- 9:30 am
- I beg to move,That this House has considered child poverty in the north of England.It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I give particular thanks to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), with whom I co-chair the child of the north all-party parliamentary group. I know that she cares deeply about our children in the north and works daily to try to make a difference. I also thank all the academics who worked on our report on child poverty and the cost of living crisis, alongside the Northern Health Science Alliance and N8 Research Partnership. The report led to today’s debate.I want to say a special thank you to those parents and children who were brave enough to share their pain with us. Despite the challenges they face, they took time to use their experiences to try to make a difference, and their daily struggle should be at the forefront of our minds during today’s debate. It should be their struggles that we are determined to change. However, after 13 years of Conservative government, more than 4 million children are living in poverty, and the children of the north are suffering disproportionately.Poverty is sadly not a new experience for many children in the north, but the scale and the severity of their deprivation are unprecedented, and poverty is the lead driver of inequalities between children in the north and children in the rest of England. The gulf between children in the north and their peers is not only growing, but growing rapidly. The north-east has the highest rate of child poverty in the UK, with 38% of our children living in poverty. In my constituency of South Shields, the figure rises to more than 42%—a 12 point increase in child poverty over the past six years. It is becoming very clear that levelling up, just like the northern powerhouse before it, is a vacuous, empty phrase that was never intended to, and never will, do anything to improve the life chances of children in my area.The impacts of poverty are well documented. Numerous studies have shown the links between nutrition and cognitive development. Hungry and disadvantaged children suffer developmental impairment, language delays and motor skills delays, as well as psychological and emotional impacts that can range from withdrawn and depressive behaviours to irritable and aggressive behaviours.Pre-pandemic, we even saw rising numbers of hospital admissions of children owing to malnutrition and a resurgence of Victorian diseases such as scurvy and rickets. If it were not for the nearly 2,000 food banks in the UK—they are the ones we know of—and kind neighbours, faith groups and charities, many more children would have simply gone without.When I was a child protection social worker, the children going without on such a scale were those suffering from severe neglect, but now we have a generation of children for whom hunger and grinding poverty have become the norm. As the cost of living crisis worsens, vulnerable children and families, especially in the north, are being pushed to the edge. Our report found that during the pandemic 34% were living in poverty compared with 28% in the rest of England, and that prior to the cost of living crisis about 1 million households in the north were fuel poor—that is, up to 15% in the north compared with 12% elsewhere.In addition, we found that families in the north were more likely to be living in poor-quality, damp homes. Before living costs started to rise, nearly 100,000 homes in the north had some form of damp, and 1.1 million homes in the north had failed the decent homes criteria.Our report was launched in January with a warning about what would happen without the Government introducing urgent measures:“Rising living costs will lead to immediate and lifelong harms for children: worsening physical and mental health”,as well as poorer education outcomes and lower productivity.I despair at how many times we have been here. It was not that long ago that the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights visited the UK and found that Conservative Governments had inflicted “great misery” with“punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous”austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake “social re-engineering”, rather than by economic necessity. Just last year, his successor warned that further austerity could violate the UK’s international human rights obligations and increase hunger and malnutrition.The free school meal support that the Government have put in place has been hard fought for by charities, faith groups, Opposition MPs and celebrities. The holiday activities and food programme was fought for from 2017, but it was not until 2021 that the Government decided to roll it out. My fully costed School Breakfast Bill would have seen nearly 2 million children start the day with full stomachs. Instead, the Government introduced a scheme that provides support to only 2,500 out of the 8,700 they identified as eligible. It took the tragic death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak from exposure to serious mould for the Government to commit to forcing landlords to fix damp and mouldy homes.Struggling children have never been and never will be a priority for this Government. If the political will were there, they would listen to the myriad voices—including experts, charities, organisations, faith groups, MPs, including some on their own side, and Henry Dimbleby, their former food tsar—pleading with them to at least expand free school meal eligibility to all families receiving universal credit or equivalent benefits. That would mean that a further 1.3 million children living in poverty would at least get a free school meal and would be eligible for the holiday food programmes.Poverty can be all-encompassing. Our expert witnesses told us stories of children coming to school hungry, exhausted and without