Healthy Start

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Emma Lewell-Buck

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Healthy Start scheme.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. What is not a pleasure is that I am here yet again, still trying to get the Government to do something very simple and impactful to help those who need it the most. Auto-enrolment with an opt-out, as opposed to the current opt-in system, would ensure that the Healthy Start scheme operates as it should, so that every single child gets the best start in life.

The last Labour Government introduced the Healthy Start scheme, which provides financial assistance in the form of a prepaid card to all under-18s who are pregnant, families with young children or pregnant women claiming certain benefits. This is to help with the ever-increasing costs of fruit and vegetables, milk, formula milk and vitamins. The scheme is available in pregnancy and until the child’s fourth birthday, yet the scheme is beset with problems—problems that were caused by this Government and can be easily fixed by this Government.

The child of the north all-party parliamentary group has heard evidence that children in the north are more likely to die before reaching their first birthday than those elsewhere in the country. We have heard about desperate mothers who are seeking an abortion because they simply do not know how they will feed their baby. When I raised that with the Prime Minister only two weeks ago, his response was to advise me that he was

“proud that…the Government have overseen a significant fall in poverty, particularly child poverty.”—[Official Report, 8 May 2024; Vol. 749, c. 570.]

Child poverty has not significantly fallen: it stands at more than 4 million. When expectant mothers have had to make these heartbreaking decisions, bragging about the support put in is crass, to say the least. It was followed up with an equally tone-deaf letter from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

It has been widely reported that some parents, in desperation, have resorted to theft of baby milk and formula or are having to water it down, which is not surprising considering that prices of baby formula are at historically high levels and the current Healthy Start payments do not even cover the cost of formula for one week. Despite this, Healthy Start take-up is dropping. The Government’s 75% target—given to the NHS Business Services Authority, which runs the scheme—was missed last year, and take-up continues to decrease: it stands at just 62.5% across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The comparable scheme in Scotland, however, has reached 92% take-up. Some local councils and organisations have made a dedicated investment to promote the scheme; not only does this create a postcode lottery, but they were left feeling utterly demoralised after the Government provided false, inflated take-up figures and were then unable to provide accurate uptake data.

An opt-out system would ensure proper data and free up organisations to support families instead of having to try to locate them—a point that is supported by research published earlier this month and funded by the Minister’s own Department. In some areas, the take-up is as low as 44%. About 220,000 babies, young children and pregnant women are missing out on the scheme, and Sustain estimates that that leaves £58 million unclaimed.

Despite the Chancellor’s crowing on this morning’s news, low inflation still means rising prices on top of previous high rises. In short, this is just stemming the pain for families. Only last year, UNICEF found that the UK had the worst rise in child poverty, leaving us bottom among 39 of the world’s richest countries. That is why admissions for malnutrition have increased in children and there has been a resurgence of Victorian diseases such as rickets and scurvy. It is no wonder that the Government blocked the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food from visiting the UK and investigating poverty. When the previous UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty visited the UK, he was very clear that the rise in poverty was the direct result of Government policies.

Food banks, baby banks, faith groups and charities have now become embedded parts of our welfare state. The Key to Life food bank in my constituency reported a 300% increase in demand last year, coupled with a decrease in donations. It is therefore highly unlikely that the £58 million that is going unclaimed is unclaimed because people do not need it. There is a very clear need for the scheme but, as I have been told time and again, awareness is low among the public and professionals. That is why in 2021 the national food strategy recommended that the Government implement a communications plan related to Healthy Start, but they did not.

In 2021, I and others raised concerns about plans to fully digitalise the scheme by 2022, meaning that paper applications and vouchers would no longer be accepted. The result was that, as of October 2023, more than 20,500 households that were previously in receipt of the vouchers were no longer receiving them, 19 months after digitisation. The NHS Business Services Authority then admitted that technical issues meant that applications were being declined, resulting in parents and pregnant women struggling to get through to the helpline and having their payment cards rejected.

