Child Poverty

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered child poverty.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Let me share with the House my reasons for tabling this debate. My passion for campaigning against child poverty stems from the reasons why I stood for Parliament. It is a motivation that I know is shared right across this Chamber, because we all serve in politics to change lives. For me, that means that no child in Britain should grow up in poverty. We should not simply accept a situation where luck of birth can hold a person back throughout their lifetime. Those who grow up in poverty are more likely to fall behind in school, less likely to secure a stable job in the future and more likely to suffer from ill health in later life. This debate is about making sure that Britain is a country that gives every child the opportunity of the best start in life.

I want to rebuild a cross-party consensus and to welcome the sentiments expressed by the Prime Minister as she stood on the steps of Downing Street. She signalled a fight against “burning injustice”, with an unambiguous pledge to

“do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.”

I agree, because to succeed in the future we must create a country that makes the most of all our talents. That is the task facing all of us in this place. We should be judged by whether we do right by the next generation.

In my Barnsley constituency, more than one in four children grow up in poverty, so I stand here today to give a voice to those 5,114 children. The Minister will know that in her constituency, too, more than one in four children grow up in poverty. Surely we can find common ground on the need for a target to change those alarming figures, so that the children we represent here today can have the brightest possible future.

In Britain today, an average of nine children in a class of 30 grow up in poverty. For those nearly 4 million children, that can mean living in a cold and cramped home, falling behind in school and not being able to join in activities with friends. The Children’s Commission on Poverty empowered young people to share their own experiences of poverty. Over 18 months, the commissioners investigated how poverty affects their peers at school, and I want to give them a voice here today and share some of the findings.

The commissioners were shocked and moved by what they found. Luke, aged 17, said:

“I am surprised that even in the 21st century, children and young people are being subject to the harshest injustice in society even within schooling. This should never be right in one of the world’s richest countries.”

Poverty means children often have to dress differently and therefore stand out. A classmate described the situation:

“I saw some kids that didn’t have blazers or coats in winter and I could see they couldn’t afford it”.

Pupils shared how those in poverty do not all qualify for free school meals if their parents are working. When that is the case, a meal at lunchtime may not always be affordable, a situation that one child describes:

“It depends really on what my mum’s situation is. If I don’t have the money, I normally just wait until I get home [to eat].”

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is doing an excellent job setting out the problem that we sadly still face with child poverty in this country. Is he aware of the work of the holiday hunger campaign? Children who have free school meals during term time have a six-week-long summer holiday where they do not have access to those free school meals, and many of them go hungry. The campaign is doing excellent work.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am aware of that campaign, which is doing incredibly important work in providing food and nourishment for children during the school holidays. I will be saying a little more about the problem she raises later in my speech.

For those who do receive free school meals, their poverty status can be highlighted by how they are required to buy their lunch with a token, which can hold up the queue as their card is inspected. Those children’s experiences should give us pause, for a renewed focus on child poverty, that understands the experience of those who live it every day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for obtaining this important and timely debate and for his sterling work in pursuing the issue of child poverty. His written parliamentary questions and private Member’s Bill have been important in keeping child poverty on the agenda and making sure that, although it is the last day of term here, we are debating a subject crucial to the children in our constituencies.

At this time families are preparing for Christmas at home, getting the tree ready and wrapping presents, but that is something not available to everyone. Some of my constituents recently got in touch for assistance because they have no money for Christmas presents for their children. Such families are dependent on the charity of organisations such as Glasgow’s Spirit of Christmas, the Salvation Army, and groups working in the Gorbals. There are many voluntary groups in constituencies which people have to approach to ask for gifts for their children. I cannot imagine the heartbreak it must cause parents to know that they just do not have the money—that Santa will not come to their door and their kids will wake up on Christmas morning with perhaps nothing at all.

The way those families have now been stigmatised in this country and been allowed to reach such a situation is nothing short of appalling. One of the families I mentioned has no recourse to public funds—the mother is working but just cannot work enough to bring in enough money to pay the bills, put food on the table and provide Christmas presents for her children. That is the reality today for families in the UK—the sixth richest nation on earth.

