Child Poverty in Scotland

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow so many passionate and thoughtful speeches. My reflection on the debate and Members’ contributions—particularly that of my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), whom I congratulate on securing the debate—is that poverty is, fundamentally, probably the worst evil in our society. It is particularly pernicious, because it is a cruel and indiscriminate denial of opportunity to many people who have great potential.

My constituency has some of the highest child poverty levels in Scotland—and in the UK as a whole. When I go round it, I am constantly reminded of the denial of opportunity to many young people, particularly children. There was a turn of phrase used by Jimmy Reid when looking at high-rise tower blocks in my constituency—the infamous Red Road flats, which are now demolished and being redeveloped. He said that behind every one of the windows could be a Nobel prize-winning chemist, or a great Formula 1 racing driver, a fantastic doctor, engineer or perhaps Prime Minister, but—you know what?—they will never get the opportunity because of where they were born and the circumstances in which they were brought up. From birth they have been denied their potential. As a nation and as a community, that sabotage of young people’s lives is the greatest loss to us all, and in many cases it is literally a life sentence.

In the early 1990s Jimmy Reid made a documentary in Scotland, and he was filmed standing in a field between Milngavie and Drumchapel. The camera panned across the field, and he said that a child who is born on one side of the fields will live 10 years longer than a child born on the other side of the field, in Drumchapel. The average sentence for murder in Scotland is not far off 10 to 15 years, so for many children born in those circumstances, that is literally a life sentence. That destroyed potential is a great tragedy for us all.

Child poverty can be solved through political means—it is not inevitable, as many speakers have suggested; it can be solved. Child poverty has been both demonstrably reduced and demonstrably accelerated at the behest of policies of various Governments, and if there is one thing I can be proud of about the previous Labour Government, it is their efforts to reduce child poverty. When Labour came to power in 1997, child poverty stood at 3.6 million in the UK. When Labour left office in 2010, that figure had been reduced to 1 million. That was still too many, but it was a significant and demonstrable reduction. Today child poverty stands at 4 million—more than a reversal of those achievements—and we must address that generational tragedy.

We should not get too bogged down in the minutiae of Brexit; instead, we should focus on what we could be doing. What motivates me—and probably most Members—to get out of bed in the morning, is thinking about how we can leave a legacy that will improve lives for future generations. That certainly motivates me, my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill and other Members of the House, yet this Government have demonstrably, deliberately and consciously implemented policies that have permanently damaged lives.

[Stephen Kerr]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Sweeney]

It is true. Those policies will have a material effect on children born in this decade of austerity. We are visiting huge destruction not just on their lives, but on a whole community that has been denied those opportunities, and when we reflect on what Members have said today, that is the greatest tragedy.

One of the most moving aspects of this is the fact that child poverty is driven primarily by insufficient income, yet 65% of all children living in poverty in Scotland live in working households. Parents are trying to do what they can. They are not feckless or idle; they are trying to achieve what they can, but the capacity of the economy to meet their basic income requirements is not there. That is a legacy of this Government, their failure to address the 2008 financial crash, and their entire counter-productive austerity agenda, which has retarded economic growth in this country and caused one of the most regionally unbalanced and slow-paced recoveries of any major economy in the western world.

[Stephen Kerr]

Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that this Government have lifted the threshold after which people start paying tax to £12,500? That really helps people. Combined with that, we have increases in the national living wage. Does he not welcome those as well? Does he welcome the fact that the Government have introduced policies to allow people at the lower end of the income scale to keep more of their own money, so that they can spend it on their families? Does he welcome any of the policies that the Government have introduced to tackle child poverty?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

I would congratulate the Government if they had demonstrably increased incomes for people on low wages, but wage growth in this country has been the lowest in the western world, and that is the primary measure of success.

[Stephen Kerr]

Tax!

[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about tax, but the tax threshold was never met by people on the lowest incomes in the first place, so that measure does not deal with people at that end of the scale. People who already rely on social security benefits have been crushed by the two-child welfare cap that has been mentioned. Those are the things that affect people.

One searing example of that can be found in a recent report by Oxfam, Child Poverty Action Group Scotland and the Poverty Alliance, which addresses the issue of hunger in Scotland. It is an inspiring and chilling report, and the thing that strikes me most is the testimony that it contains. One example is from a lady called Alison. She is typical of many people—usually women—who turn up to my constituency surgeries in horrendous circumstances. A person might be born and brought up in a constituency and live there their whole life, as I have, but they never know the half of it until they become a Member of Parliament and realise what is going on behind closed doors.

Many people are too proud to come and demonstrate that they are suffering and have problems. They do not want to make a spectacle of themselves, and they are upset about having to speak to a Member of Parliament about their circumstances. The example from Alison is particularly egregious. Speaking about the whole issue of food insecurity and the wellbeing of our children, she said:

“My son, throughout the whole of this, was scared to put the heating on. He was scared to put the light on. He was sitting in the dark. He’s not playing his computer. What else is he meant to do when he’s socially isolated? When there’s no money to go on a bus, never mind take him out for the day…When things were on a level, it’s very, very sad to even say, he was just happy that we went for a hot chocolate and a muffin. Now that’s a simple thing. That is not doable anymore.”

Another parent said:

“Me and my daughter used to go everywhere. But now, I don’t have nothing like, so we can’t do anything.”

One mother said:

“I’ve felt suicidal more times than I’ve had hot dinners and that’s no joke.”

