Women and the Cost of Living

Debate between Madeleine Moon and Gloria De Piero

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gloria De Piero]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I vividly remember one lady—a mum in her 40s—coming into my office just before a Morrisons opened in my constituency. She was in tears because when Morrisons announced it was recruiting, she kept calling but the number was constantly engaged.

The Fawcett Society has done some important work warning that women are in danger of losing their precarious footing in the work force.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has already mentioned the problems for women over 50. Does she appreciate that for all women, but especially those over 50, unemployment has a huge impact on their capacity to retire and save for retirement? We are not just saying to women, “You’re not going to earn now”; we are blighting their lives with poverty into old age and with the need to apply for benefits in old age. If they were working now, they could save for their old age.

[Gloria De Piero]

My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point.

What is the Government’s response? It is to hit women harder. Of the £14.4 billion George Osborne has raised through direct taxation and benefit changes, about £11.4 billion—79%—is coming from women. David Cameron is asking women to pay more than three times as much as men to bring down the deficit, despite the fact that women still earn and own less than men. Scratch the surface, and we see that some of the most vulnerable women are being hit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gloria De Piero]

I would like to make some progress, if I may.

One food bank, provided by the Eastwood volunteer bureau, is reporting a 400% increase in use, but it is not only former coalmining areas such as mine that are struggling; this is happening up and down the country. Only yesterday, in reading the Witney Gazette, I learned that another food bank was opening in the town of Carterton, just a few miles from where the Prime Minister lives. The Tory mayor of Carterton recognised the problem straight away—utility bills had gone up and the cost of food had continued to rise.

[Mrs Moon]

I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend’s powerful speech again. On Friday evening, a lady who works in a food bank in my constituency told me that people were turning down rice and pasta on the grounds that they could not afford the amount of fuel needed to cook it. Are we not in a dreadful position when people are turning away food that they cannot even afford to cook?

[Gloria De Piero]

That provides extraordinary evidence of why freezing energy bills is so important.

Netmums found that one in five mums are regularly missing meals so that their kids can eat. One mum said:

“If it’s a choice between me or the kids eating, I will feed them. I have lost so much weight my clothes don’t fit but I can’t afford to buy any more.”

This is Tory Britain.