As it stands, the application routes are overly complex and varied. When an application is made online, an automated message claims that a response will be given in two days. This very rarely happens. Some mothers report that they have never heard back and that, after multiple attempts, they have given up.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the first couple of minutes of my hon. Friend’s speech. She is making an excellent speech outlining why the scheme is so needed. She mentions that take-up of the Healthy Start scheme is too low, so proper information about the scheme is needed, along with auto-enrolment. That would cut through the red tape and the hurdles that many families experience. Does she agree that the Government must therefore do more to promote the Healthy Start scheme to families so that people are aware of it, as recommended in the excellent national food strategy?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and for all the work that she does in this space. She has tirelessly championed children for as long as I have known her and for as long as she has been in this place. Charities, organisations and local authorities are using what little money they have to promote a Government scheme, and then when they go to the Government for data about how it is working, they get either false figures or no figures at all, so I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

The Healthy Start phone number is not freephone, and it is fully automated. There is no option at all for callers to speak to anyone unless they need an interpreter or have inquiries relating to their card. The absurdity of an automated system asking whether callers have problems with cards that they do not yet have is not lost on any of us, I am sure. Worse still, if the application is refused, the parent is not told why and is directed to the phone line: again, they cannot speak to anyone. Research by Manchester Central food bank highlights the fact that those on legacy benefits or with no recourse to public funds have to apply via paper or telephone, but that is completely at odds with the Healthy Start phone line and website, which state very clearly that applications must always be made online. The confusion is completely unnecessary.

Repeated questions to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about funding for the scheme and future take-up have been equally frustrating. The Government refuse to say how much money they allocate to the scheme each year. They claim it is allocated on a forecast for take-up, but will not say what that forecast is. A cynic would conclude that if the Government forecast low uptake, it is against their interest to do anything to boost it, as they will not have budgeted for that, or that if they forecast higher uptake but do not reach it, millions of pounds that could have been spent on feeding children will be spent elsewhere. Either way, hungry babies and children are once again the ones losing out.

Back in May 2023, a similar debate was held in which the Government were made fully aware of the problems with Healthy Start. The following month, I introduced my Bill on auto-enrolment, the Healthy Start Scheme (Take-Up) (No. 2) Bill. Over the past two years, I have sent the Health Secretary two cross-party letters, signed by MPs and a multitude of outside organisations. This was followed by more questions and speeches in the Chamber and a full report to the Chancellor in advance of the previous Budget. Forty-eight written questions and two well-supported early-day motions later, here we are again.

I am sure that in her response the Minister will reiterate the excuses her colleagues have given for refusing auto-enrolment: that it is not possible because the prepaid card is a financial product that is therefore subject to financial regulations. However, Mastercard has written to me explaining that it is possible, if only the Minister’s Department and the Department for Work and Pensions will work with it. I have been here long enough to know that the Minister will not be able to commit to auto-enrolment today, but at the very least can she give a commitment to working with her colleagues and other organisations to look at piloting auto-enrolment?

Can the Minister assure us that her Department’s uptake data is now accurate and advise us on the progress of her Department’s promise to me to write to all eligible households that are missing out on the scheme? As we debate this today, there will be mothers and fathers who, instead of excitedly preparing for their newborn or enjoying those early years with their little ones, are worried and distressed about how on earth they are going to provide for them.

I know that auto-enrolment is not a panacea. I know that life will continue to be a hard struggle for so many people. But as I did when I presented my Bill, I want to thank all the parents who have shared with me their stories and their pain. They should always be at the forefront of our mind, because nobody should feel such desperation and hopelessness that they can see no other way than stealing to feed their baby or seeking to terminate their pregnancy. I sincerely hope that the Minister agrees with me about that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Emma Lewell-Buck

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

What steps he has taken to support the aviation sector to maintain employment levels during the covid-19 pandemic.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

What steps he has taken to support the aviation sector to maintain employment levels during the covid-19 pandemic.

Deaf Children’s Services

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Emma Lewell-Buck

Thursday 13th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the House for making BSL interpreters available to help people to follow today’s debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) not only for securing this important debate on deaf children’s services, but for his sterling work chairing the all-party parliamentary group on deafness. I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken.

Many of us, I hope, will have fond memories of school, but we probably take for granted the fact that being able to hear facilitated our learning and socialisation during that time. We are living in an era when advances in technology and teaching mean that deaf children need not be isolated. Nor should they be missing out on this vital part of learning and interaction, but the tragedy of this debate is that they are.

