Autumn Statement Resolutions

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I want to talk about some of the massive challenges we face in Newham, because frankly the autumn statement offers precious little to solve them.

I will start with the scourge of knife crime. In Newham, our communities have been brutalised by knife attacks over many years. August alone saw 38 attacks that caused injury—the highest number for five years—leaving many young lives destroyed, families devastated and communities broken by fear and struggling to heal. The truth is that social problems make young people vulnerable to the gang grooming that leads to that violence. Many young people are growing up with little stability, without even a safe place to call home and with parents racked by the stress of unpayable bills and insecure work.

Far from inspiring confidence, the autumn statement confirmed that the average household is set to be almost two grand worse off by the next election than they were at the last. Those households will know that 40% of the benefits coming from the autumn statement are going to the wealthiest 20% of the population. That unfairness weakens our entire society, because poverty creates vulnerability to grooming. It destroys a young person’s trust that our society can provide a decent chance and a future for them.

My community tries to work its way out of poverty, yet it is nigh-on impossible. The lower quartile of earnings in Newham is £1,792 a month, but paying the lower quartile of private rents leaves just £492, before food, energy or transport costs, or the costs of raising a family, are even considered. Our children know it. They see their parents struggling. Gangs are using fake job ads to target children on the social media sites they use, clearly aimed at children who know their parents are up against it—children who want to help make ends meet. When mum and dad are having to take on more hours to pay the bills, meaning there is no one in the house in the evening or at weekends, that is the impact.

Those pressures are huge, but Newham’s housing crisis is truly brutal. Tens of thousands of families simply cannot afford private rents, and social housing supply remains minuscule compared with the level of need. The consequence is that 8,363 children are estimated to be homeless in Newham alone. There are more children trapped in temporary accommodation in those 14 square miles than there are in entire regions of the country combined—more than in the east midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the north-east put together. That temporary accommodation is unsuitable for families, or frankly for anyone, with mould, damp and terrible overcrowding.

All that causes chaos in young lives. It massively disrupts education and makes it harder for teachers, social workers or GPs to spot the signs that a young life is going off the rails so that they can intervene. It creates added costs for our stretched public services, which are scrambling to keep up, and enormous and rapidly increasing costs to the council. The council is spending more than £20 million a year on temporary accommodation costs alone. That is money that it cannot spend on improving children’s lives or on youth work to help to make children at risk of involvement in knife crime more resilient. It cannot spend it on keeping the streets clean or on supporting our schools so that they can deal with difficult behaviour without excluding children and practically handing them over to the gangs.

I welcome the Government’s boost to the local housing allowance—I really do. It will do something to slow down the rate at which homelessness is getting worse. But, frankly, it is not a solution. Far more strategic action is necessary, and so is more recognition that those problems are interconnected and that our councils and our public services are best placed to solve them. As we know, the Tory pre-election Budget is balanced on massive future cuts to our public services and our councils. The Tories are robbing the next Government in a last-ditch attempt to save themselves. I honestly do not know how Tory Members can look their constituents in the face and tell them that they think the planned cuts are practical or achievable.

Let us face it: our NHS and many other services are on the verge of collapse and utterly failing to deliver for our communities. What we are hearing from the Government does not match the reality that my constituents see all around them. Surely to heavens we must repair our public services and give all our young people a future, with genuinely accessible opportunities in education and in work. We need to restore our children’s trust in a future where they are truly rewarded for their contributions to our society and for their massive potential. After 13 years of Tory failure, that will only come about with a Labour Government.

Work and Pensions

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from the statement on Cost of Living Support on 20 June 2023.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

When visiting schools, I am told by young children that it is not their turn to eat tonight. Schools tell me that pupils take leftovers from school friends so that they can eat a lunch. Rents are rocketing and households are paying almost £1,000 a year more on food than they did in 2021. Does the Minister honestly think that the support that the Government are offering is enough to stop rising hunger in constituencies such as mine?