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central is correct to point out that the debate is about political choices and Government decisions that affect people in this country. He rightly quoted his town’s motto about judging people by their actions; it is a crucial point that we should take forward. He is also right to point out that the Labour Government made significant progress on child poverty, and I pay credit to them for that. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) correctly mentioned the significance of tracking, targets and actually having something to work towards. Without that guiding principle, how will we know whether we are making progress? How will we know whether lives are being improved or getting worse?

Let me talk a little about the impact of child poverty beyond the bald statistics, which can be pretty dry. Child poverty is about stigma and isolation, and there is a compounding impact that makes it difficult to escape from the cycle of poverty. In 2010, back when I was a councillor in Glasgow, Save the Children ran a series of events about the lived experience of children in poverty. It created what it called a museum of poverty, which contained things that it wished to banish from reality and ought to be things of the past. Those included pawn tickets, unaffordable fuel, benefit forms, homelessness, cheap, crap food that does people no good, and dinner tickets and tokens, which the hon. Member for Barnsley Central mentioned. Those are all stigmas that people in poverty have to carry around with them. We do not necessarily see them, but those people have to see and feel them every single day.

Things have got worse since 2010. We have let children down. The children who participated in those events may now actually be parents themselves. We now have brutal sanctions, the two-child policy and the rape clause, which will not only stigmatise the families it impacts but hurt them deeply. We have the benefit cap, there are people with no recourse to public funds, and delays in benefits leave people with no option but to go to food banks and rely on the charity of friends, family and strangers.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the hon. Lady agree that unless the Government finally acknowledge that delays to benefits and benefit sanctions are major causes of people going to food banks, we will never reduce food poverty in this country?

[Alison Thewliss]

Absolutely. The evidence that the National Audit Office and charities across the country have produced on this issue makes that absolutely clear. I spoke to an organisation from Castlemilk, which is not in my constituency but has been working with food banks in my constituency. It had spoken to people who came to the food banks and tried to help them with their issues. Its evidence showed clearly that food poverty was about delays, some of which are built into the system. The six-week wait for universal credit claims leaves people with nothing until that comes through. That is absolutely unacceptable. Most worryingly, that organisation also found that people did not want to challenge things because they were worried about getting into trouble with the Department for Work and Pensions, their job coach or whoever they had spoken to. It is deeply disappointing that that service does not support people but punishes them.

A lot of very good work has been done on poverty in Glasgow. The poverty leadership panel has done a great deal of work. Glasgow City Council, in partnership with Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Glasgow Centre for Population Health and a host of other organisations, produced an excellent report about the cost of the school day that is similar to some of work that the hon. Member for Barnsley Central mentioned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) spoke about the developmental lag in education, which has an impact. There are things inherent in the education system that perhaps not everyone sees but are very important to people living in poverty. That report looked at the stigma about things such as clothes, transport and learning resources, and the impact of poverty on friendships, people’s ability to go on trips, food, and in-school events such as non-uniform days, fundraising events and clubs. People in poverty cannot participate in a great many of those things, and that has a huge impact, particularly on young children. Other children in a class can tell that a child is in poverty, no matter how they might try to cover that up.

The Conservatives in this place are reluctant to see “I, Daniel Blake”, but the example in that film of the wee girl whose shoes had been glued back together but kept falling apart, and the family who could not afford to put shoes on that child’s feet, is heartbreaking. Such experiences are damaging to a child’s health, wellbeing and very sense of identity. My son went through three pairs of school shoes and two pairs of trousers last year in primary 1. I was able to put shoes on his feet, but if I was not able to do that, what impact would going around in Scotland in the rain with wet feet every day have on him? That would be appalling, and many families are left in that situation. Schools in Glasgow have to buy outdoor clothes for kids who cannot afford warm jackets or welly boots so they can participate in outdoor play. So many families are close to crisis—they are an unexpected bill away from crisis—and the benefits system has left them in that situation. There is no dignity or respect there. We need to look at the root causes of poverty to deal with that.

