Food Poverty: Merseyside

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I will begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing the debate. It is tremendously important that this issue, which is of long standing and is worsening, is highlighted as regularly as possible. When I was shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we repeatedly held Opposition day debates in the main Chamber on this matter. I remember those debates going back to 2012-13, yet the Government, as far as I am aware—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—are still not collecting statistics on the amount of food bank use and the reasons behind it.

I find it amazing and disgraceful that the Government of one of the richest countries in the world—although we are slipping down the league—do not care enough that many of their citizens have to feed their families by going and collecting food given to them to make them research why it is happening and what can be done about it. I must say that that does not seem to stop Ministers writing to those of us who raise these issues with them, asserting that the Government are not at fault, and that benefit delays and changes are not at fault; my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby read out an example. How Ministers can say that, when they do no research into what the reasons are, is utterly beyond me. I have been calling for the Government to research this for years, but so far as I am aware they have still not undertaken to do so.

I welcome the new Minister to his place; I predicted that he would respond to the debate, because it is always the newest Minister in the Department who draws the shortest straw and has to deal with these debates. I sympathise with him. In my experience, these debates are always a hot potato for the Government; they cannot decide which Department should answer, because nobody in government is responsible for food poverty. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not want to do it, the Department for Work and Pensions does not want to do it and the Cabinet Office does not want to do it. The short straw used to be drawn by the Minister with responsibility for volunteering, but that post appears to have disappeared from Government. However, we have not yet had the updated list of ministerial responsibilities—a week after the reshuffle—so we do not know for certain that that is the case. It looks like, at least for the present, the new Minister has drawn the short straw and caught the hot potato and will have to deal with the matter.

He will have to deal with it, because those of us who represent constituents who have to go to food banks regularly in order to feed their families will never stop raising the issue with the Government until something is done to alleviate the problem. It is not good enough for the Minister to say—I hope he will not do so today —that it is just one of those things, that it is nothing to do with the Government and that they have reduced the number of benefit delays. The fact is that the biggest reasons by far for people resorting to food banks, certainly on Merseyside, are still changes in their benefits, sanctions on their benefits and so on.

The other big reasons why people go to food banks, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referenced, are that, even though they are in work, their income is not regular enough, they do not have guaranteed hours or they are on zero-hours contracts. They do not know when the next pay cheque is coming and they have fixed costs, such as rent and other bills, which means that there are times when they simply cannot afford to feed their family.

If the Minister has anything in his speech about the best way out of poverty being work, I suggest to him right now that he crosses it out. I see him getting his pen out now; that phrase will be in his speech a lot. It is not the case in Liverpool that the best way out of poverty is work, because many people who work hard still cannot afford to feed their family. If that is the Government’s only response, they are simply complacent. In fact, if the Minister commissioned research about why people use food banks, he might actually have some real evidence that that is the case, instead of the anecdotal evidence that we get at our constituency surgeries.

The South Liverpool food bank in my constituency has seen ongoing increases in people asking for help over the years. Not only was there a 10% increase between 2015 and 2016 but last year it went up again. In 2015-16, 3,890 people in the Liverpool end of my constituency accessed a food bank. The figure last year went up to 4,076, more than 1,700 of whom—almost half—were children. In 2005-06, 2,894 accessed a food bank across the entire country, but there are now more than 4,000 just in my constituency, so when I say it is a disgrace that the Government do not collect statistics and research why this is happening, I mean it. It is a problem that they appear not to care about, because they do not seem to be finding out why it is happening and coming up with a policy for dealing with it. When we talk about our constituents going hungry or children not being able to concentrate at school and losing weight over the summer because there are no school meals, it is simply not good enough that that is our Government’s attitude.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that, even though the Government do not do any research, the Trussell Trust and those people who actually provide food and collect food for food banks do. Their research proves conclusively that benefit delays, changes to benefits and low pay are the main reasons why people resort to food banks. Will she acknowledge that, as universal credit comes to my constituency and is introduced into the Wirral, my local food bank has said it will have to collect an extra 15 tonnes of food to deal with the 30% increase in food bank use that its research suggests accompanies the introduction of full universal credit in any area?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree with my hon. Friend on the impact of the roll-out of universal credit. One reason why I say that this crisis, which is already worsening and has been over the past few years, is actually set to get even worse is that we have not yet had the full service roll-out of universal credit in Garston and Halewood and across much of Liverpool. It will be rolled out at some time during this year, although it has been delayed again.