Cost of Living Support

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

There is no plan to restore that £20 uplift in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes, but in relation to disability benefits, I draw his attention to the statistics and figures I set out earlier. There will also be, as I have announced, an evaluation of the cost of living payments in the autumn, which will no doubt take into account a whole host of factors and be thoroughgoing in that. I am also working with the disability unit to take a close look at the costs that people are experiencing during this cost of living challenge, because we want to learn from those challenges for the future.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

When visiting schools, I am told by young children that it is not their turn to eat tonight. Schools tell me that pupils take leftovers from school friends so that they can eat a lunch. Rents are rocketing and households are paying almost £1,000 a year more on food than they did in 2021. Does the Minister honestly think that the support that the Government are offering is enough to stop rising hunger in constituencies such as mine?

[Tom Pursglove]

I of course recognise that food prices are a challenge not just here in the UK, but abroad, too. For example, I am aware that food inflation here is 19%, but within the EU it is 19% and in the euro area it is 18%. People are experiencing these significant challenges not just here, but abroad. I have seen reports just today of retailers discounting products to try to help with some of these pressures, which goes beyond the package of support that the Government are providing. That £94 billion figure is not insignificant. We also continue to support families on a case-by-case basis through the household support fund, and I encourage the hon. Lady to signpost her constituents to that support, because where people have particular needs and challenges, they can be supported through that help.

State Pension Triple Lock

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my right hon. Friend, and given the impact his intervention had on a speech that deteriorated very rapidly thereafter, he will now be my secret weapon in every debate now; he will be there, poised.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am actually quite offended by the idea that this is theatre and knockabout because my constituents do not see that way. Can I bring some facts to this debate? The Labour Government took 1 million pensioners out of poverty. This Government have put half a million into poverty. Does the Secretary of State not feel that this is just outrageous, and that he needs to make it clear today that the promises of his manifesto will be fulfilled?

[Mel Stride]

I will of course come on to the issue of the impact of the Government’s huge commitment to pensioners over the years on issues such as poverty that the hon. Lady has raised. However, may I begin by saying that I am slightly surprised the right hon. Member for Leicester South should have come forward with this motion at all? He was present at departmental questions just a few days ago, when the question about what the Government would do in respect of the triple lock, and indeed the uprating of benefits, was put on many occasions to me and my fellow Ministers, and we gave a very clear, rational and sound response. It is that a fiscal event will take place soon—on the 17th of this month—and, as he will know, it is completely out of order for Ministers under those circumstances to start giving a running commentary on what is expected to be included in that fiscal event. Indeed, in the event that he was in my position, stood up and pre-announced measures that were coming forward in the Budget, he would rightly be required to resign from his position. No doubt that is something that, in my case, would please him no end, but I am afraid I am not going to give him that pleasure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) are well made. This Government have done a huge amount over many years to do what we can.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

So why is poverty going up?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady asks from a sedentary position why poverty is going up, and I will come to poverty in a moment. There is no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester is right: for a long time the Government have stood up for the interest of pensioners as one of our prime priorities, and we know why. Many pensioners are particularly vulnerable. When economic conditions are difficult—as they are at the moment—it is hard for them to adjust their economic circumstances, to re-engage with the workforce and so on, so it is important that we have that duty.

I turn to poverty. Since 2009-10, 400,000 fewer pensioners are in absolute poverty—before or after housing costs—and the proportion of pensioners in material deprivation has fallen from 10% in 2009-10 to 6% in 2019-20. Over the much longer sweep since 1990, relative poverty has halved, but there is still more to be done.

British Sign Language Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am here to support the Bill, but I am also here to support my friend. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) and I came into Parliament together in 2005. She has been open and generous in talking to us about her life and her life experiences—sometimes funny, often sad—and I know that her mum and dad will be so massively proud. God is indeed good. I know how personal the Bill is to her, and I was surprised that she managed to get through the entire speech without having us all in tears. I am really grateful to the Minister for enabling the Bill to come to the House today, and with such a good wind.

I will not speak for long because I have seen the number of hon. Members who are present, and I am always worried that just a little bit too much enthusiasm for a Bill can cause it not to succeed. As a former Whip, I have used those tricks in the past, but I am sure that the Whips Office will be as good as gold today.

