Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Debate between Sarah Champion and Carolyn Harris

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer). It is also wonderful to see her colleagues gathered around her to show her such support—support I know she will be sharing with the hard-working people of Hartlepool who may be suffering from the Government’s fiscal policies.

I am not sure if the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), who has now left his place, does the weekly shop, but it is something I try to do myself every weekend. Deliveries would be easier, but I find out far more in the aisle of Morrisons about what is happening in my constituency and about people’s problems than I ever do in casework surgery. At the moment, by far the biggest issue the people of Swansea East are facing is the steep rise in the cost of living, while at the same time the money coming in is being hit hard from every angle. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard, “Have you seen the price of this?” or “I can’t afford to buy that anymore”. Some will blame the pandemic and others will blame Brexit for the reasons behind the rising costs and reduced incomes, but either way, it boils down to the same thing: working-class communities are struggling more than ever before, and this Government need to hold up their hands and take responsibility for that.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about what it is actually like for families who struggle every week to stay afloat. It was in the summer of 2016 that I became aware of the scale of the problem for families in Swansea East. Just a few days into the school holidays, the local food bank called, asking if my office could put out an appeal for donations as its shelves were almost empty—empty because parents were struggling to replace the free school meals that had kept their children fed during term time. From this, our first kids summer lunch club was born. Every year, my team makes sandwiches and delivers them to local free holiday clubs. Year on year, this has evolved and grown, and now every school holiday we try to do something to help families in the constituency who just cannot make money stretch far enough.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the very hands-on approach she has taken to feeding her families, but does she share my pain and sadness that food banks and social supermarkets have become the norm, not the exception, in the last nine years alone?

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly do. I see that week in, week out when I visit my communities: there is not one that does not have a food bank facility, albeit an ad hoc version.

This year, we added to the lunch club, delivering a Morrisons bag full of breakfast provisions for a family for a week—so we were providing breakfast and lunch. At least once a month, we distribute what some might consider to be luxury items, such as soap, shampoo, sanitary towels and deodorant, courtesy of the wonderful Beauty Banks charity. We deliver them to a community organisation for families who, if they cannot afford to feed themselves, certainly cannot afford personal hygiene products.

By far our biggest project was last December’s “Everyone Deserves a Christmas” campaign. It is the fourth year we have done it, and last year was like no other. We were inundated with requests and recommendations about families who needed help. Thanks to support from the city’s Swans football club, the Ospreys rugby team, Swansea Council, local businesses, local community groups and people including the incredible Welsh football star Gareth Bale, who personally paid for 300 Christmas hampers, we ended up making and delivering 1,300 hampers. On Christmas eve, we cooked more than 100 dinners and delivered them to people who would not have had a Christmas otherwise.

The highlight for me was when one of the drivers returned from making his deliveries to thank me for letting him be involved in the scheme. He said that he was so touched by the excitement of a child who had opened up the hamper box and rejoiced that it was the best present he had ever had, because among the festive food were a tin of Quality Street and half a dozen Christmas crackers. That family had not had a tin of sweets before, because £4 on offer was too much to spend on something non-essential.

With summer now behind us, we are once again planning our Christmas hamper campaign, but with the scrapping of the £20 universal credit uplift, the steep increase in energy prices and the ongoing fallout from business closures, job losses and reduced incomes for those on furlough, 2021 is likely to have hit even more families than 2020. Thousands more people will be sitting at home right now worrying about how they will get through the next week or the next month, let alone buy Christmas presents and other extras. I worry for the families in my constituency, in my city, across Wales and across the UK. The past 18 months have been cruel to so many, but the Government clawing back more money from those who can least afford it is crueller still.

My team—and Gareth Bale, I hope, if he is listening—will help again. We will happily keep on fundraising, packing boxes and putting smiles on faces in Swansea East with a box of sweets in a Christmas hamper. It is an honour to do so, but anyone in this House who makes that necessary because they think that those families do not need the extra £20 universal credit payment, or that they can spend their already stretched incomes on huge hikes in energy bills, should think of those kids and be utterly ashamed of their actions. When the Minister refers to universal credit as a product, when in reality it is a lifeline, I fear that he sees claimants more as a commodity than as individuals.