Jobcentre Plus: Closures

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

We looked at a variety of measures in the consultation including travel distance, and we consulted staff, so I do not accept the hon. Lady’s criticism of our approach.

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

Does the Secretary of State accept that requiring some sick and disabled people to travel further to attend compulsory interviews is likely to lead to more cost, hardship and worry for our most vulnerable constituents who are looking for jobs? What will he do to ensure that his plans do not leave these vulnerable people to be hit the hardest?

[Mr Gauke]

Let me be clear. We do not expect claimants of employment and support allowance to attend jobcentres regularly. We are not looking to reduce the number of health assessment centres. This is very much focused on jobseekers, but we must also ensure that we rationalise the estate and use our resources as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Housing Benefits (18 to 21-year-olds)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I commend my hon. Friend for his excellent work on the Homelessness Reduction Bill. Absolutely: it is a question of young people informing a work coach, somebody in the local authority or a trusted medical professional of their inability to live at home because their relationship with their parent has broken down, and in those cases they will receive the exemption.

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

Given that the Minister has conceded that there is an impact assessment—she said that she has not published it because she does not need to—and in view of the concern that exists, would she care to think again and publish the impact assessment?

[Caroline Nokes]

We looked very carefully, under the public sector equality duty, at the impact this policy would have and we have shared that information with the Social Security Advisory Committee. I am under no obligation to publish it.

Liverpool City Region (Poverty)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram]

I absolutely accept that. If lines are drawn right across maps of the city region, there are similar disparities and instances in which life expectancy rates are completely at odds with the attempt to improve everybody’s life chances, as the Prime Minister said she would on the steps of Downing Street.

Will the Minister address the fact that the 55% of working families in poverty—a record high—need hope that things will improve? We need to ensure that there is aspiration for children caught in the cycle of deprivation, and innovation in Government thinking to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. I think we all remember how things turned out for our area last time there was a Conservative Government. By the time the Tories were ousted from power, our country was far more divided than when Thatcher came to power and promised to heal discord, so Government Members will forgive my cynicism about the veracity of the current Prime Minister’s words and her resolve to tackle poverty.

To get a better understanding of the current situation in the Liverpool city region, it is important to start by charting the economic vicissitudes we have seen in our recent history. Before the financial crash in 2008, the Liverpool city region experienced reasonable levels of economic improvement and was growing faster than the rest of the north-west economy. We benefited from European objective 1 funding and billions of pounds-worth of private sector investment that catalysed our area’s regeneration. The tangible manifestation of our renaissance was the changing cityscape, with projects such as the arena and convention centre and the Liverpool ONE shopping complex generating thousands of full and part-time jobs, helping to boost economic growth and raising visitor numbers. In 2008, we were able to showcase to the rest of the UK what we are capable of when given a fair crack at the whip.

The basic tenet of a decent society, on which I will focus my comments, is fairness. The last Labour Government had taken nearly 1 million children out of poverty by the time we left office in 2010. We helped to alleviate the suffering of many trapped in poverty through the creation of Sure Start centres, which gave our children the best start in life to break the cycle of dispossession. We also introduced tax credits, which helped to make work pay for many low-income families. However, despite improvements, there were still significant problems to tackle in some communities across the six districts.

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

Does my hon. Friend also recall that, for the first time in history, the last Labour Government removed the link that there had always been between older age and poverty, and took almost 1 million older people out of poverty?

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of our great achievements, removing that link was certainly important in taking huge swathes of older people out of the cycle of poverty.

The indicators and indices of multiple deprivation have gone backwards under the current Government. It is estimated that 91,000 children in the city region are growing up in poverty. Analysis by the Children’s Society estimates that, in the city of Liverpool area alone, 34% of children live in poverty, while 26,800 children live in 15,500 families in problem debt. Debt is a growing issue for many families simply trying to make ends meet. As StepChange highlights, problem debt costs the UK £8.3 billion a year through the damage it causes to family life, mental and physical health, productivity and employment prospects, and costs to the welfare state, the NHS, local government and other agencies.

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

It seems somehow appropriate that we are here under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, given that you represent a constituency in the Liverpool city region.

Nothing defines poverty more starkly than someone being unable to feed themselves and their family because there is no food in the house and no money to buy it. In my experience, that is not a position that anyone wishes to be in. We still live in one of the richest countries in the world, but that kind of poverty is widespread and increasing. It is a key part of the worst of the poverty that I see increasingly in south Liverpool and Halewood.

Since the global financial crisis hit in 2007-08 and the Lib Dem-Tory coalition Government decided in 2010 that never-ending austerity and public spending cuts were the answer to it, there has been an explosion in the number of our citizens placed in the painful, invidious, unhealthy and humiliating position of having to go to a food bank to feed themselves and their families. Since the election of a Tory Government in 2015, we have also seen a doubling down on cuts in social security support. Scapegoating and a blame culture have become characteristic of the callous and sneering tenure of the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and his successors in the DWP. It seems that we are to expect more of the same from our new Chancellor of the Exchequer in next week’s Budget as he desperately tries to offset the spiralling pressures and economic uncertainties caused by the extreme way in which his Government are intent on us leaving the EU.

