Liverpool City Region (Poverty)

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I hope to finish long before then, Mr Howarth. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—a sign of Merseyside’s ingenuity at keeping topics within the family. I am also immensely grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) managed to secure the debate.

I want to report two facts from the frontline of people in my constituency fighting against hunger, then I will address four brief questions to the Minister about actions that the Government could begin today to abate that hunger. If I had reported the things that I am about to say when I first joined the House in 1979, most people would have thought I was heralding the post-truth era of politics, but they are ordinary, plain, shocking facts.

Feeding Birkenhead is a wonderful coalition of organisations that feed children in the school holidays, as well as feeding many families. It gave me some information for the debate, including the example of a little girl who arrived at one of the school feeding projects, which was full up. The projects insist that just because children are poor it does not mean they should not have fun in their holidays, and be fed as well; the little girl said, “Could I come in if I miss the fun? But I want the food, because I am so hungry.”

The other example was, rather appropriately, from around Christmas. A mother was lowering her child into one of the waste bins of one of our great supermarkets, to scavenge for food and then be brought out. That mother is suffering from cancer. Feeding Birkenhead now feeds her, but the awful indictment is not only that a child was put in danger, risking all sorts of injury from pulling things around in the bottom of a waste bin; it is the fact that the mother now reports that the food she gets, which would otherwise have gone to waste, is providing her with the best diet she has ever had.

My four questions for the Minister are about ways in which we in Merseyside could immediately be helped to fight back against the extent of hunger, particularly among schoolchildren. First, given that the Digital Economy Bill is going through the House, will the Minister require the three Merseyside boroughs that do not use housing benefit data automatically to register children as eligible for free school meals, and therefore the pupil premium, to do so? That approach was pioneered by Liverpool and taken up by Wirral and Knowsley. In my constituency it resulted in £725,000 a year extra coming into Wirral both to feed the children who had not been getting free school dinners and in pupil premium.

Secondly, in what ways will the Government consider helping all six boroughs to run school holiday meal and fun programmes similar to those in your constituency, Mr Howarth, and in Birkenhead? Thirdly, will the Minister choose Merseyside to be one of the first pilot areas for the revolutionary new set of indicators measuring children’s school-readiness, devised by Wirral teachers and the University of Cambridge? We would like that to be part of the roll-out of the Government’s programme on increasing life chances. We would measure whether life chances were equalised before children came to school, during those crucial first years.

Lastly, will the Minister give us the small resources that we need so that all our six boroughs can follow the example of Greenwich, which has managed to set up job creation schemes—not training schemes—so that all families hit by the benefit cap can gain work and therefore get the cap lifted? That makes a huge difference to their income, their wellbeing and the incidence of children being hungry. Those would be four real advances for Merseyside.

I wanted to try to sit down by 3.30 pm, and I will do so now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

There are, of course, public consultations being run for both Edge Hill and Wavertree. As I was saying, even with the effect of these changes, there will still be a significant concentration of jobcentres in Liverpool compared with other major cities.

[Frank Field]

As the Minister is turning his notes over, might he give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I am short of time, but of course.

[Frank Field]

Given that I sprung my questions on the Minister, might he write to us so that he does not have to turn so many pages over?

[Damian Hinds]

I will be delighted to write to the right hon. Gentleman.

Looking at our benefit reforms alone fails to appreciate the wider work on support for those on low incomes. I mentioned the increases that we have recently seen in pay. I do not have time to list all the other advances, but they include the national living wage, the changes in the personal tax allowance and the triple lock on pensions—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton brought up the link with pensions, but it was in 2010 that the triple lock came in. We have frozen fuel duty, helped to keep mortgage rates low and are cutting stamp duty—all of those are things to help people with their incomes.

Like many other areas, as the hon. Gentleman knows, Liverpool is benefiting from radical devolution. The city region devolution deal involves £900 million going to the city region, and that is just part of the picture. The regional growth deals involve £333 million from the local growth fund from 2015-21, bringing forward at least £249 million of additional investment from local partners and the private sector. We do think that devolution has an important role to play in helping to promote and push forward economic prosperity.

Since 2010, we have seen income inequality and the proportion of people on relative low-incomes falling to nearly their lowest levels since the 1980s. Official statistics show that, in Liverpool, the rate of relative low-income has fallen since 2010, and there has been a similar reduction nationally.

I want to turn quickly to some of the points raised in the debate. The rate of sanctions in Liverpool is down by 50% in the year to 2016. We are looking at the results from the Scottish pilot that the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) referred to. We have taken on the recommendations of the Oakley review and, indeed, a number of recommendations from the Work and Pensions Committee. Debt was mentioned a number of times. I am proud of this Government’s commitment to the credit union sector, the action that has been taken on payday loans, the introduction of the help to save programme and that budgeting support is at the heart of universal credit.

The hon. Gentleman asked, “Why not more devolution?” He talked about schools. I would argue that free schools and the academies programme are the ultimate in devolution, giving power and accountability right down to individual schools. In terms of all these matters, we are always open to further proposals. The Government will of course be keen to work with whoever is elected as Mayor of Liverpool on employability and other things. The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about work in community locations. Edge Hill jobcentre—somewhere I visited recently—does exactly that, for example in its programme with refugees. Mr Howarth, I am out of time and I know that the hon. Gentleman would like to speak.