The Trussell Trust says that it has noticed a 17% increase in food bank usage across all its food banks where universal credit is rolled out, against an average—where the roll-out is not a factor—of 6.5%. That is a significantly increased extra risk where we have universal credit roll-out, and that is about to happen in Liverpool and across Merseyside this year. We expect, as local Members of Parliament, a big increase in this kind of problem coming to us and our advice surgeries.

The Liverpool Echo’s Share Your Lunch campaign has, over the last 18 months, raised more than £73,000 and fed more than 36,000 people across the city region with fresh and nutritious meals. It has done a tremendous job within the very fine tradition of self-help that we have in Liverpool and on Merseyside. However, that initiative is now over. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referenced Can Cook, which is also based in my constituency, although it works across the city region.

Although Can Cook is moving on to try to do more good work, the fact that, over the last year or so, its initiative has fed many local children who do not get their free school meals during Christmas and the school holidays shows definitively the importance of the initiative my hon. Friend referred to, of passporting free school meals and making free school meals available in school holidays. For many children in my constituency, it is the only good meal they are guaranteed in a day. During the summer vacation, many young people in adventure playgrounds, such as the Garston “venny” in my constituency, were kept fed with fresh and nutritious food from Can Cook and Share Your Lunch.

My hon. Friend also referred to Fans Supporting Foodbanks, an organic campaign that has grown up among football supporters, of which there are many in Liverpool. Home matches are used as an opportunity to collect food for food banks, such as the North Liverpool food bank, which is of course based around the two football grounds in Liverpool. Again, they are in the finest Liverpool tradition of self-help and of making a difference to the lives of neighbours. Unfortunately, it reminds me too much of what was happening in the early part of the 20th century in Liverpool—of the Clarion soup vans, of the initiatives organised by the early labour and socialist movement and of Bessie Braddock and her mother, Mary Bamber, who used to go around cooking food for unemployed people, who were in a desperate state at that time. We should not be going back to that.

The Minister has to make sure that his Government try to stop this happening and do not simply ignore the problem, refuse to collect statistics on it, blame the victims for what is going on and insinuate that because food is free, of course people go and access it. We have a large and growing crisis of food poverty in our city and in this country. It is my contention that the Government are doing nothing to tackle it. They will not collect statistics on why it is happening, and things are set to get worse this year, with the roll-out of universal credit.

It is not enough for our Prime Minister to stand on the steps of Downing Street and assert that she is going to do something for people who are struggling or just about managing, and then do absolutely nothing to help people who cannot feed themselves or their families, not through any fault of their own but because this Government have removed support for them via the local authority and the benefits system. The Government are not trying to make sure that work pays and that if one works for a living, there is enough in the wage packet to feed a family. That is where this Government are falling down. It is a disgrace, and I wait to hear from the Minister that he at least is going to do something to tackle it.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this debate on such an important issue.

We should be clear that it is an absolute disgrace that there are so many people suffering from hunger and poor nutrition in this prosperous country in 2018. Food poverty is, of course, part of more general poverty. People in poverty juggle between providing for essential needs such as eating, keeping warm and keeping housed, and too many people face the impossible choice: heat or eat? How can it be just that so many people, including children, are going hungry?

Let us look at what is happening in Liverpool, where the city council has already lost 58% of its disposable income. That figure will reach a massive 68% by 2020. The Liverpool mayoral action group’s important and groundbreaking report shows the cumulative impact of 20 cuts made to benefits, including benefits for people in work, since 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referred to that. Those cuts resulted in a loss of £157 million for Liverpool people by 2016. That means that 55,000 people have been affected by a reduction in their income, which was already too low to meet basic needs. The principal groups of people who have lost out are those who are long-term sick, disabled, in insecure jobs or in jobs with insecure and changing incomes and many families with children. Those problems will be exacerbated by the full roll-out of universal credit across Liverpool this year.

