Disadvantaged Communities

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Colleagues can look around the room and see how many people are seeking to participate in this debate. I am giving you warning that after the opening speech, there will be a time limit of two minutes. I am sorry that it is so short, but we have the alternative of not accommodating everybody, and Mr Speaker likes everybody to be accommodated.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for disadvantaged communities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the Minister for taking the time to come and listen to us, and we can see by the attendance today that this issue truly resonates in all our communities across the country. It is a tremendous honour to lead this important debate on a subject that resonates deeply with many of us here who represent places that have faced long-term social and economic challenges, including my constituency of Wolverhampton North East.

Whether we live in Low Hill or Bushbury, Heath Town or Park Village, New Invention or Short Heath, these stories will be familiar, but let me be clear from the start: I am fiercely proud of where I come from. I have said it time and again: I am not just a Wolverhampton girl; I am an Ashmore girl. I grew up in a community on the Ashmore Park estate, and I started my own family in Park Village—the very kind of neighbourhoods that we are here to discuss. Too many of our neighbourhoods—not just those in Wolverhampton, New Invention and Short Heath, but around the whole country—have been left behind and left to decline, as communities that are no longer a Government priority, where children and young people have nowhere to go, and there is rising antisocial behaviour, theft and burglaries, while the number of good, secure jobs has declined.

In Stoke-on-Trent, £11 is spent per young person per year on youth services. In inner London, the figure is £111. Meanwhile, Staffordshire police is one of a handful of forces that has fewer police on the beat than it did in 2010. Does my hon. Friend agree that when this Government look to invest, they must understand the starting point of our communities in order for any investment to have a meaningful impact?

I certainly agree. Communities like ours have borne the brunt of these cuts, and we see this playing out on our streets, in our schools and, unfortunately, in the criminal justice system. This should never have happened. It cannot continue, and it must never happen again. That is why I am calling for a project of national renewal for our neighbourhoods, designed to work with communities.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will.

Order. The hon. Lady is quite entitled to give way, but where Members choose to intervene, it will affect my judgment on where in the batting order they are called.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that we should pay tribute to the work of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, led by Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top? Based on its detailed statistical research, the commission has identified 613 of the most left-behind neighbourhoods around the country—one of which is South Stanley in my constituency—where funding is essential if we are to achieve the Government’s five missions. If investment is not made in those neighbourhoods, we can never achieve our national targets.

I agree. Hon. Members will hear more about ICON’s work in my speech, because it paints a picture of our communities.

This is a project of national renewal that is designed to work with communities, to rebuild from the ground up and to restore hope and dignity to our places. It is a strategy about the huge importance of cultural capital and social infrastructure for social connections. What makes those communities special? They are resilient, largely because they have had to be. They have felt the brunt of 14 years of austerity. They have been disproportionately affected because they disproportionately rely on good public services, which were stretched to breaking point under the last Government.

Does the hon. Member agree that it is important to recognise the interconnected barriers in such discussions? The dearth of post-16 education and poor transport connectivity blunt young people’s ambitions and further entrench the disadvantages of which she speaks in areas such as my constituency.

I absolutely agree. I signpost hon. Members to yesterday’s meeting of the Education Committee, where we heard from a representative from the National Union of Students about the clear link with the barriers that certain young people face to get to college or school. I beg hon. Members to look at that.

What makes those communities special? As I said, they have borne the brunt of 14 years of austerity. They saw Sure Start snatched away, cuts to neighbourhood policing, record NHS waiting lists, the decimation of youth services, a crisis in special educational needs and too much more. But our communities are full of potential; they are close knit and packed with people who graft and work hard.

Child poverty rates in Florence in my constituency have reached over 60% in recent years—the highest rate across Stoke-on-Trent, which routinely scores highest for infant mortality rates. Does my hon. Friend agree that as we publish the child poverty strategy in the autumn, Stoke-on-Trent South needs sustained investment to tackle high rates of child poverty?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who is clearly a champion for families and children in her constituency.