That is a true testimony from someone suffering in Scotland now.

To me, it is offensive at a very fundamental level if the great achievements of the welfare state have been rolled back to the extent that people are suffering in this way. Not only is there the shaming need for people to go to food banks and prostrate themselves in front of authority figures to demonstrate that they need help, but we have also removed the social floor that was there for many people. We created the idea that there was a floor beneath which no one would fall and above which everyone could rise. That is how my family progressed, and how I was able to have opportunities that my parents did not have. To think that that has been reversed under this Government is offensive.

[Dr Whitford]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that part of that has been the change from what used to be “social security”, to what is now called “welfare”? In the past, no matter whatever happened to someone, we knew that they would somehow be safe, but that has been removed. I served on a committee with the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) to consider the children’s future food inquiry. We took evidence from children about the hunger that they suffered from at school—I kept having to put my glasses on to hide that I was crying. That is ridiculous in a country such as this.

[Mr Sweeney]

It is ridiculous. The scourge of things such as people having no recourse to public funds is a particularly horrific example of that. A couple of weeks ago a lady came to my surgery. She looked emaciated. I asked if she was all right, because she looked as if she was going to faint. I brought her in, sat her down, and we gave her a plate of shortbread. She scoffed it in front of us in a couple of minutes in a way that otherwise would have been impolite, but under the circumstances we were horrified that she could be so hungry that she was grabbing food in front of us. I could not believe that someone was in that situation because of having no recourse to public funds. She was destitute; she had left an abusive relationship with her child, and she was trying to find somewhere to shelter. There was no availability of homeless accommodation in Glasgow at that point. She was being helped by a women’s refuge charity, but it did not have long-term accommodation. That she was driven to that sort of desperation is just one example of the circumstances in which people find themselves.

The case of Alison in the report that I mentioned is typical. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) mentioned the concept of social security as a system that would save everyone, and the change from that to a welfare system—it is almost like a return to the poor laws of the Victorian era, with the idea that this involves some sort of virtue and vice.

My constituency has seen the biggest loss of anywhere in Scotland resulting from the change from the disability living allowance to the personal independence payment—£1.9 million a year out of the pockets of my constituents, and behind that figure is a lot of pain. This is about how fragile people’s lives are, not just about immediate need. Most people’s finances are delicate, and one unexpected crisis in their life—a failed relationship or job, an unexpected cost because their central heating has failed, or whatever it might be—could push them into relying on welfare. The truly horrendous thing is when they get into that spiral. Alison says,

“I vowed I wouldn’t take out credit cards or loans. But you find you get gobbled up, you have to do it because there’s no other way”.

People end up in the debt spiral, compounded by this Government’s universal credit policies. Instead of focusing on the immediate need for cash and income and the ability to bridge finances, there is the initial loan, which creates a spiral of decline as people dig themselves into compounded debt. That is the biggest tragedy.

In the case of Alison, we can see the build-up of debts. The milestones are indicated in the report. She is a lone parent with two sons, both of whom have disabilities. Alison loses her personal independence payment. Her son’s DLA is downgraded. Alison loses the carer’s allowance. Her son attempts suicide. As we all too often see, after she went to her Member of Parliament for help, the PIP and the higher-rate DLA were both reinstated—so it was an injustice from the start. But where was the pain? The pain was that her son tried to take his own life.

That is someone in Dundee. I cannot believe that it is happening in 2019. This is what we are up against, and it is seen as socially acceptable. All of it has been clouded out and displaced by the squabbling over Brexit and the high-level stuff that we have been consumed by. Going into this election campaign, I think most of us want to get down to saying, “This is a choice between death and life for so many people in this country.”

That is what is on offer here. It is not about what flags are where, what borders are where or what is going on in the constitutional sense; it is about whether we can get money into people’s pockets quickly through political decisions made here and elsewhere in this country, to improve lives. That is the priority for us all, I think; let us hope we can achieve that as best we can and make those arguments out there.

There is a multifaceted approach. Many hon. Members have talked about different aspects of child poverty. It is fair to say that it mostly tracks decisions made at a UK Government level, because the primary driver of the social security system, the dynamic in this country, is the Department for Work and Pensions. That is the primary driver, and the behaviour of incomes will track the decisions made there.

I will point out that there is a big opportunity in Scotland now, with the changes in devolved policy. I welcome the measures that have been taken. There has been a divergence between Scotland and the rest of the UK in terms of poverty after housing costs, but there is an interesting aspect to that. The reality is that that happens because more people in poverty in Scotland live in the social rented sector than in the private rented sector, and the larger social rented sector has long been considered a key reason why poverty after housing costs is lower in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.

We can see why that would happen. It is all about income. The rents are lower in social housing because there is more opportunity to control them—but that is still not going far enough. My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill mentioned house building; I do not want to get into the quibbles over it, because I find them a bit tedious, but I point out that the records have been fairly consistent. If we look at completions per year, it was 3,617 units per year over the eight years of the Labour-Lib Dem Government in Scotland under devolution. Since then, it has been 3,316 per year under the 12 years of the SNP Administration from 2007.

However, there has been a significant drop-off in the rate of completions since 2010-11, which we need to address. Let us work together on this, because there is an opportunity to recapitalise Scotland’s social housing capacity, which is a key driver of bringing down poverty. Not only must we do that, but we must focus on rent controls. I am very proud of the idea of a Mary Barbour Act. Putting rent controls on not only the social rented sector but the private rented sector is a huge opportunity to reduce the overall cost burden on families living on the breadline. That is a major impact and we can make it now. Those policies are devolved. We can have an impact on that front. We can also improve aspects of poverty and access to work through transport improvements; removing the costs of transport and commuting can help families. However, we must also utilise the great capacity of financial powers to top up and enhance welfare benefits wherever we can.