Inadequate income to meet basic needs leads inevitably to food deprivation. People are constantly juggling between having enough to eat, keeping warm and keeping a home. That is intolerable. My hon. Friends have referred to the work of food banks and the disgraceful situation of so many people needing to rely on emergency food supplies to survive. Between October 2016 and September 2017, 8,732 emergency food vouchers had been redeemed at one of the three Trussell Trust food banks in Liverpool, feeding 18,456 people. That is divided between 11,500 adults and 6,900 children. What a terrible situation in 2018. The main reason for this abominable situation is benefit cuts and people on low incomes, in unstable jobs and getting an irregular income.

The fact is that people are suffering. The situation is increasingly disturbing. The Liverpool public health report for 2016-17 makes alarming reading. It records that 27% of children in reception classes in Liverpool are obese, as are 38% of children in year 6. Obesity is closely linked with food deprivation and poor nutrition. That report records a disgraceful and horrendous figure—a significant rise in hospital admissions for malnutrition in women of childbearing age and young people. It is hardly believable that such a thing is happening in our day and age. The report also shows that, in 2016, provisional data demonstrate that there were 39 infant deaths in the city—the highest recorded figure since 2005. What a horrendous situation that, in 2018, in a prosperous country, more people are being admitted to hospital for malnutrition and there are more infant deaths. Those are things that nobody would believe unless they saw those figures in Liverpool’s public health annual report.

What is being done to address this woeful situation? Liverpool City Council must be commended for its efforts. My hon. Friends have referred to a number of steps that the council is taking. The city Mayor’s action group on fairness and tackling poverty has identified food poverty, together with deprivation in fuel, clothing and housing, as a key concern requiring investigation and action. It has implemented a series of practical measures, including issuing crisis financial awards for food and mitigating the impact of Government cuts on the income of vulnerable people by using discretionary funds—funds that are increasingly under pressure.

Many of the people receiving those funds because they are in an emergency and a desperate situation are in work. Let us do away once and for all with the myth that people who are suffering in poverty are in some way feckless or do not want to work. That is an outrageous untruth or, if I am allowed to use the word in Parliament, a lie. That is what that charge is.

Liverpool City Council has also instigated healthy living public health initiatives, which are very important. The basic cause of the problem is a lack of income. It is right that people are given the fullest possible information about how to make best use of an inadequate income and basic information about nutrition and how to access nutritious food. That work is important.

[Maria Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend accept that, no matter how much good work the Trussell Trust food banks do, the food that they hand out is tinned, dried, fatty and full of sugar and salt? That is not the best way to build a healthy diet. Those dependent on food bank usage are automatically getting poor-quality food, through no fault of the people who are helping to hand out that emergency support.

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[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this important debate and making such a compelling speech. I join him, as I am sure all Merseyside MPs do, in paying tribute to the food bank volunteers who work so hard to address the needs of those who need help to feed themselves and their families.

We have had some fantastic, passionate contributions, in which the points were made incredibly well. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) spoke with passion about the Government’s years of failure to collect the statistics needed to understand the situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) spoke about the disgrace of food poverty in this country, and the impact of hunger on public health, with particular reference to the increases in the number of people admitted to hospital with malnutrition and in the number of infant deaths. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) spoke passionately about the huge inequalities of wealth in society. Her claim that poverty is not inevitable rings true. There were also good interventions from my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). I welcome the new Employment Minister to his post.

I believe that the debate is timely. This morning the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a study showing that one in four of Britain’s poorest households are falling behind with debt payments or spending more than a quarter of their monthly income on repayments. Earlier today the Office for National Statistics also published the latest data on food prices. Despite a slight fall in the rate of inflation compared with November, the price of food was still more than 4% higher in December, compared with December 2016.