The numbers on food bank use are stark. Some 2,894 people accessed a food bank in 2005-06, but just 10 years later, in 2015-16, 1.11 million people had to access Trussell Trust food banks alone. Figures for the first six months of this financial year up to September 2016 show that that number is on course to increase again. However, we do not know the true number of people affected, because the Government, disgracefully and callously, still refuse to collect the statistics. We know that the available figures understate the extent of the problem, because there are hundreds of food banks not included in the Trussell Trust scheme that do not use the vouchers on which its statistics are based, and many people cannot use food banks because they cannot eat the dried, tinned and processed food that is given out in food parcels, for medical, practical or cultural reasons. They sometimes cannot do so because their financial problems mean that they have no gas or electricity and cannot cook what they are given to eat. In my experience, that is an increasing problem.

In December 2014, the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger in the UK, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is in his place, tried to fill the gap in statistics created by Government indifference. In its report, “Feeding Britain”, it stated that 4 million people were at risk of going hungry, 3.5 million adults could not afford to eat properly and half a million children were affected.

Thanks to the work of the “Share Your Lunch” campaign run by the social business Can Cook, which is based in my constituency, I can say that in Liverpool we calculate that our food bank and other food help outlets have had about 60,000 visits in the last year. Some of those will have been repeat visits, but “Share Your Lunch” thinks that the real number of people without food is double that. Indeed, visits to Bridge Chapel, the Trussell Trust food bank in my constituency, increased by 10% last year to 3,890 after a two-year plateau, with 43.5% of visitors coming from Speke-Garston. Some 10% of the households who access help at Bridge Chapel have at least one person in work. That indicates the extent of very low pay and zero-hours contracts that do not guarantee any minimum income. Under-employment is a real problem in our region.

According to “Share Your Lunch”, 45% of Liverpool families live below the poverty line and risk falling into food crisis. The number of children who start school under- weight has risen by 16% since 2012, up to one in five children in the UK arrive at school hungry, and one in three teachers surveyed by YouGov have brought in food for children in response to finding hunger in their classroom.

Why do we have this problem in Liverpool when we live in the sixth richest country in the world, and what can be done about it? The Trussell Trust says that the most common reasons for referrals are benefit delays, low income and benefit changes, which account for 27%, 25% and 16% of referrals respectively. That means that a full 43% of people who use food banks have to do so because of the DWP’s inadequacies and poor actions. No wonder the Government will not even collect statistics on why people are forced to go to food banks—they would be embarrassed by the findings.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend realise that there is also a similar pattern in the Wirral? I suspect the numbers are not quite as high, but the reasons for the existence, running and use of food banks on the Wirral are similar. There are now seven food banks in Wallasey, and according to the Trussell Trust, benefit sanctions, the inadequacy of benefits and delays in paying benefits are why almost half of the people affected find they have to resort to a food bank to feed their families.

[Maria Eagle]

Indeed. In fact, “Feeding Britain”, the report by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, had an even higher figure: it said in December 2014 that almost two thirds go to food banks because of benefit issues. That accords with my experience in my advice surgeries in Liverpool and Halewood, where I find that those who most need help have been let down completely by the social security benefit system and that, more often than not, the crisis precipitated by DWP behaviour has left them without money and without food.

Typical scenarios include illness leading to job loss; redundancy leading to an application for jobseeker’s allowance or other benefit, which is then delayed for months while the family has no income; or sudden Kafkaesque checks on entitlement at the behest of Government, like the recent behaviour of Concentrix in cancelling people’s tax credit on the basis of entirely groundless supposition. It was unavailable to be contacted and delayed putting things right for months. That company had been financially incentivised by the Government to cancel claims, and it did so unjustifiably and at random.

I had many constituents coming to my advice surgery who were in work and had suddenly had their tax credits stopped, which meant that they could not afford their childcare, which in turn meant that they could not go to work. All kinds of problems followed, often leading to visits to our local food banks. Even the current Government were forced to act, thanks to the pressure put on them by colleagues across the House, yet a number of my constituents have been left with no money and no food by that behaviour of Concentrix. Fortunately, some of them are now getting compensation —perhaps up to £100, but more usually £50—from the Government for what has been done to them.

Sometimes, benefit changes precipitate food crisis, such as when people move from JSA to employment and support allowance or from disability living allowance to personal independence payment. Believe me, such a change can, and often does, cause a cascade of catastrophe when things go wrong. People have to manage for months with no money before the system is put right and the backdated payments are made. That is how people end up with no money and no food.

I am seeing benefit sanctions happen increasingly—it is an accelerating problem. Sometimes—this is deplorable —the sanction is open-ended, and my constituents are not told about that. It is often unfairly applied to vulnerable people who have done nothing to deserve having all their money stopped indefinitely.

It is clear that the best way of making inroads into the cause of this problem and cutting food poverty is by turning the DWP back into what it should be—a provider of social security for those who need it—and by ending the punishment of poor and disabled citizens just because of the misfortune of their circumstances, which seems to be the DWP’s raison d’être these days. That, however, will require a Labour Government.