shoes. They miss health appointments because travel is unaffordable. Such hardship not only impacts their health and development but stifles social mobility. Throughout the pandemic, children in the north missed more schooling than their peers across England, which will result in an estimated £24 billion in lost wages over their lifetimes. Children in the north are more likely to die before the age of one. Shockingly, one of our witnesses told us that expectant mothers have been forced to have abortions because they cannot afford another mouth to feed and another child to clothe.Every single one of us on the APPG, including my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), is committed to change. Our recommendations were that the Government should raise social security in line with inflation at the earliest opportunity, scrap the two-child benefit limit, pause universal credit sanctions for families with children, increase child benefits, extend free school meal eligibility, and take action to improve the energy efficiency of rented homes. That would be a good start in stemming child poverty levels, but those policies alone will not be enough. People should always have enough to live on, either through decent pay or, for those unable to work, a proper welfare safety net. But they do not, because work is no longer a route out of poverty. Sixty-seven per cent. of children and young people growing up in poverty in the north-east are from working families, and social security support continues to be inadequate.I know the Minister is likely to tell us that the Government are spending billions on welfare, that they have uprated benefits, that they have increased the national living wage, that they are maintaining the energy price guarantee for a few more months, and that they are giving families cost of living payments, but I gently remind her that inflation reached 11% in October last year—a 41-year high—and benefits did not rise with inflation until last month. The cost of a weekly food shop is rising at its fastest annual rate since 1977, hitting 19%, and gas bills are 130% higher than they were in summer 2021.The reality is that the Government’s support is all in the form of one-offs. Their policies are piecemeal—they are sticking plasters—and do little to address the root causes of child poverty. It should be to the Government’s utter shame that, in a country with as much wealth as ours, children are suffering in this way. History shows us that poverty is not inevitable; it is a result of choices made by Governments. Under the last Labour Government, policies such as the minimum wage, increased benefits for families with children, increased support for childcare and Sure Start lifted 1 million children out of poverty. The next Labour Government would pull families out of fuel poverty by insulating 19 million homes, stop children going to school hungry by establishing breakfast clubs in every primary school and introduce a genuine living wage to ensure that families are being paid enough to live on.I know my party takes child poverty seriously and the Front-Bench spokesperson will be listening carefully to the points I raise here today. I am hopeful that, ahead of the next general election, we will adopt policies to expand free school meals, increase child benefits and fix problems with the Healthy Start scheme to ensure that every child, no matter where they grow up, has the best possible chance in life. Once someone has experienced poverty, it never leaves them, and enduring scars remain. The feelings of hopelessness and despair may fade over time but they never go away. They are a constant reminder of the injustice of deprivation in a country as wealthy as ours and that no one, especially children, should ever be left hungry, cold or without.I simply ask the Minister: what is she going to do to remedy the dire situation that consecutive Tory Governments have left our children in the north in? Can she answer this powerful question from Sophie Balmer, our youth ambassador from the End Child Poverty coalition:“Remember, these graphs are people. I’m a number on these statistics. Why does it feel like I don’t matter…my sisters don’t matter”?
- 9:41 am
- It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), with whom I am pleased to co-chair the APPG for the child of the north. I congratulate her on securing this important debate. I also wish to join my co-chair in thanking all the members, expert witnesses and researchers for their work in producing the child of the north report.Child poverty in the north is a problem that simply cannot be ignored. The report published by the APPG published earlier this year, “Child Poverty and the Cost of Living Crisis”, calls attention to the hardships and difficulties that are disproportionately felt by children in the north of England. Those existing hardships have been exacerbated by the increase in fuel, energy and food prices experienced across the country as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. However, as highlighted by the report:“local authorities in the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber are regarded as the ‘most vulnerable’ to the cost of living crisis across the whole of England”.There are a number of reasons that poorer households are more susceptible to the cost of living crisis, including the reality that they must spend more of their total budget on things such as food, gas and electricity and therefore feel the impact of inflation more. Recent analysis has indicated that inflation is actually about 2.3% higher in northern towns and cities than in wealthier southern counterparts such as London and Cambridge. In the north, there are proportionally more people living in poverty or unable to cope with sudden price increases.In response to the cost of living, the Government have taken action, providing financial support for households and a cap on domestic gas and electricity rates, which was extended into this spring. Further support has been rolled out for pensioners and people in receipt of benefits, and those benefits have been increased in line with inflation. However, important though it is, that support is designed to help with a short-term problem and we know that regional inequalities are a chronic, long-term problem. The Government acknowledge that, which is why they rolled out their levelling-up policy, describing the situation as follows:
