Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The Bill as it stands will hurt some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I cannot support a Bill that abolishes the target for the Government to reduce and eradicate child poverty.

Lifting children out of poverty should be one of the primary duties of any Government. I am proud that the previous Labour Government made this issue a priority, introducing the Child Poverty Act 2010, and helping 1 million children out of relative poverty and 2 million children out of absolute poverty. We must be able to measure and monitor levels of child poverty. Progress has stalled in the past five years and it is outrageous that the Government want to scrap the child poverty targets just to save themselves the embarrassment of missing them.

During the previous Parliament, we saw support cut for families on low incomes, many of whom are in work. Cuts to tax credits hit households with children the hardest, with families losing thousands of pounds. Figures from The Children’s Society show that 15,000 children in Grimsby were adversely affected by below-inflation rises in child benefit and by reductions in tax credits. Now, more than one third of children in my constituency are in poverty. In the East Marsh ward, the figure is close to one in two. Constituents, teachers and social workers in the town have reported to me increased numbers of children arriving at school hungry and without school equipment, and whose school dinner is the only expected meal of the day.

It is not acceptable to balance the books off the backs of the poor; nor is it acceptable to backtrack on the work done in the past two decades to reduce deprivation while 2.3 million children are still living in poverty. I cannot support the removal of child tax credits from families with more than two children, and I cannot support a Bill that will remove protection from the most vulnerable young people. When I was 17, I needed assistance from the state because I did not have anywhere to live. The Bill will take away the very assistance from young people—very vulnerable young people—that I benefited from. Protections are not in place, and if Ministers had been in the position I was in, I doubt they would be proposing these changes.

Again, Labour has a record to be proud of on this issue. The previous Labour Government more than halved homelessness during our time in office. Since 2010, however, homelessness has gone up by 25%. I fear that removing housing benefit from under-21s could drive young people who have nowhere else to go on to the streets.

There is a driving narrative among Ministers and those on the Conservative Back Benches that people on benefits are making a lifestyle choice, and that when 18-year-olds leave school they make a choice between going to university, getting a job or going on benefits. The reality is that many young people find themselves in incredibly difficult circumstances, and they need to be supported. Whether they have fallen out of education, had to leave home because of a breakdown in a family relationship or been let down by the care system, we should not turn our backs on them. A Government who remove support from anyone in those circumstances are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a one nation Government. I urge them to think again about the effects the Bill will have on some of the most vulnerable people in our country, and to accept that the Bill needs to change.