In-work Poverty

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In Barnsley we have seen a tripling of demand for food banks. As he rightly points out, we did not have any 10 to 15 years ago. It is because of the Government that, sadly, 35% of kids in Barnsley are growing up in poverty and families are relying on food banks. They are in work but cannot afford to pay their bills.

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend has eloquently explained what the experts across our country are explaining: this is happening before our very eyes and we should not allow the situation to deteriorate any further.

As many will know, housing is a huge and growing driver of in-work poverty. Thanks to the Government’s failure to build enough new and affordable homes and new social housing, last year the gulf between price of houses and earnings in the UK was the worst since 1876. We really are back in Victorian times under this Government.

One of my Slough constituents privately rents and wrote to me for help. As many other private renters have experienced, they have been served with a section 21 no-fault eviction notice. Their partner works full time, but they themselves cannot work full-time hours because they have cancer. High rent costs mean that they cannot now find anywhere that is affordable. Although the family are on universal credit, it does not cover the basic cost of living. Even if they did find somewhere with an affordable rent, the need for a large deposit and a guarantor has erected huge barriers to finding new, long-term accommodation.

The supply of social housing has continued to plummet. The Government’s promise—cancelled, then reinstated—to build 300,000 new homes each year has not materialised. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition said at Prime Minister’s questions today, house building has collapsed and the Government are nowhere near their target, which means that more people are trapped in private rented accommodation as rents go through the roof. In turn, that means that people are taking longer to save for their first house. That is why levels of home ownership are down and private renting is up. Those who have been fortunate enough finally to buy a home after years and years of saving now face mortgage misery the likes of which we have not seen in generations or perhaps longer, thanks to this Government’s inability to get to grips with inflation.

Perhaps if Ministers were more focused on supporting those impacted by their child benefit cap than on removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses, and more focused on spending public money to invest in our public services than on giving away billions in failed personal protective equipment contracts to their mates and cronies, our economy would be in a much better place. Sadly, so many people are in dire straits. On top of stagnant earnings and unaffordable housing, we have a cost of living crisis, driving ever more people into in-work poverty. With food prices soaring and energy and utility bills going through the roof, many working people find themselves unable to put meals on the table, heat their home, pay their bills or provide for their families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

It is really welcome that the whole of Government are focused on what more we can do to support disabled people and people with health conditions into work, if that is appropriate for them. That was reflected in the commitments that the Chancellor made on the Work Well programme and on universal support. Of course, we are also introducing additional work coach time into jobcentres, the latest tranche of which will go live this week in another third of jobcentres. Those are really important steps forward. Alongside initiatives such as Access to Work and Disability Confident, we have the opportunity to transform matters in our society to make our workplaces more inclusive and, on a tailored, individualised basis, not only to support people into a role, but to help them retain it.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

The DWP uses private company Maximus to assess benefit eligibility for a number of people in the claims process. That includes responsibility for deciding on former mineworkers’ entitlement to industrial disablement benefits. What training and qualification requirements are there for Maximus assessors making these potentially life-changing decisions that affect so many of my constituents?

[Tom Pursglove]

Continual quality assurance processes are in place that monitor and keep tabs on the quality of the decisions made by any of the assessment providers that work with the Department. Of course, we always keep that under constant review. If there are specific issues that the hon. Lady is keen for Ministers to look at, I would be very happy to do that. She knows that I am always willing to work collaboratively and constructively along those lines. If there is feedback about areas where she or her constituents feel that improvements could be made, including on responsiveness, I would be happy to look at that. I also go back to the point I made about the reforms earlier, where, for example, the work we are doing to try to match expert assessors with conditions will really help to improve people’s confidence in decision making, as well as build capacity and performance.

Social Mobility

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) on securing and leading this important debate. A gap between aspiration and opportunity exists in some parts of the country, and that should not be the case. I am in a similar position to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett); if we look at the list of constituencies and the ranking of social mobility, Barnsley East is 430 out of 533 constituencies in England. That is different from constituencies of—not exclusively, but generally—Conservative MPs.