The full service of universal credit is being rolled out on Merseyside and, despite the changes announced by the Government at the end of last year, leading voluntary organisations make it clear that universal credit has not yet been fixed. It was introduced in Bootle in October and in Wirral in November, and over the year it will spread to the rest of Merseyside, finishing with Everton and West Derby in December, at least if the Government stick to the current timetable. I want to underline the point that food poverty is just one aspect of the pressures that people on very low incomes face. They can face appalling choices such as whether to heat their home or go hungry. Parents may skip a meal so that their children can eat. Those are choices that no one should have to make. The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health highlighted the link between poverty and poor diet in reports last year, and went on to point out the impact on health not just in childhood, important though that is, but over a much longer period.

The Government do not collect or publish statistics on the number of people seeking help from food banks, despite years of pressure to do so from the Opposition and voluntary organisations. The Trussell Trust, the largest organisation of food banks in the UK, does not seem to find it a problem, and nor have any of the organisations that I have contacted for help on Merseyside, so I ask the Minister once again whether the Government will produce statistics on the number of people receiving help from food banks. We need to know not just how many people seek help but for how long. The Trussell Trust statistics show that in 2016-17, 37,000 adults and 24,000 children were helped by their Merseyside food banks.

The situation varies across Merseyside. Areas such as Birkenhead, Liverpool and Knowsley have the highest rates of poverty, but it is also striking that in my constituency the demand for help has grown even in some relatively affluent areas. In 2017, Wirral food bank distributed 109 tonnes of food. In the north-west as a whole, between April and September 2017, Trussell Trust food banks gave more than 87,000 three-day food supplies to people in crisis, compared with nearly 78,000 during the same period in 2016. That is a 12% increase. The Government commissioned a report from the University of Warwick, which was published in 2014, and one of the points that it made was that people seek help from food banks as a last resort. The fact that so many people are in that situation should be a major concern.

Many of my colleagues have spoken clearly about the reasons why people turn to food banks. The Trussell Trust found that of the people accessing its support 43% did so as a result of benefit delays and changes and 27% did so due to low income. Those are things that the Government can take action on, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston pointed out. The length of time for which people wait for an initial universal credit payment has been a major reason for social security delays, if by no means the only one. That also increases the likelihood that people have to turn to a food bank more than once.

Last April the Trussell Trust warned that food banks in areas where the full service of universal credit had been introduced in the previous six months had a 30% average increase in requests for help compared with a year before. From this month, people will be able to ask for a 100% advance on the first payment, and from February the initial five-day waiting period will be removed. Will the Government make a commitment to publish regular statistics on whether they are meeting the new target of five weeks for initial payments, as well as figures for the number and percentage of claimants asking for advances, so that we can have an idea of how far removing the five-day waiting period is affecting the need for advances?

If people are sanctioned, they can be referred to a food bank by the Department for Work and Pensions. The latest statistics for sanctions published by DWP show that the sanctions rate for universal credit increased by more than 3% in the last quarter. Will the Minister look seriously at introducing a yellow card system and non-financial sanctions, as suggested by the Work and Pensions Committee, to help to reduce the number of people who need help from a food bank? Ten per cent. of the people who sought help from Wirrall food bank last year were in employment. That is one reason why it is so important for the Government to reverse the cuts to work allowances for universal credit. Will the Minister urge his new colleagues to do that?

A study published by the University of Oxford for the Trussell Trust, in June 2017, found that people using food banks were likely to belong to groups that are most affected by recent reforms to social security: disabled people, lone parents and large family households. Those groups are particularly affected by universal credit and the changes introduced last April. In the study, more than 50% of households that had received help from a food bank included a disabled person. Mental health conditions affected people in a third of the households. The basic disabled child element in universal credit is half that of the disability element in child tax credit. There is no severe disability premium in universal credit, which means that disabled people who would have been entitled to it will be £65 a week worse off than tax credit recipients.

[Maria Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend accept that many disabled people have special diets and a requirement to eat or not eat certain things? Neither food banks nor the emergency support that they normally access take that into account.

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and for many disabled people, the need to heat their home is also a bigger element in their weekly bills.