The introduction of certain benefits has been positive, but we are seeing some teething problems. We know that the Scottish child payment is generally a great thing—it is a good idea and I congratulate the Scottish Government on it—but we also know that 58,000 children face losing out on the £520-a-year benefit on their sixth birthday, because their low-income families will stop getting the payment.

I know that that is to do with the transfer of information and so on between the DWP and Social Security Scotland, but we need to get a grip of it quickly. We need better management and better collaboration between the two Governments to get that sorted out, to ensure that we can lift another 30,000 children out of poverty more rapidly. I hope that that can be achieved, and that we can really make some inroads on it.

We must also look at the aspect of childcare—I will finish on this issue. One of my constituents, who I went to school with, wrote to me and said:

“My second child arrived in April this year. He is a very healthy child who I hope will go on to great things when he is older. However for the moment he is only 6 months old and when he is 9 months old my wife is to return to work after 9 months on maternity leave.”

They are a typical working-class Glaswegian family, with only relatively modest incomes. His wife is currently receiving the bare minimum statutory maternity pay, so as a family they are struggling financially, and have been since their first child was born. He states that he is,

“extremely dissatisfied with this mediocre maternity pay amount in what is supposed to be 5th largest economy in the world”.

My constituent’s main issue is how this new 30 hours of free child care scheme is being applied. His argument is that it is essentially

“robbing Peter to pay Paul”,

as resources for nursery are being pulled from the baby stage, from nought to two years, and reallocated to the toddler stage at two years-plus. He goes on to say:

“For a long time this government have been woefully inept at providing sufficient support to families, who particularly during the 9 month to 3 years stage…where the mother is required to return back to work as state/employer benefits stop at this point. How this 30 hour free scheme is being applied is just the icing on the cake.”

My constituent’s argument is that we cannot continue to allow this gap of nearly two years to continue. As it stands, his boy cannot get a place in nursery, because the cheaper ones are full and cannot take more, and the ones that are available charge a hefty day rate of £50 a day. It is completely unfair, and certainly does not make work pay for his family, so he wants that looked at. Access to childcare liberates people to get to work as well, so that is a critically important point in tackling this, and it cuts across Government, so let us hope something can be done.

I will not take any more time, but I think we can see that the problem is multifaceted. I hope that all Governments can work in collaboration to solve this intractable problem in our society. We know it can be done through political action, political agency and political choice, so let us make it a priority in this election campaign.

Access to Pension Credit

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on an excellent introduction, in a comprehensive speech about a great injustice.

Recently, I visited the Alive and Kicking project in my constituency, which was a great organisation to discover. It was set up in the year I was born, so it is 30 years old. It has been an amazing charity—a stalwart in the Springburn area in helping to involve older people in the community in social activity when otherwise they might be isolated on the fringes of our communities.

Such organisations, the length and breadth of Britain, are the backbone of ensuring that social isolation and alienation are not a more common occurrence. We often underestimate the capacity of those organisations. Yet, sadly, they face significant financial pressures due to local government cuts. It is an onslaught on every front that many such organisations—the infrastructure that supports older people—face.

The people at the Alive and Kicking project were very hospitable. They gave me my lunch and we had a game of bingo. I had a great time with them, but we also had a Q and A session. There was so much anger from the older people about the TV licence being taken away. I could not believe the anguish that it was causing a lot of people—the feeling that they had done so much for their country over the years, working all the hours that God sends, as one lady said, to be greeted with that. She was recently widowed and the television is a critical part of her social existence. When she is not at the social club she is just alone at home and she communicates with the world through that television.

That is an insight into the hardship that the change is causing. It is not good enough to pass the buck to the BBC. We know the true reason why it has made the cutback; there is no point in trying to sugar-coat it. In my constituency, 1,400 people who currently qualify for the TV licence will be denied that opportunity. That adds extra impetus to the issue of pension credit under-claiming. We have to focus on the barriers to access, which have been referred to.

Many people spoke to me at the club about issues that they have had in accessing the benefits, their lack of awareness and even organisations’ lack of knowledge of how to assist users and maximise benefit claims. [Interruption.] Perhaps the Minister is confirming the details of how people claim those benefits. It is clear to me that the interface for normal people dealing with it has been deliberately designed to deny access.

We know for a fact, as a result of freedom of information action, that deflection scripts are practised for universal credit. There is an insidious ethos within the Department for Work and Pensions to deflect and deny access to rightful entitlements. That is utterly shameful and is a fact—an example was alluded to earlier. In my constituency, just 56% of those who are eligible to claim pension credit do so, according to the recent Independent Age study. That means that about 4,610 people claim it but 3,648 do not, leading to a cumulative total of £11 million a year that is unclaimed in my constituency.

That is not good enough, I am afraid, in a constituency that faces some of the worst social challenges in not just Scotland but the United Kingdom. It is a mark of shame on the DWP that the figure is as high as it is. There is a clear correlation between levels of social deprivation and the under-claiming of benefits that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We currently have a regressive system, because the onus is on the individuals with the least capacity to claim the benefits. That must be fixed. The dice are loaded against them and it is not good enough.

