Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
John Slinger Excerpts(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lizzi Collinge
My hon. Friend is entirely right. Parents, in my experience, will do anything to protect their children from the harsh realities of life. It is parents who go without food. It is parents who have to go to the food bank. I remember the first time I met the people running the food bank in Morecambe, in 2017. I walked up to them and said, “One day, I will put you out of business.” And they said, “Thank you”, because their strategic aim is not to exist. Food banks should not exist.
Some of the people who oppose the lifting of this limit are also willing to ignore the fact that the policy itself did not work on its own terms. It did not limit the number of children born, but merely condemned them to living in poverty. They are also willing to ignore the evidence that dealing with poverty in childhood is much more cost-effective than mopping up later. It prevents huge costs later down the line in terms of education, health or indeed the criminal justice system.
I am not saying that there are no feckless parents. Of course there are feckless parents, and there have always been feckless parents. I remember my great-grandma telling the story of having to go to the pub on a Friday night to try to get the housekeeping money off her drunkard father. She used to tell it as a funny story with a smile on her face, but it was not funny then and it is not funny now. I was really quite shocked at Reform saying that it would keep the two-child limit on universal credit and instead put that money into reducing the cost of beer. I love a drink—do not get me wrong—but I cannot help but think that, if Reform Members were around 100 years ago, they would have been standing with my drunkard ancestor, rather than with the little girl with her hand out for the housekeeping money. Do we condemn hundreds of thousands of children to poverty because there are a few feckless parents?
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that fecklessness is not a trait exhibited only by poorer people in our country?
Lizzi Collinge
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that fecklessness is not limited to any one socioeconomic group. It is interesting how people born into great wealth consider their position to be due only to their very hard work, yet they consider it to be other people’s own fault if they are born into poverty. That is really quite shocking.
More than 1 million children live in households unable to afford even the most basic necessities of life. There are parents choosing between heating and eating, children doing their homework on the floor in housing that is too crowded to provide a space to study, whole families staying in one room because that is all they can afford to heat, and kids wheezing due to damp. What compounds this heartbreak is that childhood poverty festers and grows. It infects people’s prospects in education, health and employment across their whole life.
Rather than tackling that, discussions about welfare inevitably descend into conversations about merit: who deserves help and who does not. These are children we are talking about—children entirely reliant on adults for their existence and their support, and entirely reliant on Governments such as ours to make sure they are looked after if, from no fault of their own, their parents do not have enough money for the necessities of life.
If this Victorian attitude to the deserving and undeserving poor had won the day previously, we would not have had any of the public services that we now take for granted. We would not have had free education, because why should parents not just pay for education themselves? We would not have had the NHS, because why should people not just pay for doctors themselves? As we know, Reform Members would be very happy to get rid of the NHS and bring in a private insurance system. None of us earned those things through our own merit; we inherited them from people who recognised that everyone deserves a good chance in life and the chance to thrive and succeed, whether by starting their own business, getting an education or doing whatever it is that will make their life a good life. That is the obligation we have to our children.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others have shown that scrapping the two-child benefit limit could drive the single largest fall in child poverty in a single Parliament. My local Citizens Advice has done a brilliant report saying that scrapping the two-child limit is the fastest and most cost-effective intervention to tackle child poverty.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
The child poverty crisis that we inherited from the previous Government is, indeed, stark. In 2014, 16.5% of children were in relative poverty and by 2024, that had risen to 21.8%. The simple truth is that Conservative Members oppose a measure that lifts children out of poverty. They have not changed.
Successive Conservative Governments—and yes, the Liberal Democrats, who cannot get off scot-free, given the coalition—carried out policies that led to hundreds of thousands more children being pushed into poverty. To be precise, the figure is 900,000 more , leaving 4.5 million children living in poverty across our country. That is a shameful number, as large as the population of countries such as Croatia or Ireland. By the end of the Conservatives’ time in office, almost a third of children in the UK were living in poverty. That tells us exactly who they prioritised and who they did not. Even now, they would undo progress.
Stuart Anderson
Will the hon. Member say what statistic backs up the statement that a third of the children in the UK were living in poverty?