That failure can be laid at the Government’s door. A toxic combination of Government-imposed local authority cuts, education cuts, the shambolic roll-out of SEND reforms and unfettered off-rolling have led to what the National Deaf Children’s Society rightly refers to as “stolen futures”. Local authority spending on services for children and young people has fallen in real terms by almost £1 billion since 2012, with a £3 billion shortfall predicted by 2025. Just last year, the APPG for children found that 89% of directors of children’s services were struggling to fulfil their statutory duties towards children in need of support.

In that environment, it is no surprise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse noted in his opening remarks, that over one third of local authorities in England plan to cut £4 million from their budgets for education support for deaf children this year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) rightly said, all that will do is exacerbate current issues.

The recent steps to ring-fence SEND funding represent an inflexible policy, where strict rules mean that only 0.5% of a school’s overall budget can be transferred to the high-needs block. The policy is also not working, as evidenced by the 27 authorities that have appealed, asking that it be relaxed to meet their local need. Interestingly, the majority of successful appeals have all been in Conservative-led authorities—I sincerely hope the Minister is not playing politics with deaf children’s services and education.

The £50 million announced earlier this year to help local authorities create new places or improved facilities for SEND pupils is also nowhere near good enough. Not only is it not new money, but it is a one-off cash injection, not the sustainable funding that people are crying out for.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Up in the north-east, my hon. Friend and I are in neighbouring constituencies, so I am sure she will be aware of the situation in Sunderland. We have 236 deaf children in Sunderland, yet the local authority has had its budget to provide the services for those children cut by 10%. Does she agree that, at a time when we see an increase in the number of deaf children and when deaf children are to be supported up to age 25 through the reforms to SEND, which is good, we should be seeing more money put in to support these children, rather than cuts?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

The SEND reforms are a topic I will refer to later in my speech, but my hon. Friend leads me aptly to my next point. When funding and support are denied in cases such as the ones we are talking about today, education is also denied.

In his response, the Minister will likely refer to the funding given to the National Sensory Impairment Partnership and other bodies, but that money does not address the falling number of teachers of the deaf. Having British Sign Language-trained teachers is vital to deaf children, a point that was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), but some areas have only one specialist teacher per 100 students. I was sorry to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that that scarcity of teachers is the same in Northern Ireland, although I should say to him that I always follow every single word he says, and I love listening to his speeches.

None of that should come as any shock, since our schools are facing the first real-terms funding cuts in 20 years, with £2.8 billion cut from their budgets since 2015. As always in these austere times, specialist provision is the first to go. Bamburgh School is a specialist school in my constituency, which is now in the unenviable position of having to pay out of an existing budget for its existing teachers to learn BSL level 1 on a 30-week course, which will take the school into a deficit. On top of that, these dedicated teachers are completing the course in what little free time they have. However, their equally dedicated headteacher, Peter Nord, told me that he has a duty to the children he teaches, who, without BSL, would not get the full learning experience they deserve.

Not every deaf child or school will have a head and teachers as dedicated as we have at Bamburgh or the Elmfield School for Deaf Children in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones). I wonder what will happen to those children. I appreciate that a review of the SEND workforce in schools is under way, but a report commissioned by the Department and published over two and a half years ago has already identified a drastic shortage of deaf teachers. Instead of yet another review to give the appearance of doing something, can the Minister please advise us when there might be a response to the review that was done nearly three years ago, and what the timescales are for the current ongoing review?

The decrease in support is taking place against the backdrop of an increasing number of children requiring it. In just the last year, the number of deaf children increased by 11%. Earlier this year, it was shown that the attainment gap between deaf children and hearing children has widened—the figures were ably shared with us by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist).

Sadly, Government neglect of deaf children continues throughout their education, with post-16 funding bearing no resemblance at all to the number of deaf pupils without an EHC plan. Just last year, it was revealed that some county councils in England charge 16 to 19-year-old SEND students £1,500 a year for their transport. Since 2015, students have been required to pay a £200 contribution towards the cost of certain essential equipment that used to be covered by the disabled students’ allowance.

Parents have told me that support often only comes with an EHC plan, yet we have heard that most deaf children do not have such plans. Those who do, as outlined by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), have to fight, and suffer the exhaustion of taking on, the might of their local authorities. A recent damning report by the local government and social care ombudsman found that children and young people were missing out on provision, with health often a missing factor.