- 9:48 am
- It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for securing this important debate. I also thank her co-chair of the APPG, the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), for her contribution to the debate and for the work of the APPG. It is incredibly important that we look at this issue.Just over a year ago, I held a similar debate on the relationship between regional inequalities and child poverty, following the publication of the “Child of the North” report, which clearly illustrated all the factors involved in child poverty and the whole range of issues that build in disadvantage for children right across the north, such as education and health, which the hon. Member for Cheadle mentioned. I am pleased that work has continued following that debate, through the child of the north all-party parliamentary group, to make sure that we do not just have a one-off debate but actually continue to identify, and follow up on, the issues identified in the report.The report was called “Child of the North”, but I want to concentrate on the region I know best, which is the north-east. Sadly, my region has the highest rates of poverty anywhere in England. That is not a claim I am pleased to make. It is shocking that children in my region are suffering poverty and deprivation and are being held back by that as they develop through the years. That is not something I am proud of, and it is something I would dearly like to change. Almost two in five children in the north-east are living in poverty. In my constituency, the number of children growing up in poverty increased by 13% between 2015 and 2021. That is absolutely shocking.The numbers alone are difficult to think about, but it is even harder to think about what they represent—the struggling families and the children being held back. At an APPG evidence session, the North East Child Poverty Commission presented truly harrowing accounts from the people and families it works with, which brought home the true impact of this scandal on people’s lives. One account came from parents in my local authority of Gateshead who were using watered-down evaporated milk in their baby’s bottles because of the soaring price of baby formula and putting off weaning because of fears about the cost of solid food. That is absolutely shocking. It does not need saying—I hope—that that is simply unacceptable in the world’s fifth or sixth richest country. The report produced by the APPG following its evidence sessions—“Child Poverty and the Cost of Living Crisis”—illustrated clearly, as the hon. Member for Cheadle said, how the problem is compounded by the increases in the cost of living and the challenges people face. There has been a real deterioration there.
- 10:00 am
- It is a pleasure to reply to this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) on introducing it in a rigorous and well-argued speech in which she drew out the commission’s work. I welcome the important contribution of the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) to the debate, and we also heard a strong speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). Welcome as it is to have this important debate today, it would have been marvellous if we had been able to hold it on a day when other representatives from the north could have been here to give the topic the full range of contributions it deserves.The speeches we heard drew heavily on the work of the child of the north all-party parliamentary group and the North East Child Poverty Commission—I was heavily involved in the earlier London Child Poverty Commission, so I know how much work goes into such inquiries. What is important about them is that they draw on the lived experienced of people in poverty, the range of factors that drive poverty, including ill health and disability—sadly, correlated with poverty—and the growing significance of in-work poverty, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon drew out. That is something that we have always had, but it has, sadly, developed into a strong driver of poverty these days.All the speeches we have heard this morning have made it clear that there are long-term consequences and harms if a child grows up in poverty. When we talk of poverty, we should always reflect on the moral dimension. It is morally critical for us to recognise and commit to dealing with child poverty. We should also reflect on the sheer inefficiency and waste that comes from trapping families and children in poverty. Growing up in poverty will have an impact on health status, leading people into poorer physical and mental health. It is also so closely correlated with educational underachievement that our schools must make extra efforts to support, educate and help children in poverty. In addition, my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields drew out the fact that, tragically, there are consequences for some of our poorest children and families in terms of interventions by children’s services. There is simply a strong economic as well as a moral case for ensuring that we deal with and invest in child poverty.
- If the Government are committed to the levelling-up rhetoric, why is child poverty not mentioned once in the levelling-up White Paper or the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill? Is my hon. Friend concerned about that, as I am?
