in Europe. We need to demonstrate—whether in exceptional circumstances, or under whatever definition we set—that we are prepared to help our friends in Europe. The UK needs to be

“a piece of the Continent, a part of the main”,

as John Donne, one of our country’s finest poets, said.

Secondly, we need truly to respond in policy terms to the outpouring of good will towards refugees and victims of the conflict in Syria. Never mind the numbers; let us show that we have heard what the people of Britain think and take refugees out of the migration target. I think that the Government have failed on their migration target, which was ill-conceived for loads of reasons to do with the place of universities in our economy and the needs of great businesses, such as Unilever in my patch. It was a bad idea, but they are the Government and they have a right to do it. What they do not have the right to do is to say that we should decide whether we are living up to our duty towards the people coming to our country needing our help and needing sanctuary on the basis of some arbitrary statistical target that they have set for themselves in the heat of an election.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her incredible and hugely impassioned speech. Does she agree that this is not about numbers? We must stop talking about such people as numbers; they are human beings. This is a human tragedy, and it needs a human response. Every time somebody has to flee their country as a result of what is happening, it is a tragedy. I share her views.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. She makes my point for me perhaps more eloquently than I was able to when I said earlier that one is better than none. For each person we can help, we should be glad we have done so in the knowledge that immigrants to this country make a massive contribution and build us up to what we are today.

I ask the Government to think again. They have shown they can do it. They have shown that they are prepared to listen. I ask them to show that compassion and reason once more. It makes no sense to say on the one hand that we will decide whether somebody can claim asylum and seek sanctuary in this country based on need and based on their circumstances, while on the other hand counting in refugees with a migration target that is essentially just a number that has been decided for other reasons. We should decide each case based on its merits.

I do not underestimate the size and scale of what we are asking local authority leaders to do. I do not underestimate that for a moment, and I thought the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) made some serious and excellent points on that, but that is why it is all the more deeply impressive that local authority leaders, such as Richard Leese and Joe Anderson in the north-west of England, have stood up to be counted. They have said that their parts of the world will welcome refugees and will do all that is necessary to provide sanctuary for them. Of course, the Government will have to work hard to make sure there are resources and we need to empower local communities so that they feel able to welcome refugees, but working together we can do it. As it happens, DFID resources have often been spent, as necessary, on people in this country. We need to find different ways to fund this effort, but I applaud all local authority leaders who have shown that they are prepared to welcome refugees into their city, town or county.

In closing, I want to say a final word on refugee camps. I have never visited a refugee camp, but the Secretary of State has and she made an excellent case for why they are not the best idea in terms of sanctuary. They are temporary and they are unsafe. They can be good places where people can get medical care, but in the end it comes down to this: nobody’s home should be a camp. That is why we need to truly understand what it means to give sanctuary. It does not just mean, “Here’s a roof over your head for the moment,” necessary though that is. It does not just mean a way to feed somebody’s children and give them medical care, absolutely necessary though that is. It means: here is the place where you can belong. That is sanctuary, that is what we should offer refugees, and that is why we will keep asking the Government until they do more.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Alison McGovern

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I rise to urge the House not to give the Welfare Reform and Work Bill a Second Reading.

On the day of the Budget announcement, I, like many of my colleagues on the SNP Benches and many in society, watched in horror at Conservative Members jeering and cheering as the Chancellor announced swathes of cuts that will hit the poorest and most vulnerable in our society hardest. When I was elected by the good people of Livingston to this House, I anticipated some aspects of Dickensian tradition, largely framed around the traits and traditions of Westminster, but not for one minute did I expect that we would be taken back to Dickensian times by a Government hellbent on dividing our nation in such a regressive way.

The Conservative Government have claimed that they have

“a long-term economic plan to move the nation back to where we should be. This offers that and will reward hard-working families.”

We are certainly going backwards. The rhetoric that the Conservatives use in this Chamber about hard-working families and aspiration is fast wearing thin for many of us. Apart from anything else, when we delve into the detail, what we find is deeply worrying.

Let us look at exactly what the Government plan to do for our so-called hard-working families. The Conservatives will rename the Child Poverty Act 2010 the life chances Act. I spent a number of years in the marketing industry and recognise that this is rebranding on a grand scale. Perhaps the Chancellor is in the wrong job. I have taken the advice of the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and looked at the impact assessment that came out very recently. Paragraph 33 says of the life chances Act:

“The proposed changes enhance the life chances of children as they ensure that households make choices based on their circumstances rather than on taxpayer subsidies. This will increase financial resilience and support improved life chances for children in the longer term.”