John Slinger
The number of children—[Interruption.] The number of children in poverty rose substantially.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that the statistics on below-average-income households are published annually by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is the source of the statistic that he so cleverly deployed in the course of his argument.
John Slinger
That is indeed the statistic that I was reaching for in my notes, and I thank my hon. Friend.
Even now, Opposition Members would undo progress. They would reintroduce the limit; they would make things worse. And as for Reform UK— [Hon. Members: “Where are they?”] Exactly! Where are they? We have seen populist policy hokey-cokey already today. It was probably taking place while the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) was speaking.
Josh Fenton-Glynn
The Reform policy really is quite something, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree. In fact, if someone lost their child benefit because of the Reform policy, it would take 345 pints a week to make a saving. So it does not really help anyone, but it does hurt those in the most poverty. Will my hon. Friend recommend that people do not listen to the easy answers of Reform and actually work to make people’s lives better?
John Slinger
I thank my hon. Friend. I was very moved by his speech, which he delivered from a position of great knowledge and great concern built up over a very impressive career. He is absolutely right. I, of course, would not recommend people to take too seriously policies that are, as I said, populist policy hokey-cokey. To scrap or to reinstate? It is hard to tell. What we have seen from Reform UK is the concept of political triangulation being stretched absolutely to breaking point. In fact, it has broken, with some of the populist nonsense that Reform has spoken about in recent days.
Dr Sandher
I like a pint as well, as it happens—sometimes more than one—but I think it is fair to say that parents across this country will not appreciate getting 5p off each pint they buy, knowing that it will make more children hungry. I am pretty shocked by the trade-off there. I agree with supporting our pubs, and I will do it every single weekend as part of our patriotic duty, but that is not fair. There is another, more damaging, side to this which says that if we just deport and attack enough people, it will make us richer. That is absolutely something that we on this side of the House should reject, and something that Members on the other side of the House sometimes reject as well.
John Slinger
I could not have put it better, particularly the point my hon. Friend made about enjoying a pint. I too enjoy a pint, but linking something as serious as tackling child poverty to the price of a pint in our pubs is trivialising an incredibly serious topic—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) is speaking from a sedentary position. Would he like to intervene?
Dr Evans
I just see the irony of the hon. Member talking about linking this to alcohol, which is a serious problem. Gambling is a serious problem as well, and his party has directly linked this to gambling, even though this is not a hypothecated tax. Could he explain the dichotomy between the two?
John Slinger
It is perfectly acceptable and reasonable for a Government such as ours to take measures in Budgets to provide the resources necessary to enact a policy, as this Bill would do, that will lift so many children out of poverty. I think the hon. Member makes a fairly fatuous point, if I may say so.
Sam Rushworth
Does my hon. Friend share my confusion at the point that has just been made? Does it not illustrate that all of this is about choices, and that the choice that is being made on this side of the House is, yes, to increase the tax on gambling and on mansions in order to decrease child poverty? The choice that Reform would make would be to increase child poverty for 5p off a pint.
John Slinger
I am assuming that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth is opposing the policy before us today. So you actually do not want to take the measure that we are going to take—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. “You”, Mr Slinger—I have mentioned this to you so many times. Let us start again.
John Slinger
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is opposing the policy that will reduce child poverty by an enormous number.
Conservative Members have not really even tried to defend their record. Perhaps that is because it is indefensible. Their decisions were not accidents; they were choices. The consequences were known, the damage was predictable and the outcome is now painfully clear. Years of ignoring child poverty have left this country with many problems, including the number of children not in education, employment or training. That is an inheritance that this Government are now tackling, not least through the excellent work of Alan Milburn and his investigation into work and child poverty that was commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary.
Children are being condemned to a lifetime of economic inactivity, which is bad for them and their future wealth. As the “Keep Britain Working” report found, someone leaving the workforce in their 20s would lose up to £1 million in earnings. It is also bad for their health. Having four more years in education on average relates to a 16% reduction in mortality rates and reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes. It is also bad for the country—all that untapped potential and all that unnecessary benefit spend.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the hon. Member give way?
John Slinger
I will not give way.