That was just a simple insight into one example of when I went around my constituency and discovered the hardship that this issue is causing. I think that the people at the Alive and Kicking club would appreciate it were the Minister to commit to sending a DWP representative to visit the club, speak to the service users there and talk to them about how they can maximise their rightful entitlement. I think that that would be received very well. I look forward to the Minister committing to give at least that measure of reassurance to my constituents. The figures as they stand are shameful, and I hope that the Government will address them with due urgency.

Workplace Deaths: Scotland

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered workplace deaths in Scotland.

I know there are helicopters above us waiting for this speech, so I will just get started. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, in this important debate. I thank the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Unite the union, Scottish Hazards and Families Against Corporate Killers for their time and assistance ahead of the debate.

There was a nearly 5% increase in workplace deaths in the UK last year, and a staggering 70% increase in Scotland. The Health and Safety Executive suggests that the increase was not “significant”, but as a trade unionist I firmly disagree. The death of any worker is significant for their family, friends and workmates, and the increase in workplace deaths across Scotland is significant for us in this House. It highlights that something is going wrong in sectors of the Scottish economy when it comes to the health and safety of workers. Working people look to us, their representatives, to raise and address their concerns. That is why I sought the debate.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, Scotland has the highest rate of workplace deaths per 100,000 workers in the UK. It also had the most recorded workplace deaths in the UK last year, at 29—higher than the annual average for Scotland of 19. I know the HSE will highlight that Scotland has fewer workers in low-risk industries than the other regions and nations of the UK, but surely that highlights why we must get workplace health and safety right in Scotland. Scotland has more workers in high-risk industries, who are more likely to be exposed to greater dangers in their workplace.

Both across the UK and in Scotland, the highest number of workplace deaths occur in the agriculture, construction and manufacturing sectors, but differences start to emerge between Scotland and the UK when we look at deaths by employment status. Across the UK, the self-employed are more than twice as likely as employees to suffer a fatal workplace injury, but in Scotland, the rate of fatal injury per 100,000 workers is higher among employees than among the self-employed. That greatly worries me, because it means that an increasing number of employees are being failed by their employers when it comes to health and safety in workplaces across Scotland.

The causes of those workplace deaths in Scotland also alarm me. Most of them were preventable if employers had properly enforced health and safety in the workplace. Workers should not operate machinery without appropriate protection, they should not fall from heights and they should not be struck by vehicles in the workplace. All those issues could be dealt with through proper enforcement and oversight of current health and safety regulations.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the increasing casualisation of the workforce—in particular the decline in trade union membership, which enforces appropriate standards in the workplace—is a contributory factor? I recall from my experience of working in a shipyard that the close relationship between management and trade unions was critical to ensuring a rapid and major reduction in lost work day incidents and accidents in the workplace.

Personal Independence Payments: Supreme Court Ruling

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The key thing is that we will continue to engage with stakeholders and disabled people and be held to account by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, of which the hon. Lady is an active member. We will continue to make improvements, which is why increasing amounts of money are rightly being spent on vulnerable people in society. The Secretary of State is personally committed to improving the process, and we will do all that we can to do so.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The change from DLA to PIP has meant that my constituents have lost £2 million collectively—[Interruption.] That is a matter of fact, so I do not know why the Secretary of State is shaking his head. There is clearly a lot of despair behind that figure, and the recent judgment clearly proves that the situation is unsound. What is the Secretary of State going to do to fix it?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for elevating me to Secretary of State. I am just a Minister of State, but he is very kind. To be clear, 33% of people with a mental health condition will now access the highest rate of support under PIP, compared with just 6% under the legacy benefit. That is significant progress, but we are committed to work with stakeholders and disabled people to continue the improvements that we are proud to be making.

Social Security Claimant Deaths

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she said on suicide. Language is important, and she was right to pull me and others across the House up for using that language. She raises a hugely important point. We are working closely with stakeholders in that regard, to see what more we can do, and I would be happy to meet her to explain in further detail the written answer that was given to the parliamentary question that she submitted.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Five hundred and eighty of my constituents were displaced in the transition from disability living allowance to the personal independence payment—a loss of £2 million a year. What is the Department doing to track the outcomes faced by those who are not in receipt of Government support? I think particularly of a case of mine, where a young man was forced to rely on his mother’s financial support in the last months of his life before he died of a terminal brain tumour, because the Government rejected his claim for support. What will the Government do to track such cases?

[Will Quince]

What we are doing is spending £6 billion more, and we will continue to work with stakeholders where possible, to ensure that we can improve our processes.

Inequality and Social Mobility

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow so many other considered and thoughtful contributions on the complex issue of inequalities and structural poverty in this country.

While the impacts of the Tory party’s austerity agenda over the last decade are well documented and have been well discussed, there is a broader issue to be considered, particularly when looking at a city such as Glasgow: the economic geography of the city. Madam Deputy Speaker, you are no stranger to the city of Glasgow. I was brought up in a part of the city called Milton. I was speaking about Milton just yesterday to David Begg, who was involved recently in undertaking a study into connectivity around Glasgow and how the transport system could better join up the city and make improvements on equality. We were talking about Milton and how cut off it is from the city. That got me on to thinking about the story of how I uttered my first word.