- My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Frankly, it is bizarre that child poverty is not seen as a critical issue in its own right in the levelling-up agenda.At the root of the problem is the fact that the Government have long ceased to bother with one of the most basic tasks of any social security system, which is matching resources to needs. Not bothering with that task is, of course, the explicit aim of the two-child limit, whereby the DWP is forbidden by statute from taking third and subsequent children into account in setting universal credit and tax credit entitlements, but it is also the effect of a host of other policies that override entitlements based on assessed needs. Those policies include the failure to uprate benefits by inflation and, from 2016 to 2020, the failure to uprate them at all. The four-year benefit freeze has permanently reduced the value of benefits, including in-work benefits. Ministers seem to have difficulty getting their heads around that point; they seem to think that, because benefits were uprated with inflation this year, everything is now all right. They seem not to be aware of the permanent damage that has been done.Failing to set the local housing allowance in line with real-world rents is another issue. The local housing allowance remains frozen at 2019 levels. Across the north, two thirds of universal credit households receiving rent support in the private sector have rents above the local housing allowance maximum for their area. The shortfall between rent and the local housing allowance has to be made up out of whatever other income households have. At a national level, the average shortfall is £100 a month. Have a Government ever come up with a more elementary design flaw than building debt into universal credit by making people wait five weeks for their first payment? The examples can be multiplied.In all cases, we see the Government breaking the link between benefit entitlements and needs as a matter of deliberate policy. Families can wind up falling foul of more than one of those policies simultaneously, which can lead to cumulative impacts—needing to make up the rent out of the rest of the UC payment, which has already been reduced to pay back an advance and which takes no account, for example, of their third child. This has been going on for years. Is it any wonder, then, that we see evidence of destitution throughout the country, or that regions that have historically done worse have faced a disproportionate impact? Consider that 49% of children in the north-east are in families receiving universal credit or an equivalent legacy benefit, compared to 24% in the south-east. Of course these policies impact some regions more than others. One of the more shocking results of the latest poverty statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions is that one in 10 children in the north-east are in families that used a food bank in the last 12 months—nearly twice the national figure.
- 10:09 am
- It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for securing this debate. I absolutely agree with the early sentiments and spirit of unity in her speech and speeches from across this Chamber. It is right that we come together to do the best for our youngsters, and it is vital that they are at the heart of our actions and outcomes. The way the debate has been held is critical to getting under the skin of what is happening in communities in the north and, in fact, any community where people are struggling. I thank everyone who has contributed and who helps support the most vulnerable daily. I also thank the all-party group for its work and all those who gave evidence and insight to the APPG report, which I will refer to shortly.I will pick up on several issues later in the debate, but I want to assure the House about the quality of homes issue, which is something that consistently comes up. Since I took on this brief, having been asked to return to DWP to cover social mobility, the issue is something I am focused on and am working on with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and across Government. This is very much something in my line of sight, and I thank hon. Members for raising those issues.I reassure the House that we are strongly committed to a welfare system that supports those who are most in need. I understand the concerns around the phrase “levelling up”. It is not an empty phrase, and I will make some further remarks on that shortly. In 2023-24, we will spend around £276 billion through the welfare system in Great Britain, including £124 billion on people of working age and their children. As we have heard, our commitment is reflected in the 10.1% increase in benefit rates and state pensions for 2023-24, and we have increased the benefit cap by that same amount so that more people across the whole country can benefit from these new rates.
- It is good to hear that the cost of living payments are going to be in people’s bank accounts, but does the Minister not agree that they are another sticking-plaster measure? If benefits and the welfare system were providing what they should, then we would not need to provide these payments because people would have enough to live on.
- I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I thank her for her passion and interest in this area, and for what she is doing for her constituents. There is no direct, objective way of clarifying what is an adequate level of benefit. Every person has a different level of requirements depending on their circumstances. Income-related benefits are not made up of separate amounts specific to beneficiaries’ expenditure, or food costs or whatever. The Government firmly believe that beneficiaries should be free to spend their benefits how they see fit in the light of their individual circumstances and needs.The Government’s approach to welfare is to fully recognise the value and importance of work, which has been mentioned in this debate. Making it work for everybody is vital. We are determined not only to help people progress and be supported in work, but to protect and support the most vulnerable in society. Universal credit is adjusted monthly depending on a beneficiary’s circumstances. It is absolutely right that the people who need additional support, whether that is through the household support fund, hardship payments or an adjustment due to a change in circumstances, are able to come forward. I spent much of my childhood on benefits due to the impact of ill health and disablement, and we had to navigate through the same system. I personally understand it.Whether people are on benefits for a short or a long time, it is important that they are supported, and know how to navigate the system to get the right support for their family. That is why I am always keen to reiterate the Help to Claim service, the Help for Households website and the work we have done on the household support fund. I thank our partners in particular for their work on delivering the household support fund for people, whether they receive benefits or not. We have heard today that because of the war in Ukraine and the changing impact of the pandemic, more people than ever have found things particularly tough. With the household support fund, I have made it clear that people on benefits, and those who are just above the threshold or just managing, or perhaps in a change of circumstances, will be looked for, found and reached out to so that that discretionary support can be given to those who need it most. Devolved Administrations will receive consequential funding to use at their discretion.