As we heard, 80% of deaf children and young people are not on EHC plans and rely on SEND support from their local authorities, which authorities struggle to provide following savage cuts that have resulted in up to 40,000 deaf children in England having no support at all. Deaf children and young people also remain stubbornly over-represented in alternative provision and exclusion figures. Schools, headteachers, support staff and parents work tirelessly every day under ever-challenging circumstances to give our deaf children the very best education, which they deserve. The Minister should be doing the same, and I look forward to his letting us know his plans.

I will end with a quick quote from Thomas Bailey, a 16-year-old pupil from Bamburgh School in South Shields. He sums up far better than I or anybody here could the damaging impact of the Government’s policies:

“Being deaf makes me feel depressed and very frustrated. Having no support in school is very mean. When I don’t have support, I don’t have that person to repeat and break down that information for me and to sign important key words, so I am not able to learn the same as other children in class. I feel left out. Improving equipment would make the sound easier and clearer for me to hear, but having no equipment makes everything very quiet and unclear. This means I’m not getting any important information, leaving me feeling annoyed and again left out. My life and learning becomes a blank.”

The Minister should know that, unless he takes urgent action, the despair and emptiness so well articulated by Thomas will continue to be felt by more and more deaf children across our country.

School Funding: North-east of England

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Emma Lewell-Buck

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I made a terrible omission in my opening remarks, when I mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland and all the work that he has done, but failed to thank my fabulous colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool, for his time here and say how sorely he will be missed. In my excitement at the start of the debate I had not noticed that he was also in his place, and I did not want him to leave thinking I do not love him as much as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which I echo.

Implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Emma Lewell-Buck

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)

- Hansard -

I rise to present a petition on behalf of 415 residents of Washington and Sunderland West in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I hope that these petitions will finally make the Government rethink their strategy and the unnecessary suffering caused to these WASPI women.

The Petition of residents of Washington and Sunderland West.

[P001826]

Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of the South Shields constituency in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.

The Petition of residents of South Shields.

[P001773]

Tyne and Wear Metro

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Emma Lewell-Buck

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

That is a point that I will make later in my speech. The Metro cars are grossly outdated, and they cause the bulk of the delays in the system. The constituent I mentioned is not the only person who feels that they have to organise their family’s life around the unreliable service. One young man wrote to me to say that he actively avoided taking the Metro to college, even though it was theoretically the most convenient route, because he simply could not rely on the service. He said that some days he found it easier to stay with his grandparents in another area, because they live closer to his college, rather than relying on the Metro to get him to class on time.

We need to think about the economic impact of an unreliable service. A single person being half an hour late for work may have a relatively small impact, but we should remember that when a fault occurs during peak time, hundreds of journeys are disrupted. Metro figures show that more than 50,000 minutes of delays occurred last year, which is more than 800 hours. That is a lot of working time wasted. When companies look for a place to locate their business, one of the top items on their checklist is the transport infrastructure. They want to know that there is a reliable transport network that will allow them to attract employees from as wide an area as possible. If we want our regional economy to do well, we need a transport system that is up to the job.

It is clear that the Metro is simply not coping at the moment, and most of the problems that commuters experience come from the fact that the network’s trains and infrastructure are on their last legs. The Metro is long overdue for an upgrade, and trains that were expected to retire from service in 2010 have been patched up and are now expected to carry passengers until 2025. Commuters and my hon. Friends know that that is not a real solution. Our oldest train cars have been in service for 40 years, and no amount of refurbishment or repair can disguise the fact that they are falling apart. Our fleet has been refurbished at a cost of £30 million, but that does not appear to have helped things. Power failures and door failures, which are the two biggest culprits in delays, are happening more frequently than they did only a year ago. The number of power failures has increased by 49% and the number of door failures by 29%. The number of passenger complaints is on the rise, and of 502 complaints reported in April, more than 300 related to train performance.

The trains are not the only problem for our passengers. Brand new ticket machines and barriers malfunction far too often, and the departure boards on station platforms often display incorrect information. That can be particularly irritating for my constituents because South Shields is at the end of the Metro line, so boards that display incorrect destinations can mislead passengers. Support for passengers whose trains are delayed is not good enough, and passengers whose journeys are disrupted are given little time to find alternative routes to their destinations. The “Sort out the Metro” group believes that as many as half of the disruptions are not reported on social media, which means that passengers who rely on such sources of information are left in the dark about delays.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points, and the debate is much needed and valuable. Is she aware of a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2014 which showed that Londoners receive £5,203 more per head in capital investment than do those in the north-east? London is the capital, so we would expect it to receive a little bit more, but does she think that £5,203 more per head is an acceptable amount?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I do not think that that is an acceptable amount at all. In fact, I think it is an insult to the people of the north-east that so little is spent on us per head, when it comes to transport.