I want to say a little about what can be done and is being done about the problem. In my constituency, I have a range of organisations trying to help. They include the Trussell Trust, with its food bank in Bridge Chapel; non-Trussell Trust food banks and more ad hoc arrangements in a number of places in Halewood, Speke and Garston; a FareShare distribution centre in Speke; and Can Cook, a social business that helps run “Share Your Lunch”, an ambitious initiative that aims to eradicate food poverty and provide fresh, nutritious food for those who are hungry rather than food parcels of dried and tinned processed food. There is no shortage of people trying to help. I thank the volunteers and organisers who have been willing to step in to help their fellow citizens when the Government are abrogating their responsibility and are happy to leave people with nothing.

I also thank the public, who make donations. In Liverpool, we are particularly blessed by the solidarity and generosity that people show each other, in particular those less fortunate than themselves. That is true across the city region—it is a defining characteristic of Merseyside and Halton. That generosity is exemplified by the “Share Your Lunch” campaign, run by Can Cook in my constituency but well and ably supported by the Liverpool Echo, which I commend for the work it has done in highlighting this issue and tackling it in practical ways, and by many business supporters and other individual donors. It has raised £51,600, generating a total of 28,800 fresh, nutritious meals that it has supplied to people who need food. More than 19,000 kg of fresh vegetables and 18,000 kg of fresh meat have been provided through its efforts. Indeed, in the campaign’s first week it raised £35,000, all because of the generosity of our fellow citizens in the city region. I hope the Minister accepts that that shows people’s concern about the fact that their fellow citizens are having to suffer the humiliation of not being able to feed themselves and their families.

That huge response has been welcome. It has enabled “Share Your Lunch” to carry out initiatives such as providing everything for Christmas lunch for people who could not afford Christmas and helping families in food poverty get through the school holidays, which are a big problem. When no school dinners are available, it can be almost impossible for certain families to feed their children. The current food bank model is not perfect—it is not the last word—but it does give emergency help to thousands of families when they need it.

There are different ways of tackling this problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) set out the long history we have in the city region of charitable assistance and innovative social support, which long predates any of us being Members of this House. He was right to highlight that. That entrepreneurship is continuing in organisations such as Can Cook, with its “Share Your Lunch” campaign in my constituency.

In a typical food bank parcel for a family, there are 22 tins of processed food, all extremely high in salt and sugar. If the food does not go together to make a good meal, some of it may remain difficult for families and recipients to utilise. Food bank parcels do not cater for vegetarians, vegans or those with special dietary needs, so how do those people get help? Perhaps FareShare can help. It has a distribution centre in my constituency and does good work delivering surplus food from supermarkets, which would otherwise go to waste, to third sector organisations. Of course, food banks and other organisations do have to pay to be members and to receive the available food. They also have to take what is available; they cannot order what they would like or what is needed. I know anecdotally that much of what is passed on remains unused or ends up sent to landfill by the third sector organisations rather than by the supermarkets, because it cannot be used for one reason or another. Therefore, while the food bank model operated by the Trussell Trust and the work done by FareShare helps many people—it has been a lifeline for many—there is room for other approaches to be tried as well.

That is where Can Cook and its “Share Your Lunch” comes in. It believes that good fresh food is a human right and that everybody should have access to fresh food by choice, regardless of their circumstances. Given that many people who find themselves with no food and no money are in that positon not because of anything they have done but because of circumstances, I agree completely that those people ought to have choice if that is possible. That is an ideal worth pursuing. Why should those in food poverty have no choice but to eat dried and processed tinned food, full of sugar and fat, which is not healthy or nutritious and may not go together to make balanced meals? Why should they not have a choice of fresh, healthy, nutritious food?

“Share Your Lunch” has developed a good food model with the aim of using some of the profits from its catering operation—it is a social business providing good, fresh to schools and care homes—to generate free, fresh, nutritious meals for those who need them. It has partnerships across the city region—across Liverpool and Knowsley—with councils and with businesses. It aims to develop good food areas where it can feed hungry residents in a designated area with the free meals generated by its commercial activity. That model is interesting and has something to offer. It is a win-win if it works and will give residents an extra choice when they face a food crisis, so that they can access fresh and nutritious food if they prefer or if it suits them, rather than a food bank parcel.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about how the problem is to be tackled across the whole UK. What does he have to say about “Share Your Lunch” and Can Cook’s model? I wish “Share Your Lunch”, the campaign, and Can Cook, the organisation, all the best in their endeavour. If they succeed, even the poorest of my constituents, at the worst time of their lives when they have no food and no money for food, will be able to eat healthily and properly should they choose to do so.

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[The Minister for Employment (Damian Hinds)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair again, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on securing a debate on this most important issue, and congratulate everyone who has contributed to it. These are very serious matters. They are not new, I am sad to say. There have been income disparities and health inequalities in our country for a very long time. The alleviation of poverty and the spreading of opportunity are key aims that have brought hon. Members on both sides of the House into this line of work and into public policy. We may have different approaches to some of the issues, but they are no less important to Members, whichever political party they represent.

I particularly want to join the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton, for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) in commending the great work of the voluntary sector in this area. Again, that is not new. Over many decades—centuries, in the case of some organisations—great support has been given to the neediest people in our communities.

I want to set out, in the time that I have, some of what the Government are doing or seeking to do to make further progress, what has already been achieved and what more we believe can be. As a number of hon. Members said, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government are committed to building a country that works for everyone, not just a privileged few. That includes building strong economies in every part of the country, ensuring that everyone can benefit from our strong record on the economy.

