Department for Work and Pensions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

This has been a good, important and timely debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, on bringing the debate to the Floor of the House. He rightly opened it by placing in context the size of the Department and its central place at the heart of economic policy, and discussed the work of his Committee, which has been substantial, on looking into some of the Department’s very significant flaws. Given the economic situation the country now faces, the work of the Committee has never been more important. As he mentioned, it has published very important and significant reviews, and some of the recommendations have been adopted by the Government, so I applaud him for securing the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), in her usual way, explained the manner in which poverty harms people not just in their financial life but in every single aspect of their life. The Government would do well to listen to her.

I want to make some brief remarks—with an emphasis on brief—as many good points have already been made and I will not be repeating them all. I want to get to the heart of the points that have been discussed, in particular on universal credit. I have been in this House long enough to remember the country before universal credit, so I am able to compare and contrast the system we had before with the one we have now. I offer this reflection based on that experience.

On its introduction, universal credit was claimed to be a kind of cure-all which would release everyone from the so-called trap of poverty. I did not think that that was going to be true when it was introduced and I do not think it is true now. The Department for Work and Pensions, in its spending and policy choices, has to be far more than just universal credit and social security, important though they are. As much as the pensions side of the Department is a huge part of its spending and very important, it must also be the department for dignity: the dignity of work and the dignity of well-functioning, decent social protection. Those two areas of policy must work hand in hand to ensure that the ups and downs of life do not upend life chances when unfortunate things happen. We should be using good work and social protection to help people to move on and move up in life. The Chair of the Select Committee and other Members have provided a good survey of what is happening in the Department at the moment. I would argue that on both work and social protection it is failing.

On work, to put it simply, we have fewer people in work now than before the pandemic. That cannot be a success. We have businesses crying out for staff, yet, unlike in other countries, our employment rate has not recovered from the pandemic. That is a huge failure. Pay, the money in people’s pockets, has been stagnant for the past decade. We think about the promises made about universal credit and all the Department does, so what questions has the Minister asked about that? What research has he commissioned to get underneath why pay is so stagnant? We have had reviews of in-work progression. The Government have claimed that they want to tackle our productivity crisis. What research and evidence has the DWP actually published to show, despite the claims made about universal credit supporting people to escape the so-called poverty trap that Conservative Members felt previous Governments had created, why we have had such stagnant levels of pay?

It is arguable that the Department’s policy choices might have exacerbated the labour market crisis, so I ask the Minister again: what policies does he have now, today, to help people escape low-paid work? For all the Government have talked about the possibilities of universal credit, why has it delivered so very little in terms of the money in people’s pockets and their chances of getting on? Has universal credit really delivered all that was promised? On all those areas—work incentives, the chances families have to do better, pay progression and supporting employers to get the skilled staff they need—I look at all the Department does and I have many questions about the disappearance of that promised success.

We have had a series of failed employment schemes. Kickstart failed to deliver what it was said it would deliver. We heard from Members about restart and the work and health programme, and all we do not know about what they are doing. Looking at the labour market and everything that the Bank of England has said about the consequences for our economy of the state of the labour market, does the Minister really believe that the DWP is helping, or is it a hindrance? I would love to hear him talk about published evidence that the Department’s policies are actually helping.

Finally on work, one major challenge for our economy is the imbalanced labour market. Businesses in many towns across the country are crying out for staff, yet we have an unemployment challenge. Some towns and cities have areas where unemployment is twice the national average. How can that be right in a country that has such a need for staff? Does the Minister really believe that his Department’s spending and policy choices are helping? Work should be the way that all of us achieve our hopes and ambitions. I just wish the Department was able to live up to those ambitions.

As many people have said, social security should be the backstop that puts a floor beneath families, yet at almost every step over the past decade the Conservative Government have made that harder. At every turn, the political turbulence they have created has had an economic cost for our country as a whole, and for families up and down the country. The inflation we now face makes life harder for everybody, but not equally. If we look at the money families must now find to put food on the table and pay their bills, we know that the choices made by the Tories have made life harder for those who were already finding it tough. Their failings on energy have made life much harder, in particular for people with disabilities who pay significant extra costs. It is a well-evidenced phenomenon that people who face illness or disability have significant challenges with the rising cost of energy. The Conservative Government have never taken their needs into account enough. I agree with comments made by both my colleagues on the Select Committee that the relationship between the Department and people with disabilities is not nearly good enough to achieve what we would wish for them.