I think we in the UK should be very proud that our sign language has developed in the way it has over hundreds of years, through constant use and refinement by the deaf community. It is only right that British Sign Language be legally recognised, so that its tens of thousands of regular users are afforded the legal protections and equal respect that they are absolutely due. It is important that we all remember that for many people across this country, English is their second language and is used for writing and lipreading, while British Sign Language is their first language and primary language.

When public services and others do not recognise those facts and do not work together effectively to ensure that their communications and services are equally accessible to British Sign Language users, that is a major form of discrimination.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case in support of this excellent Bill. Our hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) gave her really personal experience of how, as a very young child, she had to communicate with adults and the adult world on behalf of her parents. That is a social justice issue for her parents and people like them, who have no other form of communication if British Sign Language is not provided by public services. The Bill recognises British Sign Language as an official language. Does that not push this agenda forward to ensure that public services serve all the public?

[Ms Brown]

I absolutely agree. The story about a child of a parent—we are all children of our parents—having to tell the parent about a terminal diagnosis when they are obviously coming to terms with it themselves, having heard it for the first time, is just so devastating. I genuinely do not think I would have been able to sit with my mum or dad and explain what a doctor had said, and tell them that their life was about to close. I just do not think I could have done it. To think that that is something that those in the deaf community have to experience often is tragic. It is unfair and it is discriminatory.

Discrimination in all its forms has to be tackled, because it harms us all. What my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire talked about most eloquently was the fact that there is so much talent in the deaf community that is simply not allowed to be unlocked.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I am enjoying listening to the hon. Member’s speech. I was first made aware of the issue of British Sign Language not being an official language by one of my constituents, Feras al-Moubayed. He came to see me because he was really keen to impress upon me, as his local MP, the barriers that he is experiencing in getting work, keeping work and engaging as a full member of society. He is a very talented tailor. He has worked in the past for Harrods and other high-end manufacturers of clothing. He has so much to offer, yet he faces barriers daily. He faces barriers when dealing with local government and with the banks. He frequently finds himself in positions of great stress and anxiety because of the situations that he routinely finds himself in, but he has so much to offer. I am here today because I really want to support this Bill—I am so glad that the Government are supporting it—on behalf of Feras and so many other people like him who have so much to offer.

[Ms Brown]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She reminds me to name-check Lister Community School. The pupils of the deaf community from that school spoke to me earlier this year and requested that I come here today to support the Bill. I am glad that the hon. Lady reminded me to name-check them, and she is absolutely right: frankly, if we are not allowing parts of our community to participate fully in culture and the economy, the whole of our community and all of us are the lesser for it.

I am really grateful that this Bill will allow some very basic and practical steps to be taken to right this wrong. I want to enable it to proceed today, so I am going to sit down now and hope that it passes as quickly as possible.

Inequality and Social Mobility

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

We have heard some really impressive speeches in this debate, including those from my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), for Leigh (Jo Platt), for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). They were cracking speeches all, and I am so proud to be included in their number this afternoon.

In April, the Social Mobility Commission told us that social mobility had stagnated, and it is going to get worse without change. This was yet another wake-up call to a catatonic Government so consumed by the disaster of their Brexit that they cannot seem to do, frankly, anything.

Poverty and inequality in this country are dire. In the G7, only Trump’s America is more unequal. Last month, Human Rights Watch told the story of Allie from Hull, who was transferred on to universal credit when she 18, as she became pregnant. She had exceptionally severe morning sickness almost every day for months. She would call the jobcentre and throw up while on the phone, but she was still fined £60 a week from the money that she needed to live, for two whole months. After sanctions and bills, she had £10 left. She was stuck in the flat on her own, lonely, ashamed to go out and suffering from depression. At her time of need, our Government, by their actions, got her into debt with her rent, council tax and water. They left her with so little money that she would wake up hungry with nothing to eat in the House.