The arguments we heard about parental responsibility, the claim that people have children to get benefits, are short-sighted, wrong and, frankly, insulting. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), could not cite any evidence for her claims.
David Baines
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He says no evidence was given for those arguments. That is because there is no evidence, and yet opponents of the policy continue to make the arguments. Does he agree that it is damaging, dangerous and insulting to children and to families that are working hard up and down the land to do the best they can?
John Slinger
I agree with my hon. Friend that it is insulting, and it was surprising that the shadow Secretary of State could not cite any evidence at all.
Regardless of any two-child limit, parents will of course still have children, and those children must never be punished for the circumstances of their birth. The best way to support them, the single most effective way to lift them out of poverty, is this Bill.
Some Members across the House and some across our country implied that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor does not care about child poverty. They implied and claimed that she does not care about economic inactivity and our moral duty. That accusation was not just wrong; it was deeply disrespectful, particularly given her long record of campaigning on these issues.
Graham Stuart
I was not here earlier in the debate, so please forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman talked about Members being able to back up their assertions. Who was it in the debate who suggested that the Chancellor did not care? I have never heard anyone on the Opposition side of the House saying that she does not care. Whether she is capable of dealing with it is a different matter entirely, but who was it who said she did not care, because I am sure we would all want to take it up with them and tell them to change their line?
John Slinger
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I always enjoy them. I found this one particularly amusing—and I very much respect and like the right hon. Gentleman—given that I was not actually quoting. I did not say, “And I quote”. I am allowed to use words without having to justify every single one. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that I was referring to the general view of hon. and right hon. Members in this House. [Interruption.] I think I have dealt with that—it was a good effort, but I will move on.
This measure, made possible by the policies of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor—let’s not forget that—will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, and I am proud to say that that includes 2,020 children in Rugby. Let me be clear: lifting the two-child limit is not the whole answer; it is part of the Government’s wider mission. I say to people outside this Chamber, “Do not let the doomsters, the gloomsters, the cynics and the propagandists mislead you.” In just 19 months, as part of that wider mission, this Labour Government have achieved the following: day-one rights for paternity and parental leave; Best Start family hubs bringing health, parenting and wellbeing under one roof; 30 hours of funded childcare from nine months old; free breakfast clubs, with 405 children in my constituency of Rugby benefiting from the April roll-out; minimum and living wages up; record investment in schools; apprenticeships reformed; full funding for apprenticeships for under-25s in our small and medium-sized enterprises; the youth guarantee, mentioned by the Chancellor in the recent Budget; ensuring routes into work, training and education; and Young Futures hubs and youth hubs. May I please ask Ministers on the Front Bench whether I can have one of those hubs in Rugby? Helping children is about more than lifting the two-child cap. This Government do not, and should not, define our moral purpose solely by the pounds we give to those in need—although we should of course give money to those in need. Unlike the Conservatives, we will do those things I listed and, of course, spend money on lifting the two-child limit.
We are glad to do that because it is not just about poverty in financial terms; it is about the poverty of aspiration for our children, which all too often results from the policies of the parties of the right, and it is about the poverty of ambition for what a Government can and should do to unleash the potential of all children. We reject that poverty too. Opportunity, prosperity and dignity for all cannot come—whether through the animal spirits of the economy or the progressive policies of a Government such as ours—unless child poverty is ended once and for all.
In conclusion, we are the Labour party; we want to give young people the skills and opportunities, and to create the ecosystem, that will unleash their potential. That starts by preventing their early years from being blighted unnecessarily by poverty. We also stand for compassion and support for those who really need it, and that is what we will provide. Ending the two-child limit, and the wider measures I have outlined, are vital to ensuring that our young people become the architects of their futures, not merely tenants living in a world shaped by the older generations, by vested interests and, indeed, by those who are opposed to this Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Slinger Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
I am sure that the hon. Lady will be interested in the recent report published by the BSL Advisory Board, which works with the Government specifically on BSL. I met members of the board last week. They produced a report recently on access to health and care support, specifically highlighting some of these issues. For example, how do BSL users make GP appointments? The other steps that I have outlined today will also be important for deaf and disabled people, and we will continue to work closely with BSL Advisory Board on these issues.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
Since the last set of Work and Pensions oral questions, we have announced £820 million of funding to offer training and work to young unemployed people through the youth guarantee and £725 million more in apprenticeship investment, with 50,000 more apprenticeship starts for young people. We have responded positively to the Sayce review on carer’s allowance and we have published our child poverty strategy, which will lift more than half a million children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament.