The evidence of failure is all around us, whether it is the open doors of food banks or the closed doors of businesses who have been unable to survive this crisis of inflation and staff shortages. On the housing crisis, I would bet anything—I am not a betting woman, but I would none the less bet anything—that almost every Member has seen a rise in their housing case load. Even those with a relatively low case load have seen it rise in relation to the recent housing crisis.

One fact above all shines out of the Department’s accounts: rising ill health, which is having economic consequences for all of us and disastrous consequences for people who are trying to earn money to keep their family housed and fed. Over the past decade or more, the Tories have been not just not up to the challenge; they have actively made it worse.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Bank of England sets interest rates independently, but economic inactivity and the wider state of the labour market is a feature of our economy that will influence whether the Prime Minister is able to meet his promise to halve inflation. Can the Secretary of State tell us exactly what targets have been agreed by his Department with the Treasury on the role of the labour market in reducing inflation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

We on the Labour Benches join you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the Minister in the tribute to Len Goodman, and we think of all his loved ones today. He was not just a national treasure, but someone who helped to put money in pensioners’ pockets, which is where it belongs.

The local elections are next week, so people will be thinking of the fortunes of their towns or cities. In many places, unemployment is not low, as the Minister has said, but high. In Blackpool, for example, one constituency has unemployment at an excruciating 8%. What about that chronic poor performance should be rewarded at the ballot box next week?

Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) (No. 2) Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak on the Bill. I am sure the House will be relieved to know that I do not intend to speak for long, because the Bill has cross-party support. Improving pensions legislation has a long history of cross-party support, beginning with the legacy of the pensions commission, which reported 21 years ago. The Bill is a part of that ongoing legacy. Saving for our future is very important for us all. The thing that this House can do to help people save for their future is offer a consistent policy approach, and that is what the Bill does. We have made progress on auto-enrolment, but we can go further. It is a pleasure to support the Bill.

I will ask a small number of questions, which I will be grateful if the Minister could answer. The Opposition wholly supports this Bill. It would be helpful to know when in the autumn the consultation will take place. What will the Government strategy be for communicating with young people in particular? I note comments from Members about the power of good that it can do for young people. There have been few positive policy areas for young people over the past years. I would be grateful if the Minister could talk about what the Department for Work and Pensions will do in the area. Could she say what feedback it has had from employers so far, and from trade unions? What is the Department’s plan for working with both those groups and with wider civil society and business communities, to make sure that this is a success? What is the timetable for bringing this legislation into force? What can we expect from this point? If the Minister could talk us through the timetable, I would be most grateful. I wish the Department the very best in making this legislation a reality.

Support for Women in Poverty

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate. His regular appearances in this Chamber give us happiness, and we like to listen to him. It is good to be here again. I also congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on her speech.

Let me begin by mentioning the anniversary, last week, of the birth of Margaret Bondfield, who was born on 17 March 1873. As you well know, Mr Sharma, Margaret Bondfield was our nation’s first woman to serve in the Cabinet. Her life serves as a reminder to us all of how important it is for women to take leadership roles in politics. She was born in the south-west of England, and she knew and understood poverty in rural parts of our country. She moved to Brighton, where she worked as a shop worker—just like many women today work in retail. She saw how women workers were treated and she could not put up with it. She did not want to see women continuing to earn their poverty with little opportunity for change.

Margaret Bondfield became part of what is now the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. She worked her way up to become the first woman president of the TUC, before becoming a Cabinet Minister. I mention her because her life is a lesson on how we can stop women being poor. First things first: I hope the Minister agrees with me that we should put women in charge. However, it is not just about women being in charge but about what we do in this place for women. Margaret Bondfield campaigned for maternity benefits for mothers when that was seen as at the fringe of British politics, yet here we are talking about women’s poverty as an important issue that we all, from whatever party, care about.

I would like to make a number of points, particularly on the structural underpinnings of women’s poverty. We have heard a lot of granular detail from other speakers about the position of women in Britain today. Being a woman is a risk factor for being poor. All that we do to try to improve the position of women in British society is about taking apart those risk factors.