For Allie, there was no safety net; it had been cut away. Just think about it, because actually it is worse than that. She was 18 years old. Many of us would not consider that to be a fully grown adult in our own families. We would not want our 18-year-old child to be living on £10 left over each week, especially when they were pregnant. That £10 will not buy Allie or her baby the nutrition that they need. What will happen if Allie’s troubles do not end here—if, like 900,000 others, the only job that Allie can access while her baby is growing is one with zero hours? What if, like so many jobs, it has no security, no workplace training, no progression and simply not enough hours to keep her away from the food bank and out of debt? What impact will that have on the life chances of Allie and her child?

Some 4.5 million children are already in poverty, and 70% of them are in families where at least one parent is in work. The fact is that in-work poverty is rising faster than employment. When the Government are faced with damning research or analysis, whether from the UN, Human Rights Watch, think-tanks that are respected across the House or child poverty charities, they do not even bother to respond. We have had the Chancellor denying that there are 14 million children in poverty in this country, but that is what the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says, it is what the Social Metrics Commission said and it is what the Government’s own statistics say. When it comes to poverty and inequality, frankly this Government are a bit like Millwall: “No one likes us, we don’t care!” When we talk about our children’s life chances, they should care.

Through all this, the Conservative party has had the gall to talk about opportunities. The Government cannot say that opportunities are increasing for children in my constituency: 50% of them live in poverty. They cannot say that opportunities are increasing when 120,000 children were homeless last Christmas. They cannot say that opportunities are increasing when Human Rights Watch states that their policies are “cruel and harmful”, or when they have been told that they are depriving children in this country of their simple right to food. As the UN rapporteur said last month, it is about the glue that holds our society together being

“deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos”.

It is simply shocking.

Hard work is essential—obviously—but there is no shortage of hard work in this country. On average, Britons work more hours a year than they did a decade ago, and for a lower real wage. Talent is essential, but there is no shortage of that either. We all see it every time we visit a school. The truth is that we are able to create better lives when Governments invest. We need a Government who will focus on this agenda now, target the real divisions in our society and offer a joined-up strategy to tackle them. This Government cannot offer that vision, but Labour will.

We understand the simple truths. We do not want a grammar school society in which we get a better chance only if others get a worse one. That is not socially just. We do not want a society as horribly unequal as ours, where the richest 1,000 individuals have more wealth than the entire bottom 40% of the country. Since the 1970s, our country has become massively and increasingly unfair. The benefit of the little sustainable growth that there has been has gone to a narrow elite: the share of national income going to the top 1% has almost tripled since 1980.

Our economy does not work for the many. Huge efforts are needed to change that, but I really do not think that the Conservative party gets it. It will never ensure that the elite pay their fair share—it ain’t gonna bite the hand that feeds it—but Labour will make that commitment; it is who we are. That is why we will change the Social Mobility Commission, so that it investigates the fairness of our society across every policy area, from class inequality to regional inequality, and creates fair opportunities for all. We will match that by creating co-ordination on social justice across a Labour Government.

Cutting poverty and increasing life chances will be core goals. We will assess every policy to make sure that it plays a part in cutting child poverty and creating a fairer country. We will look at pay gaps and at the responsibility on every part of government, from parish councils to Whitehall offices, to increase social justice. We will look at new ways of tackling class discrimination and all other forms of inequality—and we will not mark our own homework; our policies and statistics will be trustworthy because they will be checked from the outside.

A Labour Government will rebuild public trust in politics and rebuild the public services that give our children a fair starting point in life: social homes, public buses and trains, regional and national public banks to fuel hundreds of billions of pounds of investment, a national education service providing the skills that our economy needs, and a flourishing NHS. A Labour Government will work tirelessly to end child poverty. A Labour Government will be a Government for the many, not the few.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

We will have to hear from the Government how they envisage that part of their proposal working, but I can well understand the concern that my hon. Friend raises.

Let me turn to the individual measures in the Bill, starting with the benefit cap. We support the principle that work should always pay and that people should be better off in work than on benefits. That is why our manifesto supported a household benefit cap and the idea that it should be lower in areas where there are lower housing costs.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that Conservative Members do not seem to understand that two out of three children growing up in poverty are in working households?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For the first time, the majority of children below the poverty line—quite a significant majority, as she says—are in working families. That is a reflection of how things have gone over the past few years.