Former coalfields like Barnsley East tend to have fewer good jobs, which obviously has a knock-on effect on the number of schools and transport infrastructure in the area. Among other factors, this has led to a significant geographical divide between the north and the south. For example, life expectancy in Barnsley for both men and women is approximately two years less than the national average and five years less than more affluent areas of Surrey. More than 6,300 children across Barnsley East alone—that is just my constituency, not the borough of Barnsley—live in child poverty. A third of Barnsley residents now live in fuel poverty, and the Office for National Statistics found that 12.4% of those eligible to work in Barnsley do not have any qualifications. That is in stark contrast with London, where the number of people with no qualifications sits at just 6.6%.

All these factors obviously have an impact on children’s and young people’s life chances. Accessible vocational education is an important part of overcoming disadvantage, giving young people the tools and employment experience to get on in life. My constituency of Barnsley East does not have a sixth form college, so when students finish their GCSEs at one of the secondary schools, they have to travel into the town centre and go to Barnsley College. That is not to take away from the fantastic work that the college does; it is an excellent college and it really supports people. I know from being a teacher that for some children and young people, not having to take that step of leaving their supportive school environment would encourage them to stay on and think about further education.

We need long-term, sustained investment in our schools. Investment has been cut over the last decade. We also need investment in industry so that young people and children have as much chance to succeed as they would in other parts of the country. We need to think about young people’s experience at school. As a former teacher, I have seen at first hand that if they turn up to school hungry, it affects their ability to learn and to do well.

We must also think about young people’s access to extracurricular and cultural activities. Parents may be doing the best they can, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth said, being in work does not necessarily mean they are not in poverty. A good example of encouraging kids to do a cultural activity is the fantastic, world-class Barnsley Youth Choir, which provides choral training regardless of financial or social background. It is an amazing programme that has done so much for Barnsley, and I am pleased to support it.

My final point on education relates to the point that the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston), made about the impact of covid. There was a huge disparity between the learning experiences of working-class kids and middle-class kids during the pandemic. Using predicted grades for people’s A-level results also had a hugely disproportionate effect on areas such as Barnsley, and that will have a huge impact going forward.

Social mobility is really about this generation doing better than the generation before, and we are falling behind on that. The Government can, and should, do better to support working-class communities such as Barnsley, by investing in both people and local economies. I am sure that the Labour spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), will touch on some of this, but a future Labour Government have pledged to do just that.

We will invest in the skills of our workforce, including a shift of resources to local communities to help people back into work. We will help more people into high-skilled and better-paid jobs, and implement a new taskforce—Skills England—to link local people with local businesses to grow skills and the economy across the whole country. It is about ensuring that kids have the best education, and that they can get qualifications and good jobs. Where someone is born should not limit their opportunities or their chances. It currently does, and that must change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am very sorry to hear the details of the hon. Lady’s constituent; if she writes to me, I will be happy to look into the matters that she raised. More generally, it is only fair to say that the Government have done an extraordinary amount to support those who are disabled, not least into work, beating all the targets that we set to get 1 million more disabled people into employment. As for the cost of living payments, along with various other payments, there was a £150 payment to 6 million disabled people up and down the country.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

This Christmas, the £66 energy voucher will be the difference between heating and eating for many of my constituents, but many on prepayment meters are still waiting for their vouchers. Ministers have been warned countless times about the gap in payments, so what are the Government doing to ensure that those on prepayment meters do not miss out?

[Mel Stride]

The vouchers that are administered by the energy companies come under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, rather than the DWP. None the less, that is a concern right across Government. We have been liaising with BEIS, and I am satisfied that the Secretary of State there is totally aware of the situation and has been in close contact with the companies to see that things improve. My understanding is that very much a minority of the payments are affected, but for everybody who is affected, that is clearly a serious matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mims Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue. This is the first I have heard of it and I would be keen to meet him and hear more about it.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Many Barnsley pensioners would be better off if they were on pension credit. Why will the Government not automatically enrol all pensioners on pension credit to help to lift them out of poverty?