Will the Government reverse the cuts to support for disabled people in universal credit? Those cuts will have an increasing impact as universal credit is rolled out to a wider range of claimants. Lone parents and their children constitute the largest number of people receiving help from food banks overall. A study for the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that lone parents were set to lose around 15% of their net income on average—around £1 in every £6—and that households with three or more children could lose as much as £5,400 per year. Will the Government look again at reversing the two-child policy, and heed the warning from the Resolution Foundation that cuts to the work allowance could act as a disincentive for some lone parents to work additional hours, once they have entered employment doing a smaller number of hours at the start?

The Government recently announced that children would be eligible for free school meals if their family’s income was £7,400 per year or less, excluding social security. That creates a cliff edge in universal credit, which could create a disincentive for people to work additional hours—that has always been the Government’s argument against tax credits in general. Free school meals are worth £2.30 per child per day, which over a 38-week school year works out at £437 per child. The Resolution Foundation has calculated that crossing the threshold by earning more than £7,400 a year would effectively mean losing £11 a week in income, and it would take £30 of earnings to claw that back, given the universal credit taper rate. Eligibility for free school meals is another area where families lose more the larger they are. People in insecure work whose income may fluctuate from week to week could face a difficult choice. Will the Government act to avoid families being put in that situation by removing the cliff edge and ensuring that all children in families who receive universal credit are eligible for free school meals?

To conclude, let me underline the seriousness of the situation. New figures this morning show that food prices are still increasing by more than 4%. There is a freeze in key working age benefits until 2020, and wages are stagnating for those in work, particularly those on low incomes. Universal credit is far from fixed, and aspects such as the low level of support for disabled people and the cliff edge for eligibility for free school meals have received much less attention. The Government should act to fix those problems with universal credit at an early stage before people are driven into extreme poverty, and they should return to the original principles of universal credit to ensure that work always pays. They need to tackle poverty, not push families into it.

Just as people are experiencing multiple forms of destitution, there may be more than one reason why someone is forced to turn to a food bank for help. If those groups most likely to use a food bank—disabled people, lone parents, and larger families—are also those who have been hit the hardest by cuts to social security support since 2012, and by cuts to local authority spending and a reduction of services in their areas, then the social security net is clearly not doing the job it is designed to do. It should be protecting people in their time of need.

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[Alok Sharma]

Four million of the lowest earners have been taken out of income tax altogether, which I hope the hon. Lady will welcome. A typical basic rate taxpayer will now pay over £1,000 less in income tax than they would have done seven years ago.

[Maria Eagle]

If what the Minister describes is supposedly helping the situation, how does he explain the fact that year on year in Liverpool, the number of people who have to go to food banks to get help with feeding themselves and their families is increasing?

[Alok Sharma]

Perhaps I may make a little progress, and hopefully I will provide some of the answers that the hon. Lady is looking for.

We plan to further increase the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500 by the end of this Parliament. Working parents are now entitled to up to 30 hours of free childcare, saving them around £5,000 a year. I hope that, whatever our political differences, all Members of the House will welcome those measures. We have also frozen fuel duty, saving the average car driver £850 over the last eight years, compared with the pre-2010 fuel duty escalator.

[Alok Sharma]

Let me come on to that—there is plenty of time left in the debate.

The basic state pension is now at one of its highest rates relative to earnings for over two decades, reversing the trend of decline that we saw between 1997 and 2010. Ultimately, however, work is the best route out of poverty.

[Maria Eagle]

rose—

[Alok Sharma]

I thought that the hon. Lady would react as she did, but she should not take my word for it. Let me quote from a recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

“People who live in workless households have much higher rates of poverty than those who live in households where at least one person is in work… Rising employment, skills and pay contributed greatly to reductions in poverty over the last 20 years.”

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[Maria Eagle]

The biggest reason now for food bank use in Liverpool—apart from benefit delays and the things that the Minister’s Department does to people—is low income. It is people who are in work, so his point is simply not accurate.

[Alok Sharma]

I am not sure that I completely understood the hon. Lady, but I was quoting from a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. If she feels that it is inaccurate, she should talk to someone there.