There is clear evidence that the best route out of poverty is through work. We know that because working-age adults in non-working families are almost four times more likely to be on a low income. According to the “Child poverty transitions” report published in June 2015, 74% of poor children in workless families who moved into full employment exited poverty. I would therefore like to draw hon. Members’ attention to our record on employment and set out what we are doing to help to get even more people into work.

The latest employment figures, as you will know, Mr Howarth, show that the employment rate is at the record high of 74.6%. The number of people in employment is also at a record high—31.84 million. Those trends are being seen broadly across our country. Since 2010, more than 60% of the rise in private sector employment has taken place outside London and the south-east. The employment rate for the Liverpool city region, at 67.7%, is 2.7 percentage points up on 2010. The unemployment rate in the region is now 5.4%, down from 10.4% in 2010.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton suggested that there were particular issues, with people being able to find only part-time work. Of course I acknowledge that there are people working part time who would prefer to be working full time. I am pleased that that number has come down and that less than 14% of part-time workers are now in that position and would prefer to be working more hours. In the last year, more than 70% of the growth in employment has been in full-time work.

Pay is also up, by 6.2% on the year. The people right at the bottom of the income scale—the bottom 5%—have just seen, according to the latest annual figures, the highest rise in their average income since that data series began, in 1997. Income inequality is down.

Our welfare reforms are at the heart of our approach to increasing employment.

[Maria Eagle]

Given the rosy picture that the Minister is painting of employment and opportunity, can he explain why the number of people having to resort to food banks in my constituency is going up?

[Damian Hinds]

I do not seek to put any tint or rosiness on the situation. I was merely going through the facts, both at national level and at the level of the Liverpool city region. It is the case that more people are in work and we are now seeing incomes rising. Of course there is more to do; I never dispute that. My colleagues in jobcentres are working night and day on exactly that, and of course the overall stewardship of the economy remains central to people’s prospects.

We are delivering a modern and effective welfare system that ensures that work, and progressing in work, will always pay. Alongside that, we are taking action against child poverty and disadvantage, addressing the complex barriers that face some families and hold them back. Of course, we continue to protect and support those for whom work is not and cannot be an option. We have had to make difficult decisions on welfare spending, but we have never lost sight of that mission. Universal credit lies at the heart of it, transforming the welfare system to ensure that it always pays to work and to progress. That is in contrast to the pre-2010 system, under which in-work poverty increased by 20% between 1998 and 2010, despite, as is well known and as was discussed, welfare spending on those in work increasing by £28 billion.

We are building a fairer system that will mirror the world of work, we are eradicating the complexities and disincentives of the old system, and it is working. There are 828,000 fewer workless families now than in 2010, putting the workless household rate at its lowest since records began. Unemployment is down 894,000 since 2010 as the economy has grown. The employment rate, as I mentioned, is at a record high. In the last year, we have seen nearly 300,000 more people with disabilities, over 200,000 more women and over 150,000 more people from ethnic minority communities moving into work. Almost 1 million households have made a claim for universal credit, and there are nearly half a million current claimants. We began rolling out the full universal credit service on Merseyside in July and will have completed the full service roll-out to all Jobcentre Plus offices on Merseyside by September 2017.

[Maria Eagle]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again; he is being very generous. Given that he is still painting a rosy picture and that the number of people who are hungry and having to resort to food banks and food assistance in my constituency is going up, will he undertake now to go back and persuade the Government to start collecting statistics about food bank use and why people use food banks, so that we can get a better picture, using official statistics, of what is causing that increasing and distressing problem?

Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, who did good work on the subject during his time in this job. He will see from the Green Paper that we will be carrying out large-scale consultations on precisely the issue that he raises. In specific areas, it is important that we get right the way in which the health system and the welfare system work together. The situation might well be different in various parts of the country, so we will be holding geographically based large-scale trials.

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

As a former Minister for disabled people, I welcome the Secretary of State’s intention as stated in the Green Paper. Does he agree that the extra-costs benefits are tremendously important in helping people to work? Under PIP, hundreds of people a week are losing their access to Motability cars. Does he realise how important it is for those people to have their car to get to work, and what is he going to do to stop people losing their right to mobility?

[Damian Green]

Of course, PIP is not a work-related benefit, as the hon. Lady knows. It is a benefit that is designed to meet the extra costs of those who have a disability, and it is sensible that people go through the appropriate assessment for it. As I have said, I completely agree that it is important to ensure that people have access to work, and that is why we are so keen on the Access to Work programme. There will be different ways for people to access work. As I have explained, the real-terms funding for the programme will increase through to 2021. I agree with her that this is an important issue, and we are doing something about it.

Food Banks

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the number of people using foodbanks provided by the Trussell Trust alone has increased from 41,000 in 2010 to more than 500,000 since April this year, of whom one third were children; further notes that over the last three years prices have risen faster than wages; further notes the assessment of the Trussell Trust that the key factors in the rising resort to foodbanks are rising living costs and stagnant wages, as well as problems including delays to social security payments and the impact of the under-occupancy penalty; calls on the Government to publish the results of research into foodbanks commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which Ministers promised would be made public in the summer of 2013; and further calls on the Government to bring forward measures to reduce dependency on foodbanks, including a freeze on energy prices, a water affordability scheme, measures to end abuses of zero hours contracts, incentives to companies to pay a living wage and abolition of the under-occupancy penalty.