State Pension Triple Lock

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

As I was leaving my office to come across to the Chamber, I received an email from a couple in their late 70s that said:

“We need you to protect the triple lock for our wellbeing.”

This debate and this decision about the triple lock matter to pensioners in Barnsley. By threatening to break the triple lock, this Government are instead turning their back on older people, just when times are harder than ever. Indeed, alongside working families, pensioners are already struggling with the spiralling cost of living. One constituent in her sixties told me that she sat shivering as she wrote to me about not being able to afford heating. Another, aged 98, got in touch having received an energy bill of £3,700 for the next 12 months. In the context of this storm of energy bills, inflation and food prices, the Resolution Foundation has said that any cuts to pensions would be disastrous. After their reckless mini-Budget and the economic crash that followed, this Conservative Government are forcing older people to pay the price for their own economic incompetence, despite promising to protect them.

Indeed, the 2019 Conservative manifesto vowed to keep the triple lock in place, saying that under a Conservative Government, pensioners could be confident that they would receive support, security and the “dignity they deserve”. We have seen time and again that instead of keeping to their commitments, this Government prefer to U-turn, backtrack and break their promises. Certainly for many people in Barnsley East, it will not be the first time that the Government have gone back on their word regarding pensions.

During the last general election, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) made a categorical promise to retired mine workers that their money would be returned. To date, the Government have taken £4.4 billion from the mineworkers pension scheme. A cross-party Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee report concluded that the Government should not be in the business of profiting from miners’ pensions and should end the 50:50 sharing arrangement. A Labour Government would do just that.

This Government should stop taking money from miners’ pensions, and they must recommit to the triple lock to keep vulnerable pensioners above the poverty line. As we live through the worst cost of living crisis in modern times, the Government must stop making older people and working families pay the price for their reckless economic decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

13. If she will make an estimate of projected poverty levels in April 2023.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

17. If she will make an estimate of projected poverty levels in April 2023.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is not usual to project poverty levels in terms of statistics—[Interruption.] Does someone want to join in? [Interruption.] I just cannot hear. Somebody is talking. Projecting poverty levels is not something we normally do. However, the latest official statistics show that in 2021, some 8 million people were in poverty in absolute low-income before housing costs, which was a fall on the previous year. I am very conscious of the challenge of the cost of living right now, which is why we are providing a £15 billion support package targeted at the most in need, but I am proud of the fact that we are getting more and more people into work—over half a million in just the past five months. We know that for most people, the best way to get out of poverty is to get into work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephanie Peacock]

One in three children in Barnsley are living in poverty. My constituent cares for his disabled eight-year-old son. He recently started a part-time job to supplement his income, but after working just two hours’ overtime, he had a whole month of carer’s allowance deducted. The Secretary of State has just said that the best route out of poverty is to get into work, so can she explain why those who receive carer’s allowance are penalised for doing just that?

[Dr Coffey]

I expect that the hon. Lady’s constituent is receiving the caring element of universal credit, rather than carer’s allowance specifically, which is a slightly separate approach. Universal credit is a dynamic benefit. It reflects the fact that when a person is working more, they receive less support from other taxpayers, and—just as happened at the beginning of the covid pandemic—when taxpayers are working less, they immediately started receiving more. That is the success of universal credit, and we will continue to encourage people to get into work.

Universal Credit: Delayed Roll-Out

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his helpful question and for all the work that he did while at the Department. He, like me, believes that work should always pay, and that we need a welfare system that helps people into work. My mind is full of ideas on how we can improve universal credit, and if he would like to help me in persuading the Treasury to get behind those, I would very much welcome that.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Barnsley food bank gave out over 4,000 food parcels to people in crisis in a year. The Minister appears to be in complete denial. Why will the Government not accept that the increase in food bank use has a direct link to policies such as universal credit, and that it is about time it was scrapped?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I could not disagree more, but I do agree with her that I do not want to see anybody feeling that they have no choice but to visit a food bank. I want to better understand this issue, which is why I visit food banks. I meet food bank organisations and other organisations that help to tackle food insecurity. I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss this further. There is a huge amount of ongoing work.