[Maria Eagle]

Perhaps the Minister will allow me to try again. One of the main reasons that people go to food banks in Liverpool is low income. The income they get comes from work—they are working-age people who are working but do not have enough money to feed their families. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report is about a countrywide situation. I am talking about what is happening in Liverpool and to my constituents. A lot of people are in work but cannot afford to feed their families on the income they receive. It is simply not good enough for the Minister to say that that is not a problem.

[Alok Sharma]

I did not say that it is not a problem, and of course I want to ensure that everyone, both in Liverpool and across the country, gets the help they need.

Adults in workless families are four times more likely to be in poverty than those in working families, and children who live in workless households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those in a house where all adults work. We want to see more people in work, and we want to support more people into work. In recent years, the Government have undertaken the most ambitious reform to the welfare system in decades to ensure that work always pays. This reform is already delivering real and lasting change to the lives of many of the most disadvantaged people in our society. Nationally, there are almost 1 million fewer workless households than in 2010. Indeed, workless households are now at an all-time low. In the north-west, the region that many Opposition Members represent, there are around 87,000 fewer workless households than there were seven years ago.

[Alok Sharma]

I know that this a very emotive subject and I understand that hon. Members are keen to get answers. I will seek to provide some of those if I may make progress. The latest data shows that the employment rate in the Liverpool city region has seen a 4.1 percentage point increase since 2010 and the comparable national figure shows an increase of 4.2 percentage points.

We have had a discussion about food poverty and more generally about poverty rates. The case is, whichever way you look at poverty rates—relative or absolute; before or after housing costs—none are higher than in 2010. The proportion of people in absolute poverty is at a record low. Across the country, there are 600,000 fewer people in absolute poverty compared with 2010, and in the north-west there are 100,000 fewer people in absolute poverty compared with the three years up to 2010.

Of course, we want to do everything that we can to make sure that those numbers go down further. Let me explain what we are doing in welfare reform to make that happen.

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister is being very generous with interventions. Given the statistics he has read out, which are trying to show that things are getting better in terms of poverty reduction and more people being in work, can he please explain why the number of people on Merseyside who are having to access food banks in order to eat and to feed their families is still going up?

[Alok Sharma]

I will come on to that point, but there are complex reasons why people use food banks. I want to go back to the point about work being the best route out of poverty. It is the case that across the country around 75% of children from workless families moved out of poverty when their parents entered full-time work.

Let me come on to universal credit.

[Alok Sharma]

I will make some progress. I have taken a lot of interventions. Perhaps the hon. Lady will let me continue for a moment.

When it comes to reform, universal credit lies at the heart of transforming the welfare system. Universal credit supports those who can work and cares for those who cannot, while being fair to the taxpayer. [Interruption.] I would just say to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) that before this role I was the Housing Minister and I had the opportunity to do an engagement tour around the country, meeting social housing tenants with the aim of producing a Green Paper, and I met around 1,200 social housing tenants across the country. There was a discussion around universal credit and I have to tell hon. Members that the vast majority of people I talked to felt that, in principle, universal credit was absolutely right: it is simple, it makes sense and it helps to deliver the benefits that people need on a timely basis. I will come on to talk about the changes that were introduced in the Budget, because we always want to ensure that things can be done better.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alok Sharma]

No. If I may, I will continue for the moment.

There is always a comparison of universal credit with what came before. It is the case that, because of withdrawal rates, tax credits encouraged lone parents to work for 16 hours and couples to work only 24 hours a week between them. Universal credit provides the opportunity for the first time to support people who are in work to progress, so that they can increase their earnings and become financially independent. We have reduced the universal credit taper to 63%, so that people who progress into work can keep more of what they earn. Under universal credit, work always pays.

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[Maria Eagle]

It doesn’t.

[Alok Sharma]

I have to disagree with the hon. Lady’s comment from a sedentary position. It does, because for every extra hour people work, they get to keep more of the money they earn.

Universal credit claimants are able to find work faster and stay in work for longer than those under the system it replaces. Indeed, 86% of people under universal credit are actively looking to increase the hours that they work, compared with only 38% on jobseeker’s allowance.