My first word was, oddly, someone’s name, “Brian”. I was always curious about why my first word might be Brian, and it was the name on the fruit and veg van that used to go around the housing scheme of Milton. There was no grocery shop in Milton at that time as the housing scheme was built in the post-war period as a way to relieve slum housing conditions in the city and overcrowding, but many of the amenities were never built properly and the legacy of that persisted. That speaks in many ways to the broader issues of structural poverty and inequality in Glasgow.

Research based on the historical development of Glasgow, particularly in the post-war period, suggests that Glaswegians’ higher risk of premature death was caused by that structural inequality created through the planning system. Some researchers have labelled this the “Glasgow effect”: excess mortality that cannot be accounted for by poverty and deprivation alone. It impacts on everyone in the city.

Glaswegians have a 30% higher risk of dying before they are 65—which is considered a premature death— than people in comparable deindustrialised cities such as Liverpool and Manchester. They die from the big killers—cancer, heart disease and strokes—as well as the despair diseases of drugs, alcohol and suicide. Although they have a higher chance of dying prematurely in Glasgow, if they are poor, deaths across all ages and social classes are 15% greater. So it is clear that economic advancement alone and mobility will not improve overall life expectancy.

The mystery of the Glasgow effect has been studied for many years. Recent research by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health has shed new light on the situation. In explaining excess mortality, it confirmed that in many cases the combination of the historical effects of overcrowding, poor planning decisions in previous decades and a democratic deficit in local communities is among the reasons that drive premature deaths in Glasgow.

The issue of what was described by one researcher as “skimming the cream” of the city’s population to rehouse its best citizens in new towns is particularly striking. The research is based on Scottish Office documents. It discovered that towns such as Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Irvine were populated by Glasgow’s skilled workforce and young families, while the city was left with

“the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable,”

which severely harmed the city’s tax base and distorted the population of the city region as a whole.

Clearly, this legacy needs to be addressed in the city of Glasgow through repopulation, re-densifying and increasing the diversity of incomes and social class into the city to address that structural effect and improve social mobility. This is a long-term strategy. It needs to be gripped at all levels of Government to address these long-term structural problems.

The issues in my constituency are clear. Although efforts were made, with great intentions, to improve social housing in the cities, such as the construction of Red Road in Sighthill, the impact of Thatcherite policies in the 1980s led to slum conditions emerging in those areas, particularly when drug dealers moved in, problems with antisocial behaviour and despair were apparent and the housing quality was reduced. Efforts have been made to improve those situations, most notably in 2003 with the writing off of the City of Glasgow’s £1 billion social housing debt, which has allowed an unprecedented expansion and renovation of the city’s housing stock, but there is still a structural problem with that issue in Glasgow. In Springburn, 91% of the population still live within 500 metres of vacant and derelict land.

I welcome Labour’s social justice commission proposal because it will delve into the structural and complex factors that drive structural inequality and social mobility issues in cities such as Glasgow. There needs to be much more research into, for example, understanding the comparative differences between Glasgow and other deindustrialised cities in Britain to understand what can be done, particularly when looking at the role of the physical environment as a component of deprivation. That is a major issue, and that is something the Government and the Opposition should consider as they consider solving this problem.

Universal Credit and Debt

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury]

Very briefly.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) for securing this vital debate on universal credit, and for all that she does. The debate’s importance has been powerfully illustrated by the presence of 26 Members in this Chamber.

As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, universal credit was supposedly designed to be the flagship policy of a reformed welfare system that would protect the most vulnerable in our society, support people into work and act as a safety net for those who needed it most. However, as hon. Members’ speeches today have shown, the experience for hundreds of thousands of our constituents has been chaos and hardship, sometimes resulting in tragic circumstances.

What was once hailed as a simplified, holistic and supportive social security reform has become nothing more than a vehicle for cuts. The political choice of austerity has taken more than £37 billion from the welfare state, while giving more than £110 billion of tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals and rich corporations. While the Chancellor looks around and claims to be blind to the poverty that many of us witnessed as we walked into Westminster this morning, the record 1.6 million emergency food parcels that were given out last year alone and the 4.1 million children who are in poverty tell a different story—one that should shame every single one of us in this House.

Riverside, a major social housing provider nationally and in my constituency, has provided me with a case study that illustrates the systemic failure of universal credit on the frontline. The couple involved, who do not wish to give their names because of the sensitive circumstances, said:

“Me and my partner have had so much Universal Credit taken off us, that we are struggling to get gas, electric and food, on a monthly basis, we have tried weekly and that was even worse, the money that we are on makes having a home difficult…so we are having to visit the food bank more regularly.”

That is just one among many cases that have been highlighted in this Chamber today. The changes and cuts to the local housing allowance have helped to drive rent arrears up to alarming levels. According to Shelter, two in five renters in the private sector are having to borrow money. Minister, that needs to change.

It would be easy for the Government to try to dismiss such cases and statistics as cherry-picking from Opposition MPs; in fact, a previous Secretary of State referred to them as “fake news”. But what about the findings of the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, who last month published his third and perhaps most damning view of the Government’s welfare policies, stating that our country’s poorest residents face lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”? What about the independent End Child Poverty coalition’s finding that child poverty is the “new normal” in some of the most deprived parts of Britain, with half a million more children living in poverty now than in 2010?

The Trussell Trust has found that when universal credit goes live in an area, food bank demand increases by a massive 52%. The trust’s figures show that a fifth of all referrals to food banks last year were linked to delays in receiving benefits, almost half of which related directly to universal credit. The Minister will claim that advance payments are available to universal credit claimants, so no one should go hungry for lack of cash. However, it has rightly been pointed out in this debate that those are loans that have to be paid back, which means debt on top of debt for the 60% of claimants who are forced down that route.