John Slinger
I have been campaigning for a youth hub and working with officials in the DWP and local councils to try to secure a much-needed youth hub in Rugby. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this service, offering employment advice, wellbeing support and more, would help tackle the problem of youth dependency on benefits, which is at 16% in Rugby—roughly the national average? Does he further agree that, as young people would say: no cap, it is only this party that will do what is necessary to back young people?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right to say that youth hubs can deliver vital help to get young people back on track. This is about getting the jobcentre out of the jobcentre, if you will, and making sure that we meet young people where they are in the community. We are expanding youth hubs; there will be a total of 360 around the country. Locations will be announced in due course, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will keep campaigning for one in his area.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Slinger Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Torsten Bell
I thank the hon. Member for his question. We discussed this issue at some length in the statement before the recess. He knows that the priority for the Labour party has been to raise the state pension by committing to the triple lock throughout this Parliament at a cost of £31 billion a year. For the new state pension, that will mean an increase of £1,900 a year by the end of this Parliament.
On winter fuel payments specifically—and I thought this was the Conservative party’s position—most people think that we should not be paying hundreds of pounds to the very richest pensioners. We have listened to concerns and raised the threshold, but it is important to maintain that principle. If the Conservatives’ position is now that they want a return to universal winter fuel payments, they need to have a word with the Leader of the Opposition, who has not supported universal winter fuel payments or, indeed, a universal state pension.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Alison McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I am glad he is visiting Rugby jobcentre, and I encourage all Members across the House to go to their local jobcentres, because their work coaches have the most experience and knowledge about what we need to do to get people into work. We are creating “jobcentre in your pocket”, so that everyone can have access to help 24 hours a day. Letting technology take the strain will mean that our work coaches can do more of what they do best, which is giving people—person to person—the confidence to take up life’s chances.
Winter Fuel Payment
John Slinger Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Torsten Bell
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We have gone from competing over temperatures to competing over volume of pensioners, but both are important. The point he makes will echo with lots of Members around the House who have had similar conversations with pensioner constituents who are on a higher income and who do not think it makes sense for them to be receiving hundreds of pounds from the Government every year. In future, they will not be, but the vast majority of pensioners—over three quarters—will be receiving support this winter because of today’s decision.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that it is the strong economic foundations that this Government have been building that have enabled us to provide this extra support to pensioners and working people, and that as the economy continues to grow, we must focus ever more political attention and resources on the younger generation, particularly people starting their careers, so that perhaps one day they may have a triple lock?
Torsten Bell
My hon. Friend raises an important point, which is that as economic growth returns, as it has over recent months, what matters is that it feeds through to rising living standards, particularly for poorer middle-income households. We need to be honest about this: the reason why wages did not grow under the last Government was that growth was not there. That is exactly what we need to make sure never happens again.
PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance
John Slinger Excerpts(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the needs of young carers. I have spoken to young people who started caring in their primary school years. It takes a while for them to be recognised as carers. We need to speed things up.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I have spoken to Jobcentre Plus in Rugby about its excellent work to support people into work, including young people with special educational needs whom I have met. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the package of employment support announced last week—something that charities in my constituency have long been calling for—is one of the biggest ever amounts of money to give disabled people and those with long-term conditions the help they need to find work?
Sir Stephen Timms
Absolutely, it is. The people that my hon. Friend described will be the beneficiaries of the big commitment that we have made.
Winter Fuel Payment
John Slinger Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
It is painfully clear that if this Government believe you did not vote for them, they will continue to turn their back on you. That is clear from their treatment of independent schools, small business owners, farmers, and now—and most cruelly—pensioners. Within just weeks of taking office, this shameful Government scrapped the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners. Those individuals, many of whom are frail and some of the most vulnerable people in society, have given so much to our country. They built our foundations, our communities and the national fabric, yet in return, they receive a cold shoulder from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She could not wait to get her hands on their £300.