To avoid hardship and unfairness with the reduction of the benefit cap, we will press for some people to be protected from the cap. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) referred to the position of carers. Under the current cap, carers who live with the person for whom they are caring are exempt, yet 8% of those affected by the cap are carers. That is because carers who do not live with the person they are caring for are included in the cap. We want that to change. We think that those with the very youngest children should not be affected by the cap. We also want protection for those affected by domestic violence. As it stands, those who have been affected by domestic violence can be exempted from job-seeking requirements at the jobcentre, but if they are living in supported accommodation a cap will apply. The amendments that we will publish tonight would exempt them along the same lines as the current exemption in jobcentres.

It is absolutely vital to keep the implementation and the impact of the benefit cap policy under scrutiny. There must be jobs for people to move into and childcare available to help them. We need to be vigilant against increases in homelessness and child poverty. We also need to make sure that the policy does not have knock-on consequences for councils and others which mean that it ends up costing more than it saves. If the Bill goes ahead, we will seek to add a requirement for the Secretary of State to report to Parliament within a year on the impact of the policy.

Scotland Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

If the hon. Gentleman is proposing that we start paying people a living wage and ensuring that people can actually live on the minimum wage, I could not agree with him more. Fundamentally, until we have living wages, those in low and middle-income families will always live below the breadline and struggle to make ends meet.

Those 12 organisations posed a fundamental challenge. As we begin defining the shape of Scotland’s social security system, we need to understand how high the stakes are for people who have been struggling for years and seeing their incomes reduce in real terms.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am impressed by the hon. Lady’s speech and am obviously listening to it intently, but is it true that the SNP five times voted against making the living wage a requirement in public procurement legislation?

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Lady is mistaken. The procurement legislation was hampered by EU legislation. In recent public sector contracts, however, the Scottish Government have started to integrate living wage requirements from the outset. In fact, all the people for whom the Scottish Government are now responsible are on a living wage. There remain many challenges with contracted-out services, particularly at local authority level, but we are trying hard to move towards a living wage in all parts of the public sector. In recent months, we have also made real progress in making sure that private sector employers move towards a living wage. After all, most low-paid jobs are found in the private sector. We need the power to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. When people on low incomes have money in their pockets, they spend it, thereby boosting and strengthening the economy and creating jobs. We saw that when the minimum wage was introduced.

It is incumbent on everyone in the House to listen to the voices of people in Scotland who have put their heads above the parapet on this issue, because they are some of Scotland’s largest and most influential civil society organisations: Citizens Advice Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland, the Child Poverty Action Group Scotland, the Church of Scotland, Inclusion Scotland, One Parent Families Scotland, Oxfam Scotland, the Poverty Alliance, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Shelter Scotland, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, the Trussell Trust and last, but by no means least, the Scottish Trades Union Congress. The veto in the Scotland Bill is a barrier to responsive and responsible governance in Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no target on benefit sanctions, that the advisers give benefit sanctions as a last resort, and that the system has a full set of checks and balances. There is a mandatory reconsideration almost immediately of that decision, and then there is the opportunity to appeal. The purpose of a sanction is to help to remind the individual that this taxpayers’ money comes with an obligation to co-operate; to find work by seeking work.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

T6. Why will the Government not pay universal credit payments to the main carer of children in a family rather than the main earner?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let us pause and get this absolutely right. The reality is that what the Opposition are now saying is utterly illogical. [Interruption.] Let me give the hon. Lady the figures. What is fascinating is that 93% of cohabiting couples and 98% of married couples share their finances, so most of those people will reach a conclusion. The second point is that we have put safeguards in place within universal credit so that the payments can be nominated as an exception if the carer is to receive the money. Right now, this is about a household getting more money than under the existing systems. This is a benefit that benefits more people, and, honestly, the idea of micro-managing everybody’s lives from Westminster is the kind of absurdity that the Labour party tried when it was in government.