Local Housing Allowance: Homeless Young People

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing this important debate. Since my election in 2015, I have been passionate about tackling homelessness. Before my appointment as a Minister, I served as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, where I engaged and built relationships with many brilliant charities, a number of which the hon. Lady mentioned, to work with them to end homelessness and rough sleeping.

Since my appointment as Minister, I have worked and continue to work closely with a number of those charities and other organisations to help to inform my work and that of my Department, to ensure that the Department for Work and Pensions does all we can to support those who are at risk of homelessness and that we are getting housing benefit right to provide the support that people need. As a Department we support the wider Government aims and ambitions to end rough sleeping and tackle wider homelessness.

My role as the Minister for welfare delivery has enabled me to go to all parts of the country, and subject to reappointment I look forward to continuing to do so. I have visited a number of charities and organisations around our great country that support those who have experience of homelessness and rough sleeping. That has enabled me to get a better understanding of those issues. I include among those organisations a number of arm’s length management organisations and housing associations that have a role to play.

The hon. Lady will no doubt recognise that this is not an issue that the Department for Work and Pensions can tackle alone. I am working with my counterparts in several Government Departments as part of cross-Government efforts to tackle this issue. Sadly, these debates are always far too short; I have no doubt that the hon. Lady and I could discuss this and associated issues at great length. We could probably spend most of the day talking about the issues she raised: rough sleeping and the broad rental market area in Brighton, local housing allowance, Centrepoint’s analysis and young people under 25 with experience of homelessness, as well, of course, as care leavers, not to mention the point she makes about social housing. I would very much welcome her at the Department to chat through some of those issues at greater length with officials, as appropriate.

I will try to cover as many of the issues as I can in the time left. First, we have to address the elephant in the room, which is the root cause of this issue: in parts of our country, we have massive supply and demand issues. The hon. Lady’s constituency is an example of that; my own constituency is another. As a result, although there are parts of the country where the ambition was to have the local housing allowance rates set at the 30th percentile, there are many parts of the country where the local housing allowance is sub-5%. That represents an issue. The root cause of that—my officials will not like me for saying it—is that successive Governments have failed to build enough houses, in particular affordable housing and homes for social rent. That is something we need to look at.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate. On affordable housing, does the Minister share my concern about the research by the charity Crisis, which showed that cuts to housing benefit mean that in 94% of areas across the country, only one in five private-rented properties are affordable to young single people? Obviously, we need to do much more to tackle that.

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady is partly right; the solution is not just about local housing allowance. We can continue to pump money into housing benefit, which unfortunately in many parts of the country lines the pockets of private rented sector landlords. But if we are to tackle this in the long term, it is about affordable housing and a mixture of tenure between ownership, affordable housing, which is up to 80% of market rent, and homes for social rent, which is significantly lower. It is about addressing the supply issue as well as the demand issue, to ensure that we tackle the problem for the medium to long term. That is why the Department and I are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, not to mention the other Government Departments involved. Between us, we hold the key—we hold the housing benefit bill, but they have a lot of the levers to address the supply side.

Endometriosis Workplace Support

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who speaks with a great deal of personal experience. We have been friends for a long time—since we came to this place. We are two West Yorkshire MPs, despite being on different sides of the aisle. I am grateful to her for making those points. As I said, it is important that the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care take this forward. Other Members may wish to try to secure debates that are responded to by those Departments. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will certainly feed those issues in.