The central risk factor and the reason why women are put at risk of being poor is the historical economic assumption that care is done for free. Women’s work looking after children, older members of the family and people who need care has traditionally been assumed to be done for free. As I say, all we do to try to prevent women from being poor is about making that assumption less certain. We all want to look after our families, but we should not assume that women should do this double duty of going out to work to earn an income and doing the caring for free. That is why over the years we have seen consensus that we need more and better childcare in this country, as well as much better adult social care.

Reflecting on the Budget, I think the Chancellor’s announcement on childcare is welcome. I could make all the political arguments in the world about it being too slow and not enough, and I will ask the Minister some questions about the role of the Department for Work and Pensions in developing childcare in this country, but I am glad to have a cross-party consensus that we need to build up our childcare system, make it effective and make it anti-poverty, so that it helps support people who are most likely to be poor so that they earn enough to have dignity and a good quality of life.

On childcare, I ask the Minister what role the DWP plays, because we know the Department has to change. The national minimum wage provides a floor below which nobody who is working for a living should fall, but unfortunately pay progression has absolutely stalled. When we think of where women are and about their ability to leave low-paid work, we see that pay progression is crucial for them. Has the DWP undertaken a study or analysed universal credit data to work out how it can play its part in developing a workforce strategy that will not only support all women in our workforce, but ensure that those who work in childcare are not at risk of poverty? The same is true for adult social care—it has to change. It can no longer be the case that women who cared for people who were suffering with covid or who, in many cases, died during the pandemic are the same women who are being paid poverty wages and are at risk of having to go to a food bank. That is not morally right, and I would love to know what work the DWP is doing to prevent that.

Women’s rights at work have to be better. We know this from the lives of Margaret Bondfield, Barbara Castle, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and all those women who, from positions of leadership, have improved women’s ability to earn. We want to see flexible working as a day one right. Having seen some of the evidence from the US of the impact of sexual harassment on women’s incomes, I would be interested to know what analysis the DWP has done on whether women’s lack of rights is holding back their earning abilities.

On the gender pay gap, it was absolutely galling to see companies applauding themselves for being part of International Women’s Day and producing self-aggrandising content, when what we want to see is their gender pay gaps closing. We do not want woman of the year awards; we want better annual pay awards. Again, there is cross-party consensus that gender pay gap reporting has been a good thing, but we need to go further, and I hope the Government will support that.

Finally, on retirement, we have a shared ambition to increase the take-up of pension credit, which was introduced by the Labour Government to recognise that some people would have small pension entitlements, and that should be recognised. No one should be poor because they worked hard. Will the Minister say something about that? The take-up of pension credit is better for couples and worse for single people of both genders. Do we have any analysis as to why that is, and what can we do about it? Whether it is a parent of a young child, a parent of a teenager, or a woman in retirement, we want to make sure that step by step we remove all of the structural factors that make a woman a risk factor for being poor. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank each and every person who contributed. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and I are always in debates together. That is the nature of our lives; we probably have the same interests. We are very interested in these subjects. She said that women are impacted by austerity even more than men are. She referred to the figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and she reflected on the necessity of closing the gender pay gap. She spoke about split payments and said that it is time to name and shame, and I agree. If someone is not doing it right, they need to do it right, and they need to be reminded of that. She also referred to what is being done in Scotland. We are often reminded of things that the Scottish Government are doing, and today we were reminded again of some good points that we should be taking on board. She also referred to the gender pension gap, and to compensation. Like her, I feel strongly that there is an anomaly that has to be addressed.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) referred to those who keep homes together—mums and lone parents who look after the children. She referred to the pressure they are under and said that she sees that in her office, as we all do.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) brought a wealth of information to the debate. I really appreciated her contribution. She referred to Margaret—forgive me; I just could not make out the lady’s name.

[Alison McGovern]

Bondfield.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady. I asked the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran about it, but we could not make out the name. Margaret Bondfield set a trend for powerful women who made a difference. She became the first female president of the TUC and a Cabinet Minister. Those are the people who led the way —the pioneers—and it is important that we remember them.

The shadow Minister also referred to the gender pay gap and to those in retirement. She talked about the structural underpinnings for women. Those are all important objectives; that is what we should be trying to do. She also referred to the working poor. She spoke about looking after the home, earning an income and looking after families—the challenge for women is worse, and it is harder than that of the menfolk. She also said that women’s rights at work must be better, and she referred to flexible working. She made all those points well, and I really appreciated her contribution.