Welfare Reforms and Poverty

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

There is no doubt in my mind that poverty is increasing, and that a major factor in that increase is the vicious and misguided welfare reforms that are beginning to bite in my community. The scale of the impact of changes to the social security system is really quite staggering. As of September last year, 598 households in Newham are affected by the benefit cap, of which 75% are in the private rented sector, with all the vulnerability that goes with that. Larger households are the worst hit: 80% of them have three or more children. Three quarters of main claimants are women and more than half come from lone parent households. With an average loss of £90 a week, it is clearly families—that means children—who are suffering at the sharp end of these reforms.

Some 2,113 households in Newham have been hit by the bedroom tax, with many choosing to pay and stay in order to hang on to the family, social, school and other community networks they desperately rely on. The average loss is £16 a week. A further 25,227 households are caught up in the council tax benefit localisation and the cut to the overall amount available. The average loss here is £3.50 a week. Taking all the losses across the three categories—the benefits cap, the bedroom tax and the council tax—the loss to households in Newham each year is £8.9 million. It is obvious from these figures that such losses cannot be experienced without a serious impact on families, children and the local economy.

The danger for policy makers and politicians is that we assess the impact of these changes serially and separately, whereas families experience them collectively and cumulatively. In our debates in this Chamber over the past months, we have looked in detail at issues relating directly to this subject and to the incidence of poverty, its causes and its consequences. Food banks, zero-hours contracts, payday loans and high-cost credit are just a few, and it is worth reminding ourselves that each of these is not a stand-alone issue; they are interlinked and have a cumulative and often devastating impact on the lives of many of my constituents. Running through them all is the imminent threat of poverty, and underpinning them all is the spectre of the Government’s welfare reforms.

In 2009, there was just one food bank in Newham; now there are at least six, and at least four places where the hungry can get a free meal. The scale of provision is indicative of the scale of the problem. Newham is a place of widespread deprivation, yet it is from this community that food is collected and donated—by schools and faith groups and individuals paying a little extra as part of their weekly shop. These donations are from people who absolutely understand how difficult life is for those who have even less than they do. The poor are giving to the even poorer.

I will give an example of where a food bank stepped in to help when a failure of social security tipped Mr K into crisis. A single man in his thirties with learning difficulties and physical disabilities, his employment support allowance was suspended when he attended a medical. He had no money to live on for three months and could not afford to heat his home or pay his bills. The food bank supported him for a month with food and advice, and assured a successful ESA appeal. Mrs Y was supported after her husband disappeared, leaving her and the children alone. The police suspected suicide, but her benefits were stopped, as they were claimed by her husband. Community Links, a fabulous voluntary sector organisation in my constituency, supported Mrs Y with food until she could get her benefits transferred and reinstated. Although food banks have done well supporting people through crises, that shows how “on the edge” people actually are—just about keeping their heads above water, for ever vulnerable to the slide into hunger because of job loss, pay or hours cuts, reduced social security payments, or, as I have seen far too often at my surgeries, a blunder by the Department for Work and Pensions that stops essential support, regardless of the consequences.

It is so wrong that in the 21st century, people are forced to rely on the good will of neighbours to ensure their well-being. The community in which I live is poor but always generous. The plight of those reliant on food banks is something the commission of inquiry should investigate. I am grateful again to Community Links, which, in order to understand better how these changes are rolling out in our communities, carried out in-depth quality research into the circumstances of local people. The localisation of council tax, the benefits cap and the bedroom tax are hitting poor people indiscriminately, regardless of their needs or situation, and the people who responded to the survey felt they were being stigmatised for situations over which they had no control. There is no support to help people manage or cope with the transition, while the survey tells us categorically that people are struggling to make ends meet, cutting back on essential items—heating or eating—and prioritising paying rent, thereby exacerbating the choice between food and comfort and safety.

When we have the commission of inquiry, it must not just concern itself with the economics of the poverty figures. It must hear the human stories of the people who stand behind the Community Links research and who go to our food banks. It must consider and respond to the reality of their lives, as we in this House must address the sorry and devastating impact of the changes that are agreed to here, but that are felt acutely in the world outside.