I welcome the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), who has been put up to speak for the Government in this debate. Despite Ministers repeatedly stressing that

“food banks are absolutely not part of our welfare system”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 July 2013; Vol. 746, c. 1071.]

it is regrettable that the Department with lead responsibility for food in our country, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has not felt it appropriate to provide a Minister either to open or to close the debate.

Is there a more damning indictment of this Government’s record than the number of people who now rely on food aid in this country? Since April this year, over half a million people have relied on assistance from the 400 food banks run by the Trussell Trust, which is double the number of food banks compared with this time last year.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am hugely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Why did her Government refuse to allow jobcentres to give out food bank vouchers? It was this Government who changed that. May I also—[Interruption.]

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[Robert Halfon]

Why has there been a huge rise in the number of food banks in Germany and France, and across Europe? In France, one in 88 people are fed by food banks, yet in the United Kingdom the figure is one in 181.

[Maria Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman first asked me why the previous Government did not refer people who needed assistance to food banks. In a parliamentary answer in September, his own Government said that Jobcentre Plus only signposts people to food banks and does not refer people to them or issue vouchers, so there is no difference whatever.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

No. Let me make it clear that I will not take many interventions because of the number—[Interruption.] I am seeking to give hon. Members in all parts of the House a chance to get into the debate, and it will not help if I take three quarters of an hour to open it.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

I will take one more intervention before I continue.

[Mr George Howarth]

As a fellow Knowsley MP, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a disgrace that, from April to 13 November, 756 children and 1,424 adults were referred to food banks with vouchers? We congratulate the agencies involved in doing that work, but is it not absolutely disgraceful that this is what we are reduced to?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree. My right hon. Friend and I share food bank provision in our constituencies, so I know that to be true.

Since April this year, over half a million people have already relied on assistance from the 400 food banks run by the Trussell Trust charity—that is double the number of food banks compared with this time last year. Of those half a million people, one third are children. In Britain, the seventh richest country on the planet, in the 21st century, it is a scandal, and it is getting worse. More people have been going to food banks in the past nine months than in the whole of last year. Half a million people have gone to food banks compared with 26,000 before the last general election.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth).

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady. She seems to be placing responsibility for all this at the door of the coalition Government. Is she aware that the excellent food bank in Farnborough was established in 2009 as the 49th Trussell Trust food bank? Does not that illustrate that it was the destruction of the public finances by her party in government that has been responsible for the disaster that is affecting this country?

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[Maria Eagle]

I agree that some food banks were established before the last election, but 400 have now been established by the Trussell Trust, rather than 49. By the time we left office, 40,000 people were visiting food banks, a tenfold increase on the 4,000 at the start—

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

No.

There are now half a million people visiting food banks—an exponentially larger figure. It is right that this House seeks to find out the real cause of that increase. It is a scandal that is getting worse. The Government now have the humiliation of the Red Cross helping to collect and distribute food aid in Britain for the first time since the second world war.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

I will give way once more to an Opposition Member.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is under a lot of pressure. I want to inform her and the House that not only are people depending on food banks, but poor people in Slough are now fighting each other in the local Tesco when discount vegetables and fruit come out. A constituent texted me yesterday to say that he observed such fights on three separate occasions and that Tesco now has to put on security to deal with the issue. Is that not shocking in the 21st century?

[Maria Eagle]

That is shocking. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will appreciate that I want to leave the longest possible time for them to be able to highlight such experiences in this debate, so I will not take further interventions.

Although the rise of food banks is not something that anyone can be proud of, the huge volunteering effort to keep them going is something we should be very proud of. Communities are coming together in outrage and in sorrow at the growing poverty and hardship they see around them. Whether they are organised by churches, voluntary organisations or individuals, people have refused to stand by and watch their neighbours go without food. More than 30,000 volunteers are now giving their time. Others have donated, including more than 3,400 tonnes of food last year.

The rise of reliance on food banks has angered people around the country. That is why more than 141,000 people have signed the Daily Mirror petition demanding this debate—a debate the Government could have held in their own parliamentary time, but chose not to.

Let us be clear about who is now relying on food aid in this country. Although in the past it may well have been those who were homeless, or at least those without an income, that is increasingly not the case. In fact, just 4% of people turn to food banks due to homelessness, while 19% of referrals have been as a result of the Government’s changes to welfare and more than a third are down to the incompetence that has led to delays in payments to which people are legitimately entitled.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

rose—

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[Maria Eagle]

I have made clear that I am not giving way, because I want to maximise the amount of time available to others to get into this over-subscribed debate.

The majority of people turning to food banks are working-age families. Nearly a fifth are in work, but they are still struggling to get through the month. As the Trussell Trust’s executive chairman, Chris Moulds, said

“2012-13 was much tougher for people than many anticipated. Incomes are being squeezed to breaking point. We’re seeing people from all kinds of backgrounds turning to foodbanks: working people coming in on their lunch-breaks, mums who are going hungry to feed their children, people whose benefits have been delayed and people who are struggling to find enough work. It’s shocking that people are going hungry in 21st century Britain.”

