Levelling-up Agenda in the North

Debate between Ian Lavery and Navendu Mishra

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I will be coming on to the Marmot report later in my contribution, because it is extremely important.

Life expectancy is unbelievably different in various parts of this country and levelling up should be about tackling the likes of life expectancy. Between 2014-15 and 2019-20, the north-east saw child poverty increase from 25% to 37%, with figures in my constituency mirroring the regional average. The Minister might wish to venture an answer as to why children have fewer opportunities and child poverty is on the rise under this Conservative Government. Almost two thirds of the children in my constituency living in poverty come from a working family. Never mind the rhetoric about people not working and about how the only way to get out of poverty is by working—almost two thirds of the kids in my constituency living in poverty come from working families. But the Government are still pushing ahead with their cuts to universal credit that will take money out of these families’ pockets, and more than £7 million a year out of the local economy. They are pursuing a double whammy that will see low-paid families in work taxed to fix childcare, rather than the millionaires and the Tory donors. The Minister has to tell us: does he think that this is fair? How does he think it is fair?

I now come to Michael Marmot’s report, a decade after the 2010 publication. It lays bare the neglect our communities have faced over a decade. As my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) mentioned, life expectancy has stalled, something not seen since the early 1900s, and it remains lowest in the north and the midlands. The regions with industrial pasts and entrenched poverty have become hotspots for low healthy life expectancy. As the Marmot report put it, people in more deprived areas spend

“more of their shorter lives in ill health”

than those in less deprived areas. I am sure the Minister will wish to address the fact that people in constituencies that have been purposely held back have lower life expectancies and lower healthy life expectancies than those in other parts of the country.

It is perhaps a sign of the Government’s cruelty that they are now looking into feedback on plans to align prescription charge exemptions to pensionable age. What a retrograde step that would be. In real terms, they are looking to push the charge of being poorly after a lifetime of hard work on to people who will be ill for longer and live shorter lives.

Given a decade of Tory underfunding in the guise of austerity, it is no surprise that the covid impact has been felt more greatly in poorer communities. Marmot’s most recent report, which focused on Greater Manchester, showed a covid mortality rate 25% higher than England’s average.

NHS waiting lists have exploded over the past decade and have now grown to a record 5.45 million. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the backlog could reach 14 million if urgent action is not taken soon. At the same time, A&E waiting times have grown and the number of people not seen within the four-hour target has been increasing for more than a decade. People in our communities are in poorer health, stuck on waiting lists and being charged for medication. Perhaps the Minister would like to explain to the people in our constituencies why that is the case.

Depression is much more prevalent in northern constituencies. The 10 seats with the highest levels of the disease are mostly in the north-west or the wider north. The 10 seats with the lowest levels of depression are all in London. Deprivation plays a huge part in depression and mental health more generally. Suicide rates for men and women are the highest in Yorkshire and the Humber, while the lowest rates for men are in London. For men living in more deprived communities, the risk of suicide increases, particularly for middle-aged men. How does the Minister plan to use levelling up to tackle these huge issues in our communities?

At one time, having a job was seen as a route out of poverty; sadly, for too many this is not the case. Communities in the north and the midlands have the lowest levels of earnings, higher temporary employment and higher levels of zero-hours contracts, and suffer the scourge of bogus self-employment. All those things have rocketed in the past decade. Minister, how will the Government use levelling up to ban zero-hours contracts and bogus self-employment?

In the past year, workers in held-back communities have been disproportionately hit by covid. The north-east had by far the lowest percentage of workers who were able to work from home in the past year and a half. Only a few weeks ago, the north-east chamber of commerce was urging the Government to intervene as unemployment remains among the highest in the UK. With furlough set to be removed at the end of this month, the picture right across the UK is likely to get much worse.

More than a third of all workers in the north-east are classified as key workers. They have carried this country on their backs during this unprecedented pandemic. Care workers, supermarket staff and cleaners are paid less than the real living wage. What are the Government going to do to raise their pay—to level up in the true sense of the term?

