Regional Inequalities: Child Poverty

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for her thoughtful introduction to the debate.

Far too often, when regional inequity is discussed, the framing is entirely wrong and misses out the real impacts that that inequality has on people’s lives. Although I accept that child poverty is a disgrace wherever it happens, it is deeply endemic in the north, and I say that as the representative of the wealthiest part of Sheffield. Along the 83 bus route, from my constituency to the other side of the city, there is a 10-year difference in life expectancy for women.

I recently met people from the Trussell Trust food bank network across Sheffield. We discussed the use of the word “poverty”, and they said that we should actually use the word “destitution” when talking about food banks, because that is their client base: people in destitution. Theirs are not the only food banks in our city, but they provided more than 12,000 emergency food parcels between April and September 2021—their highest number on record so far. Of those parcels, more than a third went to families with children.

It should not have to be said in the 21st century, and in one of the richest countries in the world, that there should be no such thing as child poverty, but here we are. It is hard to take the Government seriously on their commitment to levelling up when Conservative peer Daniel Moylan tweeted in response to a Yorkshire Post headline that he sees Yorkshire as

“a county of leftist whingers begging for handouts.”

If he were to visit Sheffield, he would actually find a city where people have waited time and again for the Government to deliver on their promises. The Government are failing to level up our transport—there has been no electrification and no High Speed 2; failing to level up the north’s economy, holding our producers back; and failing to tackle and combat inequality.

According to research by the University of Sheffield, the UK has a higher level of regional inequality than any other large wealthy country. To me, that is not inevitable, but a result of Government policy. It is a political choice to drive people into destitution and to deny them sufficient social security and the services that would prevent that destitution. It is a deeply political choice to invest heavily in some parts of the UK but not in others, and to champion some parts of the economy but leave others to fend for themselves. It is a despicable political decision to then accuse people who are forced into poverty —let alone children—of begging for handouts, when our entire economy is geared towards exploitation, dwindling opportunities and the proliferation of dehumanising zero-hour contract work under a Government who seem simply not to care.

We all know that regional inequalities run deep, but they are reinforced year on year by how much or how little is invested in key public services. According to the Centre for Cities think-tank, national local authority spending fell by half between 2010 and 2019. We all know that major cities in the north were hit hardest. On average, areas such as Liverpool, Blackburn and Barnsley faced twice the cuts of their counterparts in the more affluent south. More recently, analysis of the £4.7 billion allocated for the Government’s levelling-up agenda has shown that the wealthiest areas have been allocated 10 times more money per capita than the poorest. That is astonishing, and the Government must act urgently to ensure that they get those things done better.