I am glad to be able to say that the Scottish Government are taking action. They have a child poverty Bill out for consultation just now. Our ambition is to achieve change, but we cannot do that on our own. We have access to only 15% of the benefit system. We will do what we can with that 15%—we are committed to bringing in maternity and early childhood benefits to help with some of the expenses of starting school—but although that can be significant, it is only a small part of the picture. We need to look at the root causes.

Peter Kelly of the Poverty Alliance spoke about the missed opportunities in the autumn statement and said it was akin to

“being pushed off a cliff with only a pillow to absorb the landing.”

Families are still in very stark situations. It is estimated that because of cuts to tax credits, 200,000 more children will be in poverty by 2020. The two-child policy and rape clause will trap people in a situation that they just cannot earn enough to get back out of. CPAG estimates that due to cuts to universal credit, families will have to work a 13 to 14-month year to earn enough money back just to stand still in a situation where what they have is not great to begin with. Trussell Trust figures show that food bank usage increased in the first half of this year, and it distributed 500,000 three-day emergency food supplies across the UK, more than 188,000 of which were for children. That is pretty stark.

We can do a great deal to make change, and I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Barnsley Central and other Members who have spoken that this Government should be doing so much more. They need to join the dots, they need a holistic strategy, and they need to play their part in resolving child poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this debate on child poverty, and all Members from across the House who contributed to the discussion. Let me assure all that tackling child poverty and disadvantage and delivering real social reform is a priority for the Government. Our Prime Minister has set out clearly that she is committed to that. That includes taking action that addresses the root causes of child poverty and disadvantage, not just the symptoms.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tone that he struck during the debate. This is about not just Government policy but everyone, whatever their political hue, at a local level working to combat these issues. That includes Members of Parliament, councillors and, as the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) pointed out, many organisations in our communities. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made excellent points about the consistency required on targets and the opportunities that come from devolution and local mayors. Those points are well made.

Before I turn to targets, let me briefly touch on the child poverty unit, which was mentioned. The unit’s main function was to support Ministers in exercising their duties in relation to the income-based targets set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010 and the associated child poverty strategy. Following the repeal of those targets, which was explicit in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, responsibility for child poverty policy and analysis transferred to the Department for Work and Pensions. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission secretariat continues to be based in the Department for Education, and the Secretary of State for Education is the lead Minister for that commission.

The Government want to take a fundamentally different approach to child poverty from the one driven by the Child Poverty Act measures and targets. Our approach will tackle the root causes of poverty and disadvantage and drive continued action in the areas that will improve long-term outcomes for disadvantaged children, now and in the future. It is for that reason we rejected the narrow, income-based approach to poverty incentivised through the 2010 Act. In place of that, we have, through provisions in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, introduced two new statutory measures that will drive action on parental worklessness and on children’s educational achievement. Those are the two areas that we know can make the biggest difference to improving children’s long-term outcomes.

The 2016 Act puts a new duty on the Government to report annually on the proportion of children living in workless households, the proportion of children living in long-term workless households, and attainment at GCSE for all children and for disadvantaged children. The groundbreaking analysis conducted by my Department means that we now have a clearer understanding of disadvantage than ever before. We know that children affected by parental worklessness and its associated risk factors, such as family instability, drug or alcohol dependency and poor parental mental health, are disproportionately likely to experience poorer outcomes.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry; I would like to make progress, and I do not have much time. I will try to address all the points raised.

It is worth noting that the old Child Poverty Act targets were based on defining a household as being in poverty if its income was below 60% of median household income. That remains the basis for the “households below average income” survey, which is still the definitive source of data on poverty and low income; during the passage of the 2016 Act, the Government made a commitment to continue to publish the data.

I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston about some of the obstacles to women in particular working, and working more hours, such as bunching around 16 hours, multiple caring responsibilities and so forth. We recognise that, which is why the Minister of State who holds this portfolio is undertaking a range of work to tackle those issues.

We also know—the evidence is clear—that work is the best way out of poverty. Working-age adults in non-working families are almost four times as likely to be living on a low income. The “Child poverty transitions” report published in June 2015 found that 74% of children in workless families that moved into full employment exited poverty; that 47% of children in workless households were in relative low income before deducting housing costs, compared with only 8% in households in which all adults were working; and that there are 100,000 fewer children in relative low income since 2010.