I thank the Minister, who came with a positive attitude. She said that everyone here was a passionate advocate for women’s rights—that includes her, by the way. Looking after children is an important role in itself, never mind keeping the home going, and she spoke about childcare caps for women in poverty. We welcome the childcare measures, as did the shadow Minister and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran. The Minister referred to the work that has been done to ensure that full-time working parents benefit. She talked about the need to help the low-paid and she mentioned mental health pressures, which we all brought up; she recognises where such support needs to be. She referred to the extra moneys that were set aside in the Budget for that, for the carer’s allowance—I have a massive interest in that—and for cost of living help. She referred to wellbeing and the menopause, and how women have to deal with many other things in their lives.

The Minister also referred to domestic abuse, as did the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, and to pension credit. We need to help people a wee bit more with attendance allowance and other benefits. I appreciate the Minister’s commitment. Sometimes what people need is just a wee bit of a nudge in the right direction. That is why when people come into the office, I always ask them what they are getting, so that we have an idea of what they should be getting but might not be. I think we can all be encouraged by the Minister’s response.

I say to everyone who took part, and particularly to the Minister, that I hope that with this debate we can move things forward for women in poverty across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I believe that we have a big task, but it is always easier when we have a Government and a Minister who are also committed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of support for women in poverty.

Social Mobility

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Robertson. I will try to be swift.

I obviously thank the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) for securing this timely debate, and I thank all the Members who have spoken. The right hon. Member began by mentioning the 2022 report of the Social Mobility Commission. However, since its publication the chair of the commission has given up her role and it is unclear what the future holds.

I am here on behalf of the shadow Department for Work and Pensions team, and the Minister is here representing DWP. Responsibility for social mobility has been passed from Education to Equalities and now to DWP. Over the past couple of years, that has suggested that it is an unloved policy area for which nobody really wants to take responsibility.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

I really wanted it!

[Alison McGovern]

I am sure the Minister did. But what exactly is going on? Part 1 of the Equalities Act 2010, which Parliament passed all those years ago, set out a public sector duty regarding socioeconomic inequalities that would have tackled, in a cross-cutting way, as ably described by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), all the issues that Members have mentioned today. That is its objective. Amazingly, the Conservative-Lib Dem Government and subsequent Conservative Governments have never brought that duty into force. We are left asking why.

However, as we are here with a DWP Minister and her shadow, I will just raise some points about the Department’s own policy areas. If it had that overarching duty to tackle socioeconomic inequality, it might not have adopted, as it has done for many years now, the policy of any job, better job, career. That policy has shaped the Department’s approach and has resulted in people being told to get any job, as if that was a route up or a route out of poverty. As we have heard from Member after Member today, it is simply no longer the case that work, by definition, provides a route out of poverty. It is also true, and the Government themselves know this from their own pay progression report, that getting any job is not a route to better pay.

We need new principles and new policies, not least because of the geographical impact of this issue. We know from the House of Commons Library’s analysis of the Social Mobility Commission’s previous rankings that 77% of constituencies in London are in the top 20% of social mobility constituencies by metric, whereas the corresponding figure for the west midlands falls to 14%, for the east midlands 9%, for the north-west 8%, for Yorkshire and the Humber 7%, and for the south-west just 2%. Of the top-ranking areas for social mobility, 77% are London constituencies and just 2% are in the south-west. Geography is at the heart of this.

Exactly what steps is DWP going to take to clarify the role of the Social Mobility Commission? What data will be made available to this House and when on the current state of social mobility in this country? Precisely what targets are the Government now setting? What is the future for the commission’s metrics—it seems to have veered between different ones—and its report? And what action will DWP take immediately to stop forcing people to take jobs that, as several Members have said, are likely to make them struggle with social mobility and not achieve their ambitions?