He is right.

The Government have tried to claim that the growth in food banks is a case of supply and demand. Lord Freud, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, suggested that the rise was down to people seeking out food because it was free. He said:

“by definition there is an almost infinite demand for a free good.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 July 2013; Vol. 746, c. 1072.]

Yet everyone who receives food from a food bank is referred there by a front-line organisation and, therefore, verified as being in a crisis situation.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

No.

To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I cannot hear the shadow Minister, but she is speaking perfectly clearly. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Members should have the courtesy to listen to the hon. Lady moving the motion.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman knows that that is a matter for debate, and I have no doubt that he will be able to put that point later in the debate. The more time we spend on points of order and on me quietening people down, the less time there will be for Members to make the points they wish to make.

[Maria Eagle]

To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows just how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. The Trussell Trust is very clear: over 50% of referral agents are statutory agencies, and referrers include doctors, social workers, school liaison officers and citizens advice bureaux advisers. These professionals make sure that people turning to food banks are in genuine crisis.

People are using food banks not out of choice, but out of necessity, yet Ministers still refuse to listen. The Education Secretary has claimed that people are turning to food banks because

“they are not best able to manage their finances.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 681.]

How insulting, patronising and out of touch is that comment.

There is a very straightforward way for Ministers to clear up any doubt about the reasons for the increase in reliance on food aid: they can finally publish the official report into the growth of food banks, which was delivered to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June. That report has now been sat on by Ministers for six months, longer than it took to produce. In April, the then Minister of State at DEFRA, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said:

“The conclusions of this work will be available in the summer and published on the Government's website.”—[Official Report, 23 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 821W.]

Now Ministers say the report is still being subjected to

“an appropriate review and quality assurance process.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 November 2013; Vol. 749, c. 1293.]

I bet it is. It is very clear that the Government are determined to hide the true scale of the growth of food banks. They are right to be embarrassed by the truth, but they should come clean, so I say to the Minister today that she should finally force her fellow Ministers in DEFRA to publish this report.

Even without the Government’s hidden report, the reasons for the rise in food bank use is clear: it is the cost of living crisis facing householders up and down the country; it is because even as we finally see some growth in parts of the economy after three years of failure, that growth is not being shared fairly. Last week’s Office for National Statistics figures were clear: average earnings have risen by less than the rate of inflation for the fifth year running. Figures published alongside the autumn statement showed that real wages will have fallen by 5.8% by the end of this Parliament. Under this Government, we have seen the longest period of falling real wage values since records began, and the consequence is that working people are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

No.

Many are paid poverty wages.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

No.

The number of those paid less than a living wage is up by 1.4 million since 2009, to 4.8 million workers in the UK last year—[Interruption.] No, I have been very clear that I am not giving way again in this debate. [Interruption.] As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they rise faster than wages. That has happened for 41 of the—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I do not understand why there are conversations going on all around the Chamber. [Interruption.] I can see where they are taking place. If Members are here to take part in the debate, they must listen to the hon. Lady who is proposing the motion.

[Maria Eagle]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they are rising faster than wages. They have done that for 41 of the 42 months that this Prime Minister has been in Downing street.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

No, I will not give way.

Let us just take the weekly shop. It is the essentials that have gone up in price the most—food required for a balanced diet. Fruit: up 11.3%. Vegetables: up 6.9%. Meat: up 5.2%. Bread and cereals: up 4.3%—all up by more than inflation. We know from DEFRA’s own annual family food statistics, published last week, that families on the lowest incomes spent 22% more on food in 2012 than five years ago. Those families were already spending the largest share of their income on food. The consequence is that families have been forced to trade down, with a third switching to economy brands. A quarter of those on low incomes are now buying less fresh fruit, with one in five families buying fewer fresh vegetables, which means poorer nutrition for many children.

Not only food prices but household bills have added to the cost of living crisis. Energy bills are up almost £300 for families since the election, while company profits have gone from £2 billion to £3.7 billion. More than 2 million homes in England and Wales, including more than half a million families with children, have been forced to spend more than 5% of their household income on the cost of water. Yet the regional water companies have made £1.9 billion in pre-tax profits, and paid out £1.8 billion to shareholders.

[Alun Cairns]

rose—

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

rose—

[Maria Eagle]

I have made it clear why I am not giving way.

For those with children, the rising cost of child care is making it harder and harder to take on work. The cost of nursery places is rising five times faster than pay, while there are 35,000 fewer child care places and 576 fewer Sure Start centres. Most perniciously of all, the Government’s bedroom tax has increased the pressure on 660,000 people, including more than 400,000 disabled people, yet the vast majority do not have a smaller place to move to. The average family affected is now losing £720 a year.

This debate is a vital opportunity for the House to acknowledge the rising reliance on food aid in our country. We ensured that it took place, because the Government were never likely to do so. They will not even publish their own—clearly damning—research into why the rise in food bank usage is so high. Since April, just one charity’s network of food banks has helped half a million people, a third of whom were children. The reasons for that are clear: the rising cost of living, caused by rising prices that have outstripped falling and stagnant wages; the Government’s unwillingness to stand up to vested interests in the energy and water companies; their unwillingness to take action on the lack of available hours for part-time workers, the rise of zero-hours contracts and poverty pay; incompetent welfare reforms and delays in making payments; and the bedroom tax.