We have to ensure that help is provided as people seek to find employment. The Government are providing a wide range of support targeted to each individual’s personal circumstances. Under universal credit, people have access to more tools than ever before to underpin their work search and help with budgeting, digital skills, preparing CVs and getting ready for job interviews.

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[Alok Sharma]

Hopefully I will have enough time to respond to that point—I believe the hon. Lady is talking about the higher rate of disability premium.

A number of other points were raised about food banks. Jobcentre staff also work in partnership with a variety of local agencies and signpost claimants to local services, including food banks, to help them access the full range of support available. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby quoted from a report from 2016 by Taylor and Loopstra based on UN data. There are a number of reports, including one on income and living conditions produced by Eurostat, which found that the UK has a lower percentage of food insecurity than the EU average and a lower percentage than Germany, France and Italy. Ultimately, we need to ensure that we get help to people who need it, and that we help them into work so that they can support themselves.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Alok Sharma]

I have given way quite a lot in this debate. If I may, I will continue. If I have time at the end, I will of course take further interventions.

Food inflation has been discussed. Food prices have fallen in three of the past four years, which has a positive impact. Let me address up front the question about the use of food banks. The Government do not propose to record the number of food banks in the UK, or indeed the potential number of people using them or other types of food aid. There is a range of available food aid—from small local provision to regional and national schemes—and the all-party parliamentary group on hunger, which set up an inquiry to thoroughly investigate the use of food banks, said that there were numerous complex reasons why people use food banks.

Jobcentres engage regularly with the Trussell Trust, and are encouraged to foster good relationships with local food banks. In Merseyside, all jobcentres have a food bank single point of contact, and jobcentre staff have been working actively with food banks to ensure that staff are up to speed with the changes resulting from universal credit.

The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) mentioned international comparisons. I refer her to statistics produced by the OECD showing that, since the mid-2000s, the UK has been one of only two major advanced economies with increasing redistribution. It found that, since 2010, growth and income from work for the lowest-income households in the UK is higher than in any other major advanced economy.

The Government have always been clear that universal credit would be introduced in a way that allows us to continue making improvements. That is why, at the autumn Budget, we announced a comprehensive and wide-ranging package of measures worth £1.5 billion to address concerns about the first assessment period and the budgeting issues faced by some claimants at the start of their claim. Since the start of this year, claimants have been able to get 100% of their estimated universal credit payment up front as an advance that they can pay back interest-free over 12 months.

I will address a couple of other points, as I have a few minutes. On the point about disability payments, as the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) knows, income-related employment and support allowance and the link to disability premiums, including the severe disability premium, are being replaced by universal credit as part of simplifying the benefit process and to address overlaps. Universal credit has two disability elements for adults, mirroring the design of ESA. The higher rate is set substantially higher than the ESA support component equivalent.

[Alok Sharma]

I am happy to have a dialogue with the hon. Lady, particularly in my new role, but I point out, as I have said, that the rate is set substantially higher than the ESA support component equivalent. However, I am happy to enter into a dialogue with her outside this debate.

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister has spent most of his time replying to this debate talking about universal credit, but the debate is about food poverty. Is he suggesting that, over the next year, as universal credit is rolled out on Merseyside, the number of people having to visit food banks will go down?

[Alok Sharma]

I cannot predict the future. The reason why I have talked about universal credit is that it is a matter raised by Opposition Members, and because I think that it is important, if we talk about welfare reform, to talk about the current reforms that the Government are putting in place.

In conclusion, the Government’s track record on helping people into work is clear. Unemployment is at a 42-year low at 4.3%, with nearly 1 million fewer workless households than in 2010. Incomes have been rising. Data published last week by the Office for National Statistics showed that in the year 2016-17, real average incomes of the poorest fifth of households had risen by £1,800 since 2007-08.

However one looks at it, poverty rates in the country—relative or absolute, before or after housing—are no higher than in 2010, and within the working-age population, all headline poverty rates are lower than in 2010. Yes, there is absolutely more to do—we certainly cannot be complacent, and I have no wish to do so—but the Government’s reforms have demonstrated real progress in tackling poverty and disadvantage.