Let me explain why SNP Members do not believe that to be the case.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress says that the “so-called” living wage is

“simply a cheap gimmick aimed at undermining…a meaningful living wage”

and that

“continuation of the public sector pay gap is…a kick in the teeth for hard-working public sector workers.”

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said that the Budget was an attack on the poorest and most vulnerable communities by an “economically illiterate” Chancellor who has admitted that this is not about tackling the deficit, as he said that it was part of his push for a low tax, low welfare society. In SCVO’s view, he was

“demonstrating a cruel disregard for the impact this will have on hundreds of thousands of people’s lives.”

Barnardo’s has stated that renaming the Child Poverty Act 2010 the “life chances Act” sends the message that eliminating child poverty is no longer an aim of this Government. It is clear that the Bill will push more children, families and vulnerable people across Scotland and the UK deeper into poverty. Rebranding child poverty plans as “life chances measures”, and completely removing any legal obligation to meet those targets, only proves how badly this Government are failing our society on welfare. As indicated by the House of Commons Library, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s “State of the Nation” report from October 2014 stated:

“Modelling for the Commission illustrates the scale of the challenge. It projects that—based on current OBR forecasts for employment and wage growth—relative poverty (before housing costs) will rise to 21 per cent by 2020, 11 percentage points above target, and absolute poverty will rise to 24 per cent, even further behind the target of five per cent. This is likely to be an optimistic view as it ignores the impact of the further cuts to welfare benefit entitlements that are pencilled into current plans for deficit reduction in the next Parliament.”

Those plans are no longer pencilled in; they are in black and white for all of us to see. It is crystal clear to me that the Conservatives cannot meet their targets or fulfil their promises to folk across the UK, so instead they will just rebrand and repackage swathes of cuts to make it sound as if we are getting a better deal. It simply will not wash.

Another genius rebranding exercise by the Tories has been the introduction of the so called “living wage”—which, in reality, is a small increase in the minimum wage, up to £7.20 and to £9 by 2020—and the Chancellor has blatantly stolen the terminology used by the Living Wage Foundation that has set the living wage rate at £7.85 outside London and £9.15 in London. Rhys Moore, director of the Living Wage Foundation said:

“Is this really a living wage?...The Living Wage is calculated according to the cost of living whereas the Low Pay Commission calculates a rate according to what the market can bear. Without a change of remit for the Low Pay Commission this is effectively a higher National Minimum Wage and not a Living Wage.”

He went on to say that, to add insult to injury, the current calculation is based on workers receiving tax credits, which are also being cut.

Let us move on to tax credits and universal credit. The four-year freeze starts in 2016 and will affect around 577,000 families in receipt of child benefit in Scotland, and an overlapping 468,000 in receipt of housing benefit. More than a third of a million households in receipt of tax credits will also lose out. The Conservatives claim to be the workers’ party, but that claim could not be further from the truth as they lower the total amount that a household can receive in benefits to £20,000 outside London, and £23,000 in Greater London. In the words of charity Barnardo’s:

“This will significantly reduce the income of some very poor families.”

Worse still, in the Trade Union Bill—yet to be debated by this House—the Government plan to introduce standards for unions when voting for a strike that not even we as politicians are required to meet.

Let us consider the proposals for lone parents and other “responsible carers” in receipt of universal credit. We know that they are not currently subject to “work preparation” requirements until their youngest child reaches the age of three, and they do not have to be available for and look for work until that youngest child reaches five. The Bill reduces the age thresholds for work preparation to two, and for full work-related requirements to three. Let me be clear: the SNP is abjectly opposed to the capping of benefits such as carer’s allowance, child benefit, child tax credits, severe disablement allowance, and widow’s pension. The people who receive those benefits are some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, and it is abundantly clear that there is no level to which this Conservative Government will not stoop as they attack those vulnerable groups.

Instead of considering how we can properly protect and support folk who have already faced significant challenges in their life, we have a Government who cannot see past reducing a deficit, and will do so at all costs. This is an “at all costs” attack on the sick, the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and the many families who are working and trying their best to get to the end of the month without getting into debt. This Government’s cuts will affect the working poor, so that instead of being supported to better themselves, those in work will be further marginalised and have their benefits cut. Barnardo’s has noted that:

“A lone parent working full time on the minimum wage for 37 hours a week with two young children would lose £1,200 a year as a result of changes introduced from April 2016, even after accounting for the increase in the minimum wage.”

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. Does she think that all lone parents are able to work 35 hours a week?

[Hannah Bardell]

I believe we must have benefits that are suited to the situation, and the Conservative proposals will not do that.