The five-week delay in payments must end. The system must be reformed. Will the Minister listen to the plethora of organisations that hon. Members have cited today, such as Shelter, Mind, the Child Poverty Action Group and the Riverside housing association? The monthly payments design of universal credit does not reflect the reality of many people’s lives or how they manage their money. A Resolution Foundation study found that most people moving from employment were paid either fortnightly or weekly in their previous job. The research highlighted the fact that people who claim universal credit are often not made aware of alternative payment arrangements to help people who are struggling to manage their own money, and do not always receive them when they apply.

In January, the Secretary of State announced her intention to improve the provision of alternative payment arrangements, make it easier for private renters to have payments made directly to landlords, and test ways to make more frequent payments to more people who struggle with monthly budgeting. Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made on that?

As we have heard today, it is not just advance payments that can lead to deductions from universal credit, but other bills too. Indeed, up to 40% of the universal credit monthly standard allowance can currently be deducted for repayment of advances, utility bill debts and rent and council tax arrears. More than half of universal credit claims had a deduction; as my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak pointed out, that is 844,000 people. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of debt repayments on levels of hardship among universal credit claimants?

According to Citizens Advice, a single person over 25 who claims universal credit can see £127 deducted from their benefits every month to repay existing debts. If the Government are determined to help people to manage their debts, why is their own Department making deductions that often push claimants into hardship?

[Mr Sweeney]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. In a recent roving surgery, I visited a constituent who was suffering so much with mental health problems that he was unable even to face opening the letters that he received. He therefore did not receive the information about his situation and was subject to severe sanctions and reductions. He could have challenged them because of his situation, but the DWP was unable even to engage with him to assess the risk that he faced. As a result, he was suicidal. It is absolutely shocking what is going on.

[Mike Amesbury]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful contribution that shows the need for more compassion and flexibility in the system. It is clear from the evidence and from this debate that initial decisions to apply deductions follow rigid rules and rates and do not include an affordability test. Will the Minister introduce an affordability test for deductions, particularly multiple deductions, to ensure that nobody is pushed into poverty or destitution?

The Government’s stock response to criticism of their welfare policies is to deny that there is even a problem, but their talk of a jobs miracle is nothing more than a mirage to many people who struggle on zero-hours contracts or in low-paid and part-time employment, with wages not even at 2008 levels. The same attitude is on display again in the new “Universal credit uncovered” propaganda campaign, with newspaper ads—seemingly designed to look like journalism—that aim to explode what are perceived to be media myths about universal credit and set the record straight, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) pointed out. It is perhaps telling that one charity has already reported the campaign to the Advertising Standards Authority. As we have heard today, these are not myths. They are facts, which illustrate a social security system that is failing—a system hollowed out by cruel cuts.

In conclusion, I call on the Minister to halt managed migration in its entirety, end the five-week wait, stop punitive sanctions, introduce split payments, restore the local housing allowance to at least the bottom 30th percentile, pay 85% of childcare support up front, stop the benefits freeze and the immoral two-child limit, and properly fund a compassionate social security system.

Devolution of Welfare

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for calling this debate, which is timely and important, particularly for me. When full transition happens, I will have the largest number of constituents claiming universal credit of any constituency in Scotland, so it is something that particularly affects my constituents.

I suppose this debate leads us to reflect on why we are in politics and what our purpose is as Members of Parliament. For me, it is about building a country that has the capacity to ensure that the maximum number of its people are able to work, sustain themselves in a dignified way and achieve their opportunity. Enabling everyone to have that opportunity will improve our collective function as a society and our capability as a country. That is, in essence, what I want to achieve in Parliament and in politics and why I am a member of the Labour party.

Let us look at the record of the last Labour Government on child poverty. In 1998, there were 3 million children in poverty. By the end of the last Labour Government, that had been reduced to 1.6 million. Sadly, under the coalition and pure Conservative Governments since, that figure has risen to 3.7 million. That is shameful; and before there is any hubris from the Conservatives on welfare or social security, I just want to make clear that that is a shameful stain on their record.

That is a function of a society that has seen the narrative of removing the shame from need and the creation of a floor below which none can fall and everyone can rise completely destroyed. The ideal of the Attlee Government in creating the social security foundation that built the welfare state has been thoroughly damaged by this Government. That is the main take-away from this debate and one that cannot be dismissed.

However, I also reflect on 20 years of devolution and the great opportunities that we saw from it. I still remember, as a nine-year-old, watching the opening of the Scottish Parliament and that parade down the Royal Mile, and the great optimism in the immediate aftermath of a Labour Government coming to power, as well as the great opportunities sensed by people. The Parliament was built not just for the inherent right to have a Scottish Parliament, but as a functional thing that would achieve objectives. In my opinion, one of the key objectives was to have an effective bulwark against a future Tory Government that might attack the fundamentals of our social security system and welfare state.

The Scotland Act 2016 was passed in that spirit. That was due in no small part to the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), who fought valiantly to ensure key amendments to the Bill, in particular the power to top up reserved benefits, which gives the Scottish Government a significant measure of autonomy. That autonomy is combined with the great opportunity of the United Kingdom’s fiscal union, which each year delivers £10.2 billion extra for Scotland—£1,900 per person—to invest in the economy and public services. That would not be achievable under independence. Therefore, the Scottish Parliament has been pump-primed with a great measure of financial capability to achieve change in the face of an onslaught by the Conservatives, who wish to cut the fabric of our society and our public services.