Britain can do better than this. We need a long-term plan to tackle the cost of living crisis and reduce dependency on food banks, including a freeze on energy prices while we reset the market, a water affordability scheme and tough new powers for Ofwat to cut bills, measures to end the abuses of zero-hours contracts, Make Work Pay contracts that reduce company’s tax bills to incentivise them to pay a living wage, an expansion of free child care for three and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours a week to help working parents, and the abolition of the bedroom tax. That is how we, a one-nation Labour Government, will address the scandal of food poverty in our country. That is how we will once again reduce and then remove the need for food aid and the reliance on food banks in our country.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) for his fluent and assured maiden speech. There is a great future for him in this House.

The Budget that was presented to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week was brave and bold, and it was the right thing to do. History will record that it will set our country back on the road to economic recovery and prosperity. Just as it fell to Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago to deal with the poisonous legacy of Labour profligacy and financial ruin, the Prime Minister faces a similar challenge today. Labour Members, in their faux outrage at the Budget, barely comprehend the fiscal catastrophe that they inflicted on our country, displaying a mixture of cocky bravado and denial.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

I will not at the moment.

A modicum of humility or contrition from Labour would surely be appropriate and in order. Given Labour’s utterly negative message at the general election, with no vision of what a fourth Labour Government would mean, it is no wonder that few commentators and fewer voters take its protestations seriously. It simply has no coherent alternative, other than to tax and spend, and to bribe the core vote with other people’s money. Labour’s plan to cut the deficit was completely empty of detail and its deficit reduction bill merely partisan window-dressing.

The Labour party would have had more credibility at the general election and in this debate if it had been honest with the voters about the 20% cuts in non-ring-fenced departmental budgets that the previous Chancellor had already planned. We know that Labour prepared position papers in the Treasury for a 20% VAT rise, which, most importantly, the party failed to rule out in its election manifesto. Labour bet the ranch over the past 13 years on financial services that were not properly regulated, on unsustainable increases in public spending and on a housing market built on a South Sea-style bubble. Labour lost, and we all lost: a £155 billion deficit—bigger in percentage terms than in Italy, Greece or Portugal—a structural deficit that is £12 billion more than we were led to believe, and a debt mountain of £1.4 trillion from the Government who gave us £3 billion overspends on welfare payments and wasted £780 million on the reorganisation of Departments and agencies.

It is scarcely possible to believe that during a dozen years of plenty so many of our fellow citizens were failed, and none more so than the so-called working poor—those who get up in the morning and go to work, pay their taxes, teach their children right from wrong, and have a sense of pride and self-respect. People are rational, and they will do rational things. If we pay for people not to go to work, they will take the path of least resistance and not work. That is Labour’s legacy: the people who need our help, trapped in a half-life of bureaucratic form-filling, and a hopeless and aimless existence on benefits. I believe that the Labour Government were not malevolent, but merely incompetent to an Olympian degree. After 13 years, the number of children in severe poverty is rising. We also have a higher number of children living in workless households than practically any other country in the European Union, 4.8 million people of working age in workless households, and one in five 18-year-old boys who are NEET—not in education, employment or training.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glenda Jackson]

You really have to get another club to beat us with. I would have thought that there were a couple, although they are not necessarily to do with the Budget.

The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who is no longer in his place, and the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) both attempted, in their different ways, to make a salient point—namely, that this is a fair Budget because the richest pay the most. They must know that that is completely and utterly untrue. It is a grossly unfair Budget, because the poorest are the most dependent on public services, which we know will be slashed under the comprehensive spending review, when it eventually happens in October.

[Maria Eagle]

Did my hon. Friend see the analysis in The Observer at the weekend that suggested that the Chancellor’s

“budget cuts will hit Britain’s poorest families six times harder than the richest”?

Does she believe that that is in any way a definition of “progressive”?

[Glenda Jackson]

It is neither progressive nor fair. What is depressing about the path that the coalition Government have gone down is that they have learned absolutely nothing from the lessons of history. This is always the case: it is always the poorest who pay the most; their health suffers, they live in the worst possible housing, and their job opportunities are nil. I love the Secretary of State’s wonderful idea that they can move out of their social housing to another part of the country and find a job. This is coming from a Government who have already destroyed the regional development agencies. Sheffield Forgemasters has also been mentioned. There is absolutely nothing in the Budget that will help to create employment. One of the worst aspects of the Budget is that it will slash the confidence of those people who need it the most in order to get out there and compete in an ever-shrinking jobs market.

--- Later in debate ---

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

In March, before the election, the Chancellor told the News of the World:

“We are all in this together. I am not going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor”,

which was very reassuring for voters to hear before an election. Since the election, both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have tried to argue that the Government and even their Budget are progressive. However, having had a closer look at the Budget and the Government, we can conclude that neither is progressive in political or economic terms. I am afraid that it looks very much like the Chancellor is indeed planning on balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.

I want to spend a little of the time that I have examining the effects of several Budget measures on poorer and disabled people. Disabled people are some of the most marginalised and vulnerable of our fellow citizens, but they are also one of the greatest sources of under-utilised talent and potential in our country. They are generally at the poorer end of the income distribution and they are more reliant on public services than many of our citizens, so the Budget’s impact on them will indeed test the Chancellor’s claim that he is not aiming his Budget at the poor.

