Low-income Households

Debate between Karen Buck and Baroness Clark of Kilwinning

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Field]

Does this exchange not sum up the big problem in trying to assess equality or inequality? The question is whether we consider the matter in an absolute or in a relative sense. As we represent neighbouring constituencies, the hon. Lady will know that one of the effects of globalisation and the huge wealth that has come from the financial services industry in Britain over the past 20 years is that relative inequality has increased. The huge wealth of certain people in our constituencies—whether in St John’s Wood, Mayfair or Belgravia—is clear. That is not to get away from the idea that some progress was made under her Government, and I am sure that the same will be true under the coalition Government. The most vulnerable will be looked after and we will ensure that absolute levels of inequality are at the forefront of our minds.

[Katy Clark (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions must be short.

[Ms Buck]

I am not sure whether it is possible to have an absolute measure of inequality. Inequality is, almost by definition, a relative indicator. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman accepts the fact that we made progress in levelling out soaring inequality. Interestingly—he makes this point—we are talking about a global context of widening inequalities.

We are in a highly globalised economy, with fabulous increases in wealth and income at the top levels; that is very well demonstrated in the City of London in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The fact that, even against that backdrop, the Labour Government were able to level out inequality, broadly, after the soaring increase in inequality that we saw in the 1980s, was an extraordinary achievement. Then, on top of that achievement—as he rightly says, there is a difference between relative inequality and poverty—the Labour Government were also able to make real progress, particularly in their first two and a half terms in office, in tackling child poverty, and even more progress in tackling pensioner poverty.

However, the Labour Government’s record is not faultless, by any stretch of the imagination, and I am not here to claim that it is. Nevertheless, that does not make it any better for the coalition Government falsely to claim that there was no reform agenda, falsely to exaggerate the impact on levels of inequality between 1997 and 2010, or inaccurately to compare Labour’s record with that of previous Governments before coming out with a set of proposals that are absolutely guaranteed to make the situation dramatically worse.

Clearly, that set of proposals by the Government is the central point of this debate, because the claims that the Budget of June 2010 was progressive have been completely demolished by the IFS, and that was even before last week’s announcement that an additional £4 billion will be cut from the welfare budget. As the IFS states:

“researchers have previously cast doubt on this claim”—

the claim that the June Budget was progressive—

“noting that the main measures which will lead to losses amongst better-off households were announced by the previous government”.

They were announced by Labour, but they have subsequently been rolled into the coalition Government’s claims. The IFS says that new research that it published two weeks ago shows that the changes

are clearly regressive as, on average, they hit the poorest households more…in cash, let alone percentage, terms”.

Those who lose the least are households of working age without children in the upper half of income distribution; those who lose most are low-income households, usually with children.

I will quickly outline the key measures that will have that impact: the move to update benefits and tax credits by the consumer prices index instead of basing inflation rates on the retail prices index; a reduction in Government spending of £5.8 billion a year by 2014; cuts in the value of housing benefit for some, which will amount to a reduction of £1.8 billion a year; cuts to tax credits for low-income families—something that was flatly and explicitly denied by the Chancellor when he was the shadow Chancellor and other coalition politicians before June, and certainly before the election—and the rise in the tax threshold, which will be of little benefit to low-income families in rented accommodation, as the extra net income will result in reduced housing benefit. Those are just some of the cuts; there are many more specific cuts that will apply particularly to the poorest.

Given the criticism that was aimed at the Labour Government’s policies as they affected work incentives, it is worth reminding ourselves that, extraordinarily, the June Budget increased rather than decreased the proportion of earners facing high marginal levels of deduction. That is one of the most extraordinary and hypocritical things that has emerged from the coalition Government since May. The more aggressive mean-testing of tax credits will raise the marginal rates of deduction for all recipients with incomes above £6,420. The number of people affected by MRDs above 70% will increase from 700,000 to 2.2 million. How on earth can Ministers look themselves in the face, having said so much about the Labour Government’s failure to improve work incentives for two-income households—if not for single-parent households—and then having allowed this change to happen?

Furthermore, despite the massive investment in tax credits and other in-work benefits that the Labour Government made, we should reflect on the fact that yesterday’s report by the Institute for Public Policy Research is just the latest to confirm a large and growing problem of in-work poverty. Wage levels, sometimes—but not always—in conjunction with a sufficiency of working hours, are simply not able to carry the burden of the idea that work is always the best route out of poverty. Without improvements in pay—such improvements are my preferred strategy—and without extra work potential and even better in-work benefits, this situation will not improve and indeed may worsen.

