Child Poverty in the North

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), with whom I am pleased to co-chair the APPG for the child of the north. I congratulate her on securing this important debate. I also wish to join my co-chair in thanking all the members, expert witnesses and researchers for their work in producing the child of the north report.

Child poverty in the north is a problem that simply cannot be ignored. The report published by the APPG published earlier this year, “Child Poverty and the Cost of Living Crisis”, calls attention to the hardships and difficulties that are disproportionately felt by children in the north of England. Those existing hardships have been exacerbated by the increase in fuel, energy and food prices experienced across the country as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. However, as highlighted by the report:

“local authorities in the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber are regarded as the ‘most vulnerable’ to the cost of living crisis across the whole of England”.

There are a number of reasons that poorer households are more susceptible to the cost of living crisis, including the reality that they must spend more of their total budget on things such as food, gas and electricity and therefore feel the impact of inflation more. Recent analysis has indicated that inflation is actually about 2.3% higher in northern towns and cities than in wealthier southern counterparts such as London and Cambridge. In the north, there are proportionally more people living in poverty or unable to cope with sudden price increases.

In response to the cost of living, the Government have taken action, providing financial support for households and a cap on domestic gas and electricity rates, which was extended into this spring. Further support has been rolled out for pensioners and people in receipt of benefits, and those benefits have been increased in line with inflation. However, important though it is, that support is designed to help with a short-term problem and we know that regional inequalities are a chronic, long-term problem. The Government acknowledge that, which is why they rolled out their levelling-up policy, describing the situation as follows:

“While talent is spread equally across our country, opportunity is not. Levelling up is a mission to challenge, and change, that unfairness. Levelling up means giving everyone the opportunity to flourish. It means people everywhere living longer and more fulfilling lives, and benefitting from sustained rises in living standards and well-being.”

There is much discussion about what levelling up means. To my mind, when we speak of levelling up, we are not talking in a narrow way about left-behind communities. Rather, we are talking about addressing generational social and economic disparities that have resulted in regions—particularly the north—being left behind. In my view, the key to levelling up is ensuring that children are given the same opportunities in every part of the country and that our future generations are provided with the best start possible.

We want to bring new industry, tech and high-skilled jobs to our region to create employment and support research and higher education. However, the skills for the jobs of the future must be learned by the children of today, so we need to ensure that children in the north have all the tools for a successful future, and addressing educational disparity is key to levelling up in the long term. Education is an acknowledged route out of poverty, and a healthy child can walk that path more easily.

Poverty has a broad impact on a child’s education. Beyond the effects that hunger and food insecurity have on their ability to focus and learn, the APPG also heard how children are left unable to access learning resources such as books and stationery, as well as the internet and technology, which became necessary during the pandemic, making the existing disparities worse. They often have to miss out on extracurricular activities and school trips and then experience further exclusion and stigmatisation as a result of poverty.

The APPG has made a number of recommendations to Government, which include changes to benefits and social security reform, expansion of free school meals, energy support for households and using existing data for auto-enrolment on the Healthy Start scheme and free school meals. It is clear that we must close the education attainment gap and set up future generations for success.

I am pleased that a good number of MPs are here today supporting this debate when there are probably other things going on at the moment. I am also pleased that other groups of colleagues are pursuing this with Government. The Northern Research Group of MPs, of which I am a member, collaborated with the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2021 to produce a research paper that outlined a number of policy suggestions to deliver levelling up. We are not short of potential solutions to our regional disparities, and I am pleased that the child of the north APPG has produced so many strong recommendations. I know that the Government have the will to bring about change, and I urge the Minister to consider the measures to improve health and support families that are recommended in the APPG’s report.

Education, health, work and prosperity can link together in a spiral of either ascent or decline. For too long, the north lived with decline. I welcome the Government’s commitment to a levelling-up agenda, but we must reset the dial and ensure that families with children can live in warm homes, with the money and security of income to meet their basic needs, and can access the education that will lead them to good jobs and a better future. I urge the Government to consider the child of the north APPG’s report.