With this delay we have seen a huge failure to live up to the expectations of devolution. Around 60% of all social security has now been devolved, with the exclusion of the state pension, which is an automatic stabiliser. That is a huge opportunity for Scotland. There have been some improvements, such as the ban on private sector involvement in assessments, but that was thanks to Labour’s campaigning efforts in the Scottish Parliament. There was a commitment to reduce face-to-face assessments—that was a Green proposal—and short-term assistance is now paid if an award is reduced and the applicant subsequently asks for a review or appeal.

However, we have also seen the Tories and SNP unite in Holyrood to vote down a £5 per week top-up to child benefit, by using the Social Security (Scotland) Bill and the budget processes. There has been an endorsement for the uprating cuts, which has blocked Labour’s move to revert to the retail prices index when uprating carer’s allowance. The 2011 cut based on the consumer prices index has cost carers £1,000 since 2011, while Tory uprating cuts have cost Scots £1.9 million in the past decade. Those are just some examples of a complete failure to live up to expectations. We need radical and effective measures, which is what we seek to propose, and we encourage all parties to live up to the expectations that people had when devolution was first delivered 20 years ago.

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing this debate.

Government figures illustrate that 1 million people in Scotland now live in relative poverty, which equates to one in every five Scots. They also highlight that 240,000 children in Scotland are living in poverty, two thirds of whom come from working households. The Independent Food Aid Network found that more than 480,000 crisis food parcels were distributed by Scottish food banks between April and September 2018, which included 27,000 parcels in North Lanarkshire and in my constituency. The Government are presiding over a crisis of in-work poverty, child poverty and food poverty, and their policies are directly contributing to that with the failing roll-out of universal credit and the unjust benefits freeze.

The central purpose of devolution is to give the Scottish Government a chance to take different decisions, yet the SNP Scottish Government are far too timid in their ambitions for a devolved social security system. Eleven benefits have been devolved, including PIP and DLA, which are worth more than £3 billion to Scots every year. The Scottish Government have shown no sign that they are prepared to take responsibility for those benefits, having twice asked the DWP to delay devolving them. Scottish Government Ministers now admit that the full devolution of benefits will not be completed until 2024, leaving hundreds of thousands of Scottish claimants to languish under the welfare reforms of this Tory Government.

I should stress that I welcome some of the positive changes that the Scottish Government are seeking to make to the devolved social security system. I am pleased that the responsibility for evidence gathering for assessments will be shifted away from claimants. I am glad that short-term assistance will be paid to those who find their awards reduced or who are challenging decisions through the appeals process, and I welcome the commitment to reduce the number of face-to-face assessments. However, I continue to have concerns that much of what is wrong with the current UK welfare reforms will remain in place in the new devolved social security system. There will be no changes to the rate of benefits. The current points-based system and assessment indicators for PIP will be retained, and the mandatory reconsideration process will not be reformed in any meaningful way.

[Mr Sweeney]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the PIP points-based system staying the same. In many constituencies the change from DLA to the PIP-based system has meant huge losses for people. In my constituency, it amounts to £2 million a year. Does he not agree that that is shameful? Surely the Scottish Government could take action immediately to resolve it.

[Hugh Gaffney]

That is indeed something that the Scottish Government could do. They want to be the Scottish power. They talk down here about “owning Scotland”. Well, start owning Scotland and start making changes to help people—our constituents.

The SNP has voted against topping up child benefit by £5 a week and against reverting to uprating carer’s allowance by RPI, and failed to mitigate the two-child limit. In the Scottish Parliament, Labour has already secured legal guarantees that the devolved social security system will have automatic split payments for universal credit and a ban on private sector involvement in assessments. We have committed to using the full powers available to take action, such as topping up child benefit, mitigating the two-child limit and bringing forward the income supplement that families across Scotland so desperately need. While I welcome the devolution of welfare, there is little point if the Scottish Government are not prepared to use their powers. That is why a Scottish Labour Government, committed to using those powers, are so desperately needed. If we are to tackle the crisis of poverty, make Scotland Labour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point.

Mitigation is essential, and a lack of it is a cause for unnecessary hardship and continuing poverty. It certainly shames both the Westminster and Holyrood Governments that that continues. Although legal powers to run benefits in Scotland will pass to the Scottish Government in April 2020 as a result of the Scotland Act 2016, the SNP-led Administration have wilfully delayed using those powers in full until 2024.

The spend accounts for some 16% of welfare, or £3 billion. As has been pointed out by Government Members, the SNP is a party that claims it can create an independent state in 18 months. Twice, SNP Ministers have asked the Department for Work and Pensions to delay devolving social security, in 2016 and 2018, which means that, over the next five years, we will have a ludicrous situation in which SNP Ministers will, effectively, send millions of pounds down south to pay the DWP to run social security provision in Scotland.

[Mr Sweeney]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about the absurdity, if the DWP is so evil and malevolent, of the Scottish Government’s effectively paying it to continue to administer the system. Even after the full transition has happened under the revised timescale of 2024, severe disablement allowance will still be outsourced to the DWP and still visiting harm on the Scottish people. Surely that is an absurdity?

[Mike Amesbury]

Yes; it is another failing of fine and warm words but nothing happening in reality.