In education, a decade of Tory rule has seen per-pupil spending dwindle by nearly 10%. The Institute of Fiscal Studies is clear that pupils in more disadvantaged areas have been hit the hardest—surprise, surprise.

The current plans go nowhere near redressing what has been cut and are disproportionally weighted to more affluent areas. Earlier this year, a Department for Education study revealed that pupils in the north-east fell further behind than those in any other region. Changes to the way pupil premium funding is allocated by amending the date at which free school meals are counted has left one school in my constituency £88,700 worse off. I say to the Minister that, when schools in the most deprived areas are getting fewer funds allocated than those in the more affluent areas, how on earth can that be classed as levelling up? What will he do about it?

The scourge of pensioner poverty is once again on the rise across the UK. It is entirely possible that, given the Government’s drive to increase the state pension age in the relatively near future, average life expectancy in large parts of the UK will be lower than the state pension age. That would hammer people in constituencies such as mine where male life expectancy in good areas hovers around 65 to 70 years of age. What will the Government do to stop those with the lowest healthy life expectancy and the lowest life expectancy from being taken out of a pension system that they have paid into all their lives—week in, week out—from their employment? They might not even get a halfpenny because of the level of life expectancy in their area. They might not get a halfpenny back from what they have put in. Is that levelling up? I do not think that that is really what is meant by levelling up.

The much trumpeted social care plans not only fail workers, but do nothing to protect the assets of people in constituencies such as mine. In many parts, average house prices are much lower than the £100,000 set by the Government. How can levelling up mean that people in held-back constituencies such as mine lose their modest assets that they have worked their whole lives for to pay for care, while those in richer parts of the country pass on their wealth to their children? We could go on and on.

Bus services have been slashed in the north, but the cost of travel has increased massively. In London, bus fares are capped at £1.55, and a day of bus travel in the capital is capped at a total of £4.65 a day. Travelling in my constituency between Morpeth and Ashington, which is roughly 6 miles, costs £6.40.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I thank my good friend for giving way and congratulate him on securing this important debate. In my first Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister assured me that he would look into the details of plans to extend the Metrolink tram system into my constituency of Stockport. I have not heard a word since. Does he agree that we need action and investment from the Government rather than empty promises and warm words?

[Ian Lavery]

Absolutely. I thank my friend for that intervention. I think I mentioned early on in my contribution that levelling should not be rhetorical. Levelling up is a serious issue and we need to know how the Government will actually level up.

On climate change, the costs are being passed on to working families, while those who continue to pollute are getting away scot free. As I say, I could go on and on. The phrase “levelling up” is not going away, but it means little in the mouths of Conservatives more interested in pointing at shiny infrastructure projects than in the prosperous futures of people in communities that have, for so long, been held back. The funding being considered is simply not enough; it is a sticking plaster over a severed limb. By almost all measures, those areas of our country that have been held back by the Government trail those from more prosperous parts of the country. This has been further exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis and its dismal handling by the Tory Government. We simply cannot afford for levelling up to be abused in the same manner, with cosy contracts for infrastructure investment handed to the same people while at the same time poverty, education, health outcomes and opportunities continue to suffer.

I do not think anyone would argue that billionaires should be profiting from a crisis like a pandemic, but during the course of the last 18 months the global wealth of billionaires rose by more than £5 trillion. So when Labour wins the next election, let us have a backdated super tax on the spivs and Tory donors who have enriched themselves with Government cash, pocketed through the last year of hell while ordinary people have paid the price.

As Frances O’Grady said today at the TUC,

“levelling up means nothing if they freeze key workers’ pay, slash Universal Credit, and the number of kids in poverty soars.”

I echo her challenge to the Government: if levelling up is more than rhetoric, it must mean a levelling up in the workplace, in our communities and ending the scourge of child poverty.