Some of the problems are a matter for Metro’s management, and I have taken them up with Nexus and the North East combined authority. Nexus has, to its credit, made some changes to improve customer service, and earlier this month it announced £40 million of investment, which will include a new rail traffic management system. The North East combined authority has also taken the issue up, and it is clear that there is a willingness locally to improve the service. Fines have been imposed on the operator, DB Regio Tyne and Wear. It is important that the operator is continually held to account for poor service.

Many of the problems also stem from a lack of investment, so the Government have to answer questions. More than half of the problems result from mechanical failures, and it is an unavoidable fact that our trains are far too old and need to be replaced. They should have been replaced years ago, but now it looks as if passengers will be waiting another decade before that happens. Instead, tens of millions of pounds have been spent on trying to patch up the existing rolling stock—money that would have been better spent on a more permanent solution. In 2010, the previous Labour Government made an important commitment to invest nearly £400 million in our Metro. The incoming coalition considered scrapping that commitment, and our local authorities fought tooth and nail to protect it. The investment was essential, not least because the Metro continues, despite all the faults, to have growing passenger numbers each year. Last year, passenger growth was the fastest outside London.

If the Metro is to meet demand, it needs clarity about its future funding. Nexus is waiting for confirmation on £46 million of funding for the Metro service from 2016 onwards. Can the Minister give us any further information about the status of that funding? It is important that the money be smartly invested. Recent projects have shown that well targeted upgrades can have an impact. New technology for cleaning rails has reduced the number of incidents resulting from low rail adhesion. The announcement that the new traffic management system will be in place sooner than originally planned is also welcome news. However, as long as the issue of our trains goes unresolved, we will not see the dramatic service improvements that our passengers expect.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank my observant hon. Friend. He is, of course, correct. Since I started this campaign and made it public that I had secured this debate, my office has received an influx of complaints from across our region about the poor performance of the Metro.

Our local councils and Nexus have shown a willingness to invest in our local transport. There is clearly local demand, but we need a similar commitment from central Government. Today I want to hear what plans the Minister has to support the purchase of new rolling stock for the Metro as quickly as possible. In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), the Department for Transport said that it has

“engaged in preliminary discussions…for the replacement of rolling stock”.

Can the Minister give us any more detail about those discussions? Bearing in mind the concerns that have been raised, will he look favourably on a request for funding for new Metro cars?

This debate is a chance for the Government to demonstrate that they are truly committed to investing in the north-east, and to delivering their promises to our region. Many of my constituents remain cynical about the Chancellor’s sudden conversion to the cause of investing in northern cities just a few months before the last general election. It is notable that a number of the transport infrastructure projects announced for our region in the pre-election Budget were in fact re-announcements, not new money. In any case, it remains unclear where the north-east fits into his northern powerhouse, if it fits at all.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) has said, it remains the case that the Government spend £5,426 a year on transport for every person living in London, but for the north-east they spend just £223 per head a year. If the Government are serious about rebalancing the economy, investing in new trains for our Metro would be a good start.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Obviously we need to fix what we have before we go any further. Is my hon. Friend aware that, with a population of some 55,000 people, Washington is the largest conurbation in the area not to be covered by the Tyne and Wear Metro? As well as giving us the money we need to make the Metro fit for purpose, we also need to ensure that the Metro covers the whole of Tyne and Wear.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I could not agree more. Investment is needed so that we can roll out the Metro, because that would help our economy, although we need to fix the faults first. It is not right that a large part of our area is not accessible by the Metro.

I suspect that the Minister will try to sidestep my constituents’ complaints by saying that the running of the Metro is a devolved matter. It is right that regions and cities should have control over transport, and Opposition Members have been pushing for even greater devolution. Nexus and the North East combined authority have been holding DB Regio Tyne and Wear to account by imposing penalties where appropriate, but it would be wrong to say that all the issues we are seeing can be attributed to the operator. Even the best management cannot compensate for trains that have come to the end of their lifespan and can no longer be relied on. There is a clear need for investment.