Worryingly, that was also confirmed by an Office for Budget Responsibility document that looked at the prospects for economic recovery. That document stated that, in the view of the OBR, one of the ways that business will reduce its costs as it enters recovery will be not by shedding more jobs—in itself, that is good news—but by maintaining a downward pressure on hourly rates of pay. So, unless we do something about the way that work incentives are supported through tax credits and benefits, we are likely to see even more in-work poverty. Of course, that not only is bad in itself, because it traps people in poverty, but sends out a message that is precisely the opposite of what everybody from all parts of the House claims to support—a message that we in Labour genuinely believe in. That is the message that we do not want worklessness and that we want people to enter employment. However, that work must be made to pay.

I am sure that others will want to talk about the specific tax and benefit changes announced by the Government, and I will not go into great detail about all of those changes. However, I want to say a little more about the issues of employment support allowance and incapacity benefit. After the June Budget, cuts of £4 billion, including the £2.5 billion cuts from ESA, were bounced on to the Department for Work and Pensions last week; that was something of a surprise, not least to the Department. Yesterday, following the statement made by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, sought clarification on whether the savings will affect only those people whom the Government have already assessed through the work capability assessment and found not fit for work. She was unable to get an answer from Ministers yesterday, and I wonder if the Minister who is here today can confirm where those proposed savings of £2.5 billion are coming from.

Will there be a reduction in benefit for people who have already been assessed and who have failed the work capability assessment? Can the Minister also confirm that the £2.5 billion of savings come on top of savings already built into Treasury plans, based on the anticipated results of work capability assessments? About two thirds of people who have already been tested have been found fit to work. In addition, can she confirm that, if these cuts are made uniformly, each claimant will lose an average of about £1,000 a year?

Furthermore, has the Minister had a chance to reflect on the report by the Public Accounts Committee yesterday that showed that private providers of the work directions programme have managed to reach only about a third of their targets in placing people in work? That casts real doubt on the validity of a further aggressive reduction in the provision made for people who are classified as long-term sick or disabled and their ability to enter employment.

The Minister will also not be surprised to know that one of my deepest concerns has been about housing benefit. Since the recess, new research from Shelter, for example, shows that the cuts in local housing allowance will cause a huge surge in homelessness. It is estimated that well in excess of 100,000 people are unable to negotiate cheaper rents, and they will either be evicted or forced to move. Providing temporary accommodation for all of those people is likely to cost the Government up to £120 million, cancelling out—as a minimum—a fifth of the savings that the Government are hoping to achieve. Has the Department for Work and Pensions, in partnership with the Department for Communities and Local Government, been able so far to carry out a proper analysis of what the impact on homelessness will be of the cuts in the LHA?

In relation to housing benefit cuts and non-dependant deductions, can the Minister confirm that the unfreezing of non-dependant deductions also applies to council tax benefit? That would affect many low-income home owners and many pensioners. Has her Department carried out an analysis of the breakdown by age group and tenure of the number of people who will be affected by the unfreezing of non-dependant deductions and, if so, what is the average saving per household of that measure?

I could spend a great deal more time working through a number of these specific proposals and setting out the harshness of their impact on low-income groups, but I will let others speak. I will just finish with a couple of sentences on the issue of public services and how they represent benefits in kind. Although I have been focusing primarily on the June Budget, the CSR is likely to have exactly the same differential impact on low-income groups, particularly with its focus on reductions in public services.

The annual analysis by the Office for National Statistics, entitled “The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes”, provides a vitally important piece of analysis, looking at the value of different services by quintile groups. The value of spending on health, education, transport, housing and school meals is not evenly distributed across income groups but, with the exception of transport expenditure, disproportionately benefits poorer households. Again, housing investment is especially pro-poor, benefiting the bottom quintile 15 times more than the top. A 25% reduction in the housing budget will add 300,000 people to housing waiting lists; a 40% reduction will add 500,000.

I am sure that the Minister will know from her constituency work—although the problem is not, I suspect, on the scale of that in my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field)—what it is like to have constituents who are trapped in grossly overcrowded, substandard or temporary accommodation and who are unable to work due to high rents. They may be trapped at home in extremely difficult circumstances. The average age at which a young person in London will be able to afford their first home is now estimated to be 52. If we deliberately cut investment in housing, not only will it make the situation worse; as the Office for National Statistics clearly confirms, it will affect the poorest disproportionately. According to the ONS analysis of benefits in kind, when all services are taken together, the bottom quintile receives 13 times more benefit than the top. An across-the-board reduction in service expenditure of 25% will therefore, by definition, disproportionately affect poorer households. That fact has not been teased out at all in discussions of the coalition’s Budget.

The analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, increasingly supplemented by work by Shelter, Citizens Advice, the TUC and many others, has driven a stake through the heart of Government claims that the coalition’s tax and spending plans are fair or progressive. In fact, they will sharply increase inequality, weaken incentives to work, cause widespread misery and hardship and almost certainly increase pressure on non-discretionary expenditure such as that on homelessness. On 17 June, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

“it makes no moral sense to abandon poorer children along the way”,

yet that is exactly what has happened. Unless the Government change course between now and the comprehensive spending review, both poverty and inequality in this country are likely to escalate.