- I wonder if the Minister could comment on the figures I quoted on the number of people in the north-east who are actually working—many of them in different jobs—but still do not have enough to cope. What do the Government propose to resolve that issue? It is not just about work; it is about having good work.
- I completely agree with the hon. Lady. I believe just over £3.6 million has gone into the household support fund in Blaydon, and there have been nearly 11,000 cost of living payments in the hon. Lady’s constituency. We are making those interventions exactly as she describes, to support those people who may be working but whose circumstances have changed. We are in difficult times—let us not deny that—due to a combination of historical, generational problems, as hon. Members have pointed out today, but also off the back of the pandemic and a war on our continent. It is therefore absolutely right that Government are able to step forward. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady about the direct interventions we have made in her constituency to help those youngsters. That is what is at the heart of this matter: not statistics, but people like Sophie, who was mentioned earlier. These youngsters need to know and feel that the Government, and anybody from any political party or any intervention, are on their side and are helping to make things better. I hope that answers the hon. Lady’s question.
- I thank the Minister for letting me intervene again. I understand the amount of money that is put in through the household support fund. My question is: if we work on the basis that work should pay and getting into work is the best intervention to give children—as the Minister rightly says, children are individuals, not statistics—the best chance, what are we going to do outside the current cost of living crisis? This issue existed before the cost of living crisis and it will continue. It is, as I said, a structural issue.
- I think we are actually talking the same language here. It is about progression in work and being better off, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle mentioned. How does someone go for those better-paid jobs, and how do they progress? Of course, it is also about ensuring that sectors are paying the right rates—good work, as the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) mentioned. It is about ensuring that people are well remunerated and well supported in those roles, which is exactly why we have our in-work progression focus. We did a large report on that. It has been mentioned today that transport could be an issue for some people, and their educational base has been mentioned as well. It is about whether people are able to get to that next rung, where they are actually better off. That is what our in-work progression champions are doing in JCPs. Someone can be working all the hours God sends, but are they better off? That is something that answers that question. That is what we are determined to do.Turning to the report, it is important to highlight what we are doing beyond the household support fund. We are investing £30 million to provide free breakfasts for children in up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas; we have extended this programme through to July 2024. As we know, children continue to learn well if they receive a healthy breakfast. That is really important. Eligibility for free schools has changed several times as we have heard today, with more groups included and 1.9 million disadvantaged pupils being supported through the benefits-related criteria, while a further 1.25 million infant pupils are receiving free school meals through the universal infant free school meals policy.I absolutely agree that the balance around doing well in education is vital, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle. We are absolutely focused on these interventions, whether that is the breakfast clubs or the pupil premium, alongside the Department for Education. The schemes are there to help the most vulnerable children. There is also support for children under four and pregnant women through the Healthy Start scheme. We have heard about the holiday activities and food programme, or the HAF programme, which is an investment of £200 million a year. All those interventions are absolutely right. Both from the report and from comments, it has been clear throughout the debate that all our interventions need to change to make a generational shift for our communities. That includes those on in-work progression, our childcare offer and whatever is introduced from each part of the community or from Government.
- 10:28 am
- I thank all hon. Members for taking part in this debate and the members of the child of the north APPG. As the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) alluded to, some were unable to take part. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for her support from the Front Bench. I also thank the Minister for her comments and for her consistency. She has done what many Ministers have done before her in debates on these issues: she has defended indefensible aspects of this Government’s record and has blamed covid and Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine for the problems we face when we all know the Government crashed the economy last year. We all know we were uniquely exposed to the hike in energy prices because of a lack of investment in renewables and a failure to rein in the energy companies properly. We are the only country in the G7 that has not recovered from the pandemic because we came from such a low economic base.To be fair, I did not expect the Minister to commit to getting rid of the five-week minimum wait for universal credit, suspending the two-child limit, and increasing free school meals and the Healthy Start scheme, but I assure everyone here—I am sure they know this already—that I will continue to push and argue for them. My disappointment is not really for me; it is for the children and families in the north who, yet again, in the absence of any promises of consistent and sustained support, will have to rely on their remarkable resilience and the charitable sector in our strong, close-knit communities right across the north. For them, the general election cannot come soon enough.Question put and agreed to.Resolved,That this House has considered child poverty in the north of England.