Business of the House

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to Ian Mearns. Congratulations on returning unopposed as the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker.

I wish the Leader of the House a very happy birthday for Monday, and thank him for his follow-up letter after last week’s exchange. I welcome the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), to her place and I thank her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), who was a pleasure to work with in the role. I am hoping that the Backbench Business Committee will be open for business as soon as possible—I truly hope by next week.

We are now in the third decade of the 21st century. Based on statistics that the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs published in March this year, and research by Loughborough University, the number of children living in poverty in my constituency of Gateshead has risen by almost 12% since 2015, meaning that 38% of children in my constituency now live in poverty. These are the Government’s own figures, and they require an urgent cross-Government response. Can we have a debate in Government time about what the Government’s immediate plans are to end the scourge and waste of child poverty in the United Kingdom in 2021?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his unopposed return? We can continue our Bill and Ben act of his asking for more time for the Backbench Business Committee and my telling people who ask for debates that they should ask him, rather than asking me. I am looking forward to continuing that, and I congratulate him most warmly. It is a sign of the House’s confidence in him that he was returned without opposition.

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Progress has been made, and I am sorry to hear that his constituency has not been reflective of the nation as a whole, where, since 2010, the number of children in absolute poverty has fallen by 100,000. This is because of a number of policies that have been and continue to be introduced: the national living wage, which is worth around an extra £4,000 a year; the doubling of the personal tax threshold, which is worth an extra £1,200 a year; and an extra £1.7 billion going into universal credit work allowances by 2023-24. A number of steps are being taken and continue to be taken. They have been successful in the past, and I am sure they will continue to be successful in the future.