Child Food Poverty

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I have been misgendered in better places than this, Mr Bone. I am delighted to participate in this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for her comprehensive exposition of the shocking issue of child poverty. It should be a cause of shame and embarrassment to us all that, in 2021, across the UK some of our children are still going hungry.

It is clear that the current welfare system simply does not fulfil its avowed aim, which is to assist those who are able to work to re-enter the job market. It seems that the route to achieving that has been woefully misunderstood. Otherwise, there would be no five-week wait for support. There would be no so-called advance payments, which those who eventually receive universal credit, and who are already on the breadline, are forced to pay back, throwing them further into financial distress and consequently further away from the job market. No reputable lender would lend money to those living on welfare because they do not have sufficient means to repay, yet the DWP is content to lend money to claimants in the full knowledge that repayment will cause even further financial distress and reduce their means of returning to the job market. Why on earth would someone design a system in that way?

As a great admirer of Charles Dickens, I think it is worth remembering that he criticised the new Poor Law of 1834 as being unable to elevate the conditions of the poor, and was concerned that the law pushed the poor further into poverty while the rich became richer. It is all starting to sound very familiar. In Dickens’s times, we had philanthropists and public donations to relieve hunger. Today, we have replaced that with food banks. Even now, in 2021, we know that there are children in our communities who turn up to school hungry. We know that the poverty in which they live goes well beyond the material.

Material poverty is the midwife to so many other privations that our children suffer as well as hunger. It brings with it poverty of self-esteem, poverty of opportunity, poverty of cultural experiences, poverty of family support and poverty of potential. Children who grow up hungry sadly lose their innocence long before they should, yet it seems to be the case that those with the power to address that are content in the belief that they are doing all that they should to address it, as did those on the Poor Law boards during the 1800s.

The logic seems to be that if someone is poor they could improve their poverty if they really, really tried. Therefore, to some extent their poverty is a choice. The only folk who could believe that are those who have never gone without. For a variety of reasons, not everyone is able to dig themselves out of the pit of poverty. Sometimes the obstacles are simply too great, and most children living in poverty are in homes where a parent is working.

To improve matters, we could fix elements of universal credit, which traps families in poverty and keeps them out of work. We could replace advance payments, which are in reality loans provided to those with no possible way of repaying them without being driven into a pit of debt. We could replace those payments with loans that are not repayable, or we could get rid of the five-week wait so that claimants can be paid more quickly and can look after their families, and we could do more to promote the real living wage instead of the pretend living wage that we currently have.

In Scotland, the SNP Government are expanding free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil. Best Start food payments across Scotland are increasing, and eligibility will increase by about 50% to all in receipt of universal credit. Alongside that, we have a UK Government that scrapped targets to reduce child poverty, but in Scotland we have ambitious targets to eradicate child poverty. The Scottish child payment of £10 per week per child for those on qualifying benefits will increase to £20 per week per child, assisting 450,000 children across Scotland. Meanwhile, the UK Government refuse to commit to retaining the £20 uplift in universal credit. They are scrapping targets to reduce child poverty while presiding over a rise in the same.

Despite their limited powers, the Scottish Government understand that with the Trussell Trust handing out a food parcel every two and a half minutes, the status quo is not an option. More can and should be done to tackle child poverty and hunger. Hungry children are robbed of the opportunity to be happy children and are scarred in ways that we cannot always see. The Minister can forget trying to close the attainment gap if childhood hunger is not tackled. Hungry children’s education suffers. Their life chances and health outcomes, even in later life, suffer. Their self-esteem suffers, and their ability to reach their potential and contribute all they can to their community suffers. The cost of hungry children is far more expensive to the state than that of feeding our children. The social cost is almost incalculable. The UK Government’s welfare policies are hard for Scotland to swallow since they are served up to us on a plate by a Government we have repeatedly rejected.

As someone who grew up in grinding poverty, I can testify personally to the ill effects that it brings beyond what can be seen on the surface. In Scotland, real efforts have been made by the Scottish Government, with their limited powers, to tackle child poverty and child hunger, but more can and should be done by the Westminster Government. Some 85% of welfare powers are reserved to Westminster, so I urge the Minister to ensure that ways to tackle child poverty and child hunger that will actually improve the lives of children and their families are implemented as a priority, otherwise, just as Dickens pointed out with regard to the new Poor Law of 1834, the current system will not elevate the conditions of the poor, but push people further into poverty while the rich become richer. Despite what anybody else might say, these decisions are political decisions.