I apologise for citing a lot of stories, Mr Pritchard, but it is important to set out the context. Another lady said:

“I had stage 4 (severe) endometriosis. I had a 7 year wait for diagnosis. From my referral to the hospital, I had a year and a half wait for surgery. My surgery was lifesaving as my bowel was 50% blocked with a mass of adhesions that had grown through the bowel. I was in constant pain, slept for 3 or 4 hours a day and was unable to care for my son properly, I considered putting him into care. If it wasn’t for him, I would have given up on everything. Despite being told in 2010 I ‘probably had endometriosis’ I was still given pain killers and mefenamic acid for years to manage the pain and symptoms. Throughout this time the endo was worsening, it is progressive. Had I been diagnosed earlier I may not have needed the bowel resection I needed and will have bowel issues for life. I was on the pill for 15 years, which is still considered a ‘treatment’. It is not. The same year I came off it (2010) I was at the GP with SEVERE bowel pain during my period (It was fused to my womb). The pill masked the symptoms, but it was quietly progressing. Please ban the use or presentation of the pill as ‘treatment’.”

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this incredibly important debate. One in five women will suffer from this disease, and it has been shown that, as that story shows, it can take up to seven years to convince a doctor. That is completely unacceptable. We have an issue in this country with what has been called the gender pain gap. We need to put more money into research and funding to look at proper cures and support for women when they need it most.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I entirely agree with those sentiments. As I said, I hope this debate will go beyond the Department for Work and Pensions. I thank the hon. Lady for that contribution; it is spot on.

Endometriosis affects 1.5 million women in the UK. It takes an average of eight years to diagnose and there is not really a cure.

I will share a few examples from women who have spoken out through the digital platform. One said:

“I have suffered with endometriosis since the age of 15 and I was diagnosed aged 22. The worst thing about endometriosis is the lack of awareness. Even some doctors haven’t even heard of it which is very frustrating! I’ve had 4 surgeries to try to alleviate the symptoms. Unfortunately, this hasn’t worked. I want to try to basically create more awareness of endometriosis, especially online, as much as I can.”

Another woman said:

“I was diagnosed with endometriosis in May 2016. I would say 2 years was spent actively pursuing a diagnosis. But the previous 9 years I often went to the doctors, complained of pain and heavy flow and I was told ‘it’s just a bad period, it’s normal’. The hardest part of endometriosis for me would be the mental health side of things, coming to terms with the fact my body has limits and my life probably isn’t going to take the direction I thought it would.”

Someone else said:

“I was 17 when I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I’ve had 6 surgeries since. The thing I hate most about endometriosis is not being able to plan ahead because you don’t know how your pain is going to be that day. You could be absolutely fine, or you could be crippled.”

A young woman said:

“I was diagnosed with endometriosis on the 14 February last year, I was only 15. It took me 3 years to get diagnosed. For those 3 years, I was told I had unexplainable abdominal pain.”

Another story comes from a woman who said:

“I was diagnosed when I was 25 when I had a miscarriage. I had been struggling since I was a teenager with all the common signs of endometriosis. It just wasn’t picked up until I had my first surgery. What I hate most about endometriosis is that it takes time away from my children. Especially when I have to just go and rest in bed. I would love to be able to make it more aware for children, especially young girls and in schools, to be able to support them through this and see the early signs and educate GPs on the signs and symptoms.”

Access to Pension Credit

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Elmore]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I completely agree with him that the Government need to do a lot more to encourage pensioners to claim pension credit and make them understand that there is no stigma in their gaining pension credit. However, even in my constituency of Ogmore there is more than £5.1 million that is not being claimed by pensioners, so I completely agree with him, and I hope that the Minister will respond to some of these points at the end of the debate.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Further to that point, does my hon. Friend agree that it is quite concerning that the figure nationally for those entitled to pension credit but not claiming it is 40%? Meanwhile, in my own constituency of Barnsley East, more than 4,000 pensioners are due to lose their free TV licences. The combination of these two factors is really concerning. Does he agree?

[Chris Elmore]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. Her intervention re-emphasises the point that this issue affects pensioners right across the United Kingdom, and the Government need to deal with it, starting by better advertising what is available and making sure that pensioners are able to access the money that they need and that is rightly theirs.