Social mobility cannot just be a talking point for us politicians; it has to be about genuine hard work to shift the opportunities in our countries. I am afraid that the Tories and the Lib Dems saw this as a way out in 2011: they wanted to end the child poverty goal and to put something fluffy about social mobility in its place. But passing a non-specific goal from Department to Department is kidology—it will never work. We need a real effort for change. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston has already said how the Labour party will do that. The first thing that we will do is to enact part 1 of the Equalities Act 2010 and take real action against class discrimination and put in place policies to bring it to an end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mims Davies]

The support for all groups, no matter their background or where they are, is exemplified by hon. Friend pointing out that particular group. I am happy to come forward with further information on that, including cross-Government work.

The Government remain committed to all aspects of life, from education to work and later life, and to having a comprehensive suite of measures in place to achieve social mobility. The challenges laid down today are very welcome, because we have heard about different experiences in the different corners of Britain. Yesterday I visited Sandwell, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton and central Birmingham to discuss how our DWP support, youth offer and work with the third sector and local partnerships is making a difference in our communities.

I do not agree with the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on the ABC—any job, better job, career—approach. Throughout the engagement that I had yesterday, it was consistently said to me that the skills, confidence and network that that gives people are transformative. As we have all spoken about today, you have to start somewhere.

[Alison McGovern]

It is great to hear the Minister’s contribution, and I know she cares deeply about this issue. If she has evidence of the efficacy of that policy approach, will she place it in the Library of the House of Commons?

[Mims Davies]

We are doing some work on the impact of the kickstart scheme and how getting a job and progressing is leading young people to stay in work. There will be further information coming, and I will always share that with the hon. Lady.

In my conversations yesterday, I heard how adverse childhood experiences such as bereavement, poor attainment at school and other issues have impacted on young people’s confidence and opportunities, and on their experiences in adulthood. It demonstrates the critical point made in the Chamber this afternoon about the importance of getting education right and, above all, getting the Government’s lifetime skills guarantee right. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford rightly said, education and skills have a massive impact. I absolutely agree that local colleges are among the most socially mobile and able connectors in terms of what they achieve, and I applaud the work that goes on in colleges. Spreading opportunity for every child and young person is a top priority, because their talent should contribute to where they end up.

I am concerned by the point made by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) about job opportunities being hidden behind paywalls. As the former Employment Minister, and as the Minister for Youth, I worry about those opportunities. I thank him for raising that point. I ask those sectors that often approach the Government about being more socially mobile and more open to look at themselves. This is not a finger-pointing exercise, but those that continue to recruit in the same way often end up with the same people around the table. If that is excluding people, let us look at those recruitment basics.

The Government are investing in 55 education investment areas where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest, including £86 million in trust capacity funding to support and expand areas of improvement. That will help my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) in terms of his reading ask. I will meet my parliamentary neighbour, the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), shortly and will raise the issue of reading confidence. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington use the O-word—opportunities. We are absolutely trying to spread opportunities.

The Department for Education is delivering a clearer skills system that is employer focused, high quality and fit for the future, which is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford, who set up the debate so well, asked for. If only we had had time for a longer debate. We should get this subject into the main Chamber and spend more time on it. I would be very happy to respond to it—that is another commitment from me today.

The Social Mobility Commission has said that apprenticeships are among the best mechanisms to help employers build that diverse, talented, wide-ranging workforce, as well as to tackle the skills shortage. Many apprentices earn more than graduates five years after completion. Average graduate earnings five years after graduation are £28,200, compared with £30,900 for level 4 apprentices five years after completion. That is a lesson to us all to promote filling the skills gaps with apprenticeships.

DWP has progression leads in our jobcentres to help people. I recognise that some people work all the hours God sends but still find it difficult to make ends meet. Our progression leads work with our claimants, partner organisations, local authorities, local employers and small and medium-sized enterprises, to make sure that people are able to progress in work.

I had a very engaging meeting with leading employers during the week of International Women’s Day, to talk about the barriers and to focus on interventions. I will meet the Social Mobility Pledge team, including our former parliamentary colleague, Justine Greening, to discuss her mission. She is doing a brilliant job. DWP also has the social mobility commitment, pledge and consortium, of which 60 employers are a part.

It has been such a pleasure to respond to today’s debate, because this week is the DWP’s inaugural social mobility week—a week of action and engagement in our Department, with colleagues across the country working out how to tackle any barriers and to focus on social mobility. That includes being a national employer and giving our customers aspirations and goals. We are looking at things such as caring responsibilities, and I will host a session on Thursday. We are also looking at subjects such as accent bias and recruitment bias. I hope that reassures the hon. Member for Wirral South.