I characterise the Chancellor’s overall Budget strategy as further and faster deficit reduction than was planned by the last Labour Government, and an 80:20 split between spending cuts and tax rises in advance of severe spending cuts in the autumn. That is his general approach. We should remember that even the most Thatcherite hawks who did not believe in the existence of society in the 1980s only ever aimed at a 50:50 split between spending cuts and tax rises, so the Chancellor is making the Thatcherites of that time look soft and even-handed. That is not, by the way, how the people of Liverpool remember them for what they did in that decade.

We can say that for most disabled people on lower incomes, who are more dependent than most on public services, the increase in VAT is a disaster. Some Government Members have had the grace to accept that it is a regressive tax. Indeed, both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, before the election, said on TV that it was a regressive tax. The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who is in his place, has said so more recently. The increase in VAT, which both the PM and the Deputy PM promised us before the election we would not have, but which they are now both going to invite their hon. Friends to vote for, is not only a joint broken promise that will hit the poorest hardest, but something on which both parties will be judged.

The degree of reliance on spending cuts will also impact much more heavily on poor and disabled people than a more balanced ratio would have done. More than half the £11 billion of welfare cuts will come from indexing benefit rates to the consumer prices index rather than the retail prices index. That sounds technical, but the effect is to set benefits on a permanently lower trajectory, thus year by year compounding the disparity at every uprating, though saving more money for the Chancellor. That, in my book, is the very definition of balancing the Budget on the backs of the poor.

The changes in disability living allowance will be judged not only on that score, which will in itself cut almost £300 a year from the payment. The Red Book also promises us reform

“to ensure support is targeted on those with the highest medical need”

and says:

“The Government will introduce the use of objective medical assessments for all DLA claimants”.

Indeed, one Government Member referred to DLA as a benefit that one languishes upon. However, DLA is an extra costs benefit: it is paid not on the basis of a medical diagnosis, but to compensate disabled people for the extra costs incurred by the effect their condition has on their ability to get around or look after themselves. People who work receive DLA. It is not a benefit that one languishes upon; it is a recognition from society that disabled people need a little extra support to enable them to participate in life.

[Mrs McGuire]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the Essex Coalition of Disabled People, which has indicated that the increase in people claiming DLA has resulted in more disabled people living independently in the community, rather than in the residential care that was in existence in 1993, 1994 and 1995?

[Maria Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is correct. She, like me, is a former Minister with responsibility for disabled people and has had to grapple with these issues.

This proposal is retrograde because it reverts to a medical model of disability, which disabled people themselves resent. It also has enormous deadweight costs. People who have never been able to walk do not need a doctor’s assessment to say that their mobility is restricted. What possible sense is there in subjecting them to one? It just looks like harassment. How does that sit with not introducing a medical for those components of attendance allowance which are the same as the components of disability living allowance? What about pensioners who got their DLA before they turned 65 and still retain it? Are they to be subjected to a medical test? Looking at the Red Book, it seems to me that we have a savings figure attached to this measure of £1.1 billion, and the objective medical test is simply designed to reduce the numbers on the benefit by 20%. The policy has not been thought through. This seems to be a proposal aimed at saving money.

Similarly on housing benefit, the Red Book says:

“Housing Benefit is often criticised as making excessively generous payments that damage work incentives. To address this, the Government will remove payments that trap benefit claimants in poverty instead of providing incentives to work”.

But only one in eight housing benefit claimants are unemployed. The majority are pensioners, disabled people, carers or people in work who are on low incomes. What is the point of making this benefit one that incentivises work when most of the people on it fall into those categories? It is nonsense. If instead we start with a suspicion that the reforms are actually about saving money, and we see that they cut £1.8 billion, we are more likely to get to the nub of the issue.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the welfare reforms are

“A mixed bag, with no consistent objective beyond the desire to save money”.

The private rented sector reforms just decouple the local housing allowance payable from the level of the rent even in local housing markets, which can only result in people falling into arrears and debt, and being subjected to eviction. In the public and registered social landlord sector the reforms are equally worrying. Many disabled people only have their home. It is the foundation of their lives and their security. It is all they have that is their own. These proposals will force people to move house and face increasing levels of debt. If their area gentrifies—nothing to do with them—they have to move on. If their children grow up and leave home, as they tend to do, they have to move on.

What about disabled people who have adaptations in their home? Are they to have to move? Often, those adaptations make life liveable. They are not a luxury; they are a necessity. Having debt and having to move from one’s home is difficult enough for anyone to cope with, but many disabled people are too vulnerable to cope well with such upheaval. How are learning-disabled people, those with severe mental ill health and those with severe physical impairments supposed to go out and look for a new home, as they may have to simply because of these reforms to save money? Disabled people are the least equipped to do that, even before the spending review cuts the support they can get in their local communities to help them with such things.

The Budget is a triple whammy for disabled people: VAT and the cost of living up; incomes and benefits slashed; help and support to navigate those challenges ended. If the Tories do this, they should not have the support of the Liberal Democrats and, quite frankly, the Liberal Democrats should be ashamed to walk through the Lobby tonight to support this appalling Budget.