Mr Bedford
No, I am not giving way.
That small sum of money allowed pensioners to keep the heating on, helping them to make it through those cold winter nights, and supported them in not having to choose between heating and eating. Wherever I go in my constituency of Mid Leicestershire, I have conversations with older people, and the word they use is “betrayal”. It is a betrayal felt deeply in their hearts, particularly by those who helped build this country.
Let us not forget that 348 Labour MPs are complicit in taking the winter fuel payment away from millions of pensioners, and 71% of disabled pensioners have lost that vital support. Labour Members have repeatedly told us that theirs is the party of the NHS, but let us face the facts: they are all complicit in costing the national health service an additional £169 million, which is the cost of looking after the 100,000 pensioners who have been left out in the cold.
Welfare Reform
John Slinger Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Liz Kendall
That is absolutely my intention. I ask my hon. Friend to send me the details, because I will look into that personally.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the clue is in the name of our party? Because we believe in dignity in work and enhanced workers’ rights; dignity and far more support for disabled people and people with health conditions seeking work, particularly with the right to try; and dignity and compassion for those unable to work, especially in ending reassessments. Does she also agree that this Labour Government will get Britain working and get welfare working better, with compassion and support at its heart?
Liz Kendall
I very much agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments. I do not pretend that this will change overnight, and I know it is a huge agenda, but we are in politics to make a difference—and a big difference—because, as I have said, life is short, and there is much we need to do.
“Get Britain Working” White Paper
John Slinger Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Liz Kendall
This Government understand the importance of whether the benefit system incentivises or disincentivises work, but we must also address people’s skills, the barriers to work, including for disabled people, and the need to work much more closely with employers so that they understand the benefits of keeping people in work or getting them back to work. This is a huge agenda, and I think the DWP has been too centralised and too siloed in not joining up all this support. Our work coaches are desperate to make this happen, and under these reform programmes that is exactly what we will do.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that supporting people into work, through Government action nationally and, of course, locally, is an important part of being pro-business? Will she expand briefly on how the measures she has set out will benefit businesses of all sizes in my constituency, and will she reassure them that we are not only the party of work but a pro-business party?
Liz Kendall
Businesses in Rugby and across the country always say that they are desperate to recruit people with the right skills. If they do not have the right people, they will not be able to expand and thrive. This is a pro-business strategy to get Britain working again, so that we get Britain growing again. My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment says that we are the human resources department of the growth mission. I hope businesses in Rugby will see that and work with us to make sure we get it right.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Slinger Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Liz Kendall)
This morning the nation fell silent to pay tribute to all those who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Today we honour and remember them. I quote the words inscribed on Lutyens’ beautiful Arch of Remembrance in Leicester from the hymn “O Valiant Hearts”:
“All they hoped for, all they had, they gave to save mankind—themselves they scorned to save”.
Some 4.3 million children are growing up in poverty—700,000 more than in 2010. That is why the work of our cross-Government child poverty taskforce is so urgent, and why we will use all levers available to increase family incomes, reduce family costs and give every child the best start in life.
John Slinger
I have had the privilege of assisting the brilliant volunteers at the Make Lunch organisation in Rugby, which provides holiday lunch clubs with play activities for entire families, including those with complex needs. Last summer it fed 25 families, last Christmas it bought slow cookers for families and this Christmas it is offering hampers. They treat families with dignity. As with food banks, is it not an indictment of the record of the last Government that such charitable support is needed in the first place?
Liz Kendall
Make Lunch sounds like an absolutely brilliant charity, and I ask my hon. Friend to pass on our great thanks for its fantastic work. That work is urgent, because the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that a quarter of children in my hon. Friend’s constituency are growing up poor. Our child poverty strategy will be published in the spring, but we will not wait to act. That is why the Budget announced a new fair repayment rate to slash universal credit deductions and give 1.2 million of the poorest households £420 on average a year, lifting thousands of children out of poverty.