Throughout the debate, we have seen that social mobility is a key priority and I hope I have shown my passion for it. We will break down the barriers. No matter what someone’s background is, we can cater for every single circumstance. Everybody, like us, should have the opportunities to succeed.

Single-Parent Families

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan) on securing this important debate. She made a very good speech, highlighting many of the issues that single parents face. We also heard strong contributions from the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Glasgow East (David Linden), who ran through a number of important issues.

My nan, who died in August, was made a single parent at the age of 40 by the sad death of my grandfather when my mum was 14. I saw her work her fingers to the bone for years. That is the main message of my contribution today: single parents in this country work so hard. They work hard to care for their kids and to bring them up really well, despite the odds sometimes being stacked against them, and they work really hard in their job, committing and offering their skills and talents, because they know that they have to work harder to get the same recognition. Single parents in the United Kingdom work really hard, and I think it is incumbent on the Government to support them a little better than is the case at the moment. It is with hope that I say that single parents work really hard and ought to be backed by the Government. I am pretty sure that the Minister will agree with that sentiment. It is a cross-party idea that single parents are deserving of our support, and I hope that he will agree with that, too.

Hon. Members have raised important issues about the Child Maintenance Service—what it does and does not do, how that could be improved and, if it were improved, how that would help with incomes. Members also raised matters relating to domestic abuse. We know that too many people are struggling and that, sometimes, the way the state operates does not help. But I want to focus on single parents in work, because, despite recent decreases in their employment, a large majority of single parents are working.

The Government often say that employment is the best route out of poverty. I worry that that is not true at the moment. I think we should want it to be true—I think that everyone deserves employment with dignity, self-respect and a decent pay packet. That is true for single parents just as it is for everybody else. Unfortunately, at the moment, 41% of children in working single-parent families are in poverty, including 27% of families where the parent is working full time and 54% where the parent is working part time. We have known for years that being part of a single-parent family puts a child at much greater risk of poverty, even where their parent is working hard. That is why we need to focus on the areas where we can remove barriers to work for single parents and, at the same time, think about how to get them better-paid jobs and help them to do more with their skills, so that their time and talent are not wasted.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady on her excellent contribution. One issue, which the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) mentioned, is childcare. We hope that in the Budget tomorrow the Chancellor of the Exchequer might announce some extra help with that. Without that help, single parents are under even more severe financial pressure than other families, so that is really important.

[Alison McGovern]

Yes. If you are a single parent and you are on an income that is too low, what do you do? There are only so many hours in the day and somebody needs to care for the children while you are at work. Without a really good childcare system in this country, single-parent families are always going to be behind everybody else. There are myriad reasons why we need to sort childcare in the United Kingdom, and this is one of the key features. We have a shortage of people in the labour market, so we cannot let anybody’s time or talent go to waste.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. The sad reality for many single parents is that working in even a very good job does not pay enough to make them better off than they would be if they stayed at home, because of the cost of childcare. For many parents, that is at the root of their ability not even to work and thrive, but just to survive.

[Alison McGovern]

Of course, the hon. Lady is right. The knock-on effect for British businesses is really quite big, because they are missing out on all the talent that exists in single-parent families.

The United Kingdom has a good story on single-parent employment, which has been on a generally upward trend since the mid-1990s, having previously been falling since 1979. In 1997, 45% of single parents worked; by 2010, that had risen by 12 percentage points to 57%. I am not sure what happened between 1997 and 2010, but I think it was probably quite good.

That was obviously a bit of a joke about the Labour Government and how they were brilliant on lone-parent employment, particularly in relation to jobcentres, which I will come to. The numbers have continued to grow, which is good; again, I hope that represents a cross-party consensus. Worryingly, however, single-parent employment has fallen since 2019. We need to focus on it again and work out how to turn that around.

Single parents are also likely to be underemployed. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), many single parents could do more and offer more to our economy if childcare were available. We know that single parents are more likely to be women, and the kind of work that women are more likely to do militates against their having better pay. We need to work on employment segregation. The jobs that women do mean they end up being paid less, which has a massive knock-on effect on single parents. If we could change that so that women’s time and talent were valued properly, as they should be in our economy, we would give single parents and, crucially, their children a much better chance.