While those agency arrangements are in place, SNP Ministers are blocked from making changes to any of the benefits the DWP delivers. They are not able to intervene in aggressive debt recovery or even to change the inflation measure to uprate benefits. While the SNP dithers and sits on its hands, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) has pointed out, thousands of families are falling into poverty every year. Both parties are concentrating on avoiding responsibility, rather than using what levers of power are available to change the failing policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time, and is making an excellent speech. We have talked about mitigating factors in the Scottish Parliament, but some of the key mitigating factors, such as mitigating the bedroom tax, were implemented only after significant and persistent Labour pressure. Indeed, John Swinney, who was finance Minister at the time, said that he did not want to let the Tories off the hook; he would rather the Scottish people suffered to make a political point.

[Mike Amesbury]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the excellent record of Labour in Scotland, campaigning to change things for people on the ground.

Together, SNP and Tory politicians repeatedly voted down a £5 a week top-up to child benefit during the passage of the Social Security (Scotland) Bill and the budget process. In February, they endorsed George Osborne’s uprating cuts, blocking Scottish Labour’s move to revert to RPI uprating of the carer’s allowance. During the recent budget, the SNP refused to mitigate the two-child limit—a policy that would have supported 4,000 families and lifted 5,000 children out of poverty, and would have cost just 0.2% of the Scottish budget. After years of warm words and claims that it will build a system based on human rights, the SNP relied on the Tories to block the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights from being included in the social security Bill.

Labour Members know the effects of Tory welfare policy all too well, wherever in the United Kingdom we represent. We have heard about those effects today: my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian argued that we need bold action for women born in the 1950s, and was right to highlight the woeful response of the Tory Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) argued that in-work poverty is a major problem in Scotland, as well as out-of-work poverty, with over a million people in Scotland living in poverty. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) attacked the political choice of austerity, and called for a social security system that draws on the founding principles of the Attlee Government: security, opportunity and dignity. My hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) correctly pointed out that she needs to be the champion of women in this place, because women are disproportionately affected by that political choice of austerity—a choice made by this Tory Government.

Labour believes that the Tories’ approach to welfare is flawed and failing. It is a story of failure that begins with the Tory Government in Westminster’s cruel and unnecessary welfare policies, but has been worsened by the decision by the SNP Government in Holyrood not to use their powers to effectively mitigate those policies. As a result, it is a story of hardship and hunger, wherever in the UK a person is affected.

My questions to the Minister are simple. First, will he accept that universal credit is failing? It is cruel in design, it is under-resourced, and its roll-out needs to be halted. How about scrapping the benefit freeze, the two-child limit and the five-week wait? Hardship is hardship, wherever we are in the UK. Finally, will the Minister confirm whether the devolution of welfare to Scotland could have happened earlier, had the Scottish Government not asked the Department for Work and Pensions to delay the process twice, in 2016 and 2018? The only way we will change things is by having a Labour Government.

Supporting Disabled People to Work

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that nobody cares more than our Department, led by a Secretary of State who is very passionate about this, and I have been very happy to support the various parliamentary debates and meetings that have gone on since then—and if we would like Brexit to be wrapped up, I urge all colleagues on all sides of the House to support the Prime Minister’s deal.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) mentioned the great opportunity of the Remploy factory in her constituency, but unfortunately in my constituency, in Springburn, that opportunity was stripped from my constituents when the Remploy factory was closed in 2013, putting 50 disabled workers out of work. Indeed one of those workers was found dead on the day the factory was closed; it was another callous and shameful episode of the coalition Government. So will the Minister commit to extending the protected places scheme for disabled workers, particularly at Blindcraft in my constituency, where 250 people work producing world-class furnishings and high-quality joinery? It is a world-class example of how this can actually work as a proper sustainable model. I encourage him to go and look at that particular example, to extend the protected places scheme and to broaden that opportunity for disabled workers. It is a wonderful factory.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting what is clearly a very successful local initiative. This goes back to some of my earlier answers, in that we are committed to finding ways of getting support to those innovative local initiatives that are making a real difference on the frontline, and I will feed in to the Department his suggestion of a visit.

Households Below Average Income Statistics

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady has raised this with me many times, and I repeat to her that I do think the system is right. She also has to think about the people on low wages, who pay taxes, who will say to us—as an MP, I have had people say this to me, and I expect people have said it to others as well—that they have to plan for their third child or fourth child, and have to work out whether they have the funds to do so. I think it is right that people who are on benefits have to make the same assessment for their families.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 1998, child poverty was at 3 million. By 2010, that was reduced to 1.6 million, but now it is 3.7 million. That was an historic achievement under Labour; now this Government have not only reversed it, but made it even worse. The Secretary of State calls it “disappointing”, but I call it a disastrous—an absolutely disastrous—failure by this Government. The reality is that that reduction was not achieved by accident; it was done by massive, sustained, above-inflation increases in social security support. The Government have broken that link with their welfare cap policy and their arbitrary restrictions on welfare spending. Will the Secretary of State accept that that is the simple reality of the situation? Until they reverse that idea and return to a welfare system based on automatic stabilisers and an inherent right to support per person, that will not be changed at all.

[Amber Rudd]

I am sorry, but I am going to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. I think we have the right welfare system. It protects the most vulnerable, provides the safety net we need and helps people into work. Under the Labour system, people were abandoned on out-of-work benefits and were not helped. Under this Government, we ensure that they engage with jobcentres and work coaches to make sure that they have the opportunity of a job.