Our communities are burdened with deep-rooted barriers—obstacles caused by poverty, economic inactivity, inequality, educational disadvantages, poor access to healthcare and years of systematic under-investment. The scale of the challenge is clear: Wolverhampton North East ranked 73rd out of 543 constituencies in England in the index of multiple deprivation. One in three people in my constituency lives in one of the highest need neighbourhoods in the country, and they are not alone. Across England, 345 of 543 constituencies contain at least one neighbourhood in the most deprived 10% nationally. Those left-behind places are not isolated pockets; they are widespread.

My hon. Friend is making a tremendous speech. Does she recognise that some of our most deprived communities are right next to areas where we are seeing rapid growth? It is vital that a test of our £113 billion investment—a once-in-a-generation opportunity for infrastructure—must be its impact on our most deprived communities.

Investment has to go where it is most needed. Hon. Members feel strongly about that, which is why we see such representation in this debate.

Child poverty in Wolverhampton North East tells a clear story. In 2014-15, 22% of children were living in absolute poverty. That figure now stands at 31%, which should shame us. More than that, however, it must galvanise us. Nationally, the situation is no better. In 2023-24, 18% of people in the UK were in absolute poverty after housing costs. According to the Resolution Foundation, another 1.5 million people, including 400,000 children, will fall into poverty by 2030 unless bold action is taken. Those are not just statistics on a spreadsheet; they are real lives. They are children going to school tired and hungry. They are young people who are poorer now than their parents’ generation, with less hope of buying their own house. They are families stuck in insecure housing or waiting years for mental health support. They are opportunities lost and represent an injustice at the heart of our society.

That is why the work of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods—ICON—has been so vital. Under the leadership of Baroness Armstrong, ICON has helped to shine a light on what is really happening in the most disadvantaged areas of our country: mission-critical neighbourhoods. It reveals what people are facing, how they feel about Government and what can be done differently. Its recent polling in partnership with Public First is a wake-up call. Just 5% of adults in England believe that the Government care about “neighbourhoods like mine”: a damning verdict on decades of decisions made too far from the people they affect.

It is not just a question of neglect; it is a fact of inequality. Nearly seven in 10 people believe that the Government care about some neighbourhoods more than others: the wealthier ones, the connected ones, the places where voices carry weight. They have lower crime, higher economic activity, higher intergenerational wealth and higher life expectancy.

On life expectancy, in my constituency, the lives of men and women in the most deprived neighbourhoods are nine years shorter than in the more affluent ones. Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the strategy has to be around narrowing those health inequalities?

I absolutely agree. If I drive 10 minutes in my constituency, the life expectancy increases by more than seven years, which is shocking. This is not the politics of envy; it is the reality after the politics of inequality. This is about restoring people’s chances to participate in Government, making it something that is done with them rather than to them.

There is cause for hope. In January, I had the pleasure of welcoming Baroness Armstrong to the Scotlands Estate in the Fallings Park ward of my constituency. We visited the Big Venture Centre, an anchoring institution in the neighbourhood. It is an inspiring community-focused project that is changing people’s lives every single day. From the pink ladies—and men—who volunteer there to the WV10 community chefs who support healthy eating education, to the community shop helping with the cost of living, that is what every neighbourhood deserves. It was a chance to see how the findings and principles behind ICON’s work can be implemented in practice and, with the right support, that those places can thrive.

We have the insight and the evidence; action is what we now need. What we have had has clearly not worked. Let us look at education. In 2024, only 46% of disadvantaged pupils met the expected standard at key stage 2, compared with 67% of their peers. A growing divide that has set in by year 6 continues to widen in year 11 at GCSE.

After school, it gets worse. Disadvantaged young people are 65% more likely to be NEET—not in education, employment or training. If they leave school with fewer than five GCSEs they are 131% more likely to be NEET. Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of people in destitution are in receipt of social security. That tells us everything we need to know about how broken the safety net has become.