Childcare has been mentioned because it is the glaringly obvious cause of many of the challenges that single parents face in our economy. The Institute for Fiscal Studies points out that there are at least eight different programmes to help with the cost of childcare and many families are eligible for more than one form of support simultaneously. That complexity makes it hard to understand what someone is eligible for. However, despite the plethora of schemes, the supply of childcare is not really any good, because there are failures in the way that the schemes run.

We need to have a root-and-branch look at childcare. We are all hopeful that we might hear something in the Budget. There are things, such as reforming the way it works through universal credit, that we could have done already. Labour wants to invest in breakfast clubs, which could be funded by savings that we have identified from changing tax arrangements for non-doms. That would help single parents to do a job that starts at 9 am and give them a lot more flexibility.

In addition to the extremely important issue of childcare, our success as a nation in helping single parents to have a choice of jobs and success in employment was driven by Jobcentre Plus services. In recent years, I have worried that the focus on supporting single parents has declined. I hope that is not the case, but we need to make improvements. Gingerbread found recently that just a third of single parents agreed that contact with Jobcentre Plus was personalised and relevant to their specific situation. That is not great. Lone parents face specific barriers, and they need specialised support. Gingerbread found a lack of continuity in relationships with work coaches, and that people were being pushed to apply for unsuitable jobs. That is problematic. We know that Jobcentre Plus works best when it provides tailored and specific support.

Of course, we also need workplaces to change, with more part-time and flexible working. Will the Minister say how he sees the DWP making that happen? Do the Department’s own flexible working policies support single parents? What does the Department advise work coaches to suggest to employers on flexible or part-time work to support single parents? There is a huge amount of skill and life experience available to businesses, if only they can ensure that the employment they are offering is fully inclusive. There is no better time to address this. We have businesses crying out for staff. Why not look for talent in single-parent families?

We await tomorrow’s Budget, and I live in hope that we will see expansive, brilliant childcare reform that will really help—I am slightly sceptical after 13 years in this place, although perhaps my Pollyanna-ish tendencies should be tempered with a bit more scepticism—but whatever happens tomorrow, we also need action far beyond childcare, including reform to the support that Jobcentre Plus offers; improved public transport, because fewer single parents are likely to have their own car; and big changes on flexible working, so that everybody is fully included. In this time of staff shortages, making employment more inclusive and ensuring that it involves more people would be a big win, which could help our labour market to be sustainable into the future. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say as a precursor to tomorrow’s excitement.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Pollyanna-ish is the word of the day. I call the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is always a joy at Question Time to hear Labour MPs supporting Labour policy, but even more so to hear Conservative MPs supporting Labour’s policy of localising our efforts to get people back to work. On that, may I ask the Secretary of State something? I have been listening to what he has said, and I know that he will not pre-empt the details of the inactivity review, but can he just confirm that one of its objectives will be to rebalance our economy, particularly in this connection between health and labour supply?

[Mel Stride]

That is at the heart of our manifesto, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Sorry, Mr Speaker! Where did I get that from? It is a sign of the times. Right at the heart of our manifesto, and of the Government’s raison d’être, is the need to make sure that we level up communities across the United Kingdom. Of course, our action will take many forms, but one of them is most certainly the support that we will provide to make sure that, up and down the country, there is equality among those seeking work, and those who are economically inactive, and that they have the same opportunities.

Labour Market Activity

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate, but particularly my friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Ealing North (James Murray), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). I thought they all made comprehensive and excellent cases in support of a Labour Government.

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

I am not sure the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) did.

[Alison McGovern]

I do apologise. I had written down the hon. Member for Glasgow South West. He can, I am sure, opine on his opinions about the possibility of a Labour Government at a later date, but I had included him in my list of friends.

On the subject of a Labour Government, I have served in opposition for 12 years and nine months—just three months shy of the age of the last Labour Government —and I am not proud of having been in opposition for that long, because it has been painful to watch events in our country and know that too often voting in this House on behalf of my constituents can do little in reality to help them.

I have learned a few things, having been here for 12 years and taking part in many debates on our country’s economy. I have learned that whenever the Tories are criticised on their economic record, they rely again and again not on their own record, but on a cheat sheet handed out to them by the Whips. On employment, there is one thing in particular that they always come out with: according to them, every Labour Government have left office with unemployment higher than when they started—so they tell us, as if the food banks do not matter and as if child poverty does not matter.

Were this a unique failing of Labour Governments, it might be a serious charge, but the problem for those on the Government Benches and the thing they never tell us is that it is not; the very same accusation is also true of Tory Governments, and we have had a lot more Tory Governments about which that is true. The record of the Conservative party on unemployment is far worse than that of the Labour party. This ridiculous accusation about Labour Governments that I have heard again and again over 12 years in trying to defend the indefensible reveals a political truth about work: Governments who are not able to respond to events and who are not seen to help people do better at work do not last long.

I bet I know what it says next on the Whips handout, and we have heard it again today. It will say, “Unemployment is at a record low of 1.2 million people, or 3.7%.” Historically speaking, and taken technically, the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment looks low, but that figure hides a multitude of sins in our economy—1.7 million of them, to be precise. That is the number who, despite our so-called low unemployment, want a job, do not have a job, but are not actively looking right now. It is classified as inactivity, but I say that if it looks like people are being given up on, it does not matter what kind of unemployment it is; it is still throwing people on the scrapheap, at the very time our country needs them most.

Those 1.7 million people include parents who cannot get childcare, women over 50, more than 50,000 of whom are looking after a loved one, and far too many people who are ill and on waiting lists and their carers, knackered out by not being able to get the support they need. I thought we heard compellingly from my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish about the impact of long covid and the Government’s failings. We also heard with absolute clarity from the hon. Member for Leicester West about how this issue is not just damaging our economy, but is a feminist case for change.

We have altogether nearly 3 million people out of work, and all those people will be right to wonder if the Tories, as usual, have given up on them, because the theme of Conservative Governments over the past 12 years since 2010 is of slowly giving up—giving up on building the living standards they promised and building opportunities across the whole country; giving up on increasing productivity as they promised; giving up on older people, ill people and disabled people; and, giving up on building back better and levelling up. All their empty words never had substance. More importantly, they never had belief in the British people, while demanding that the British people believed in them.

In 2015, the Conservative manifesto promised to deliver the highest employment rate in the G7, but mysteriously that commitment disappeared from future manifestos. In 2017, the Conservative manifesto pledged to get 1 million more people with disabilities into employment over the next 10 years. The 2019 manifesto removed that target and replaced it with something vague, and something vague is all that people with disabilities have had. There are three-word slogans all the time, yet all we get is very little help.

The truth is that, whatever recent changes to our economy have been caused by the pandemic, we have deep flaws in this country that have been created by previous generations of Tories and made worse by the current crop. On skills, because of long-standing low ambition, we have 5 million people lacking basic skills, but now, to make matters worse, nearly one in five people are working below their skill level, including 27% of people in London. In our nation’s capital—our so-called success story—27% of people are working below their skill level. What a waste of time, what a waste of talent, and what a waste of our country’s potential.

On care, childcare is unaffordable and unavailable, and social care is in chaos, leading to the dreadful situation—as I have said, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West made this case—of women’s economic progress going backwards.

On disabilities, never mind creating the inclusive workplace that we need, the Government cannot even get the basics right. Crucially, everyone can see that some places in our country are still suffering from dreadful unemployment—actual ILO statistical unemployment —despite the UK picture. From Blackpool to Peterborough, the Tories are ignoring the very places they claimed they would level up.

But who cares if some places fall further behind and who cares if people are too sick to work, as long as the headline numbers look okay, eh? Money has been thrown at kickstart and restart, but we have seen no real progress and no real learning—just a waste of time, money and effort. Does anyone believe that if there was real commitment from the Government there would now be the ability to deliver after 12 years of failure? I do not even think there is such commitment any more; nor even the pretence of it. We have wasted time and talent, and broken communities everywhere, because the Tories have given up now. They have given up on people, as we have seen from their failed schemes. They have given up on places, as we have seen from the towns and cities that have fallen further behind. They have given up on skills and growth, and given up on government. It is a triumph of not caring.

I tell you one thing, Madam Deputy Speaker, if 12 years in opposition has taught me anything, it has taught me never to give up, and that is why we will not. We will not give up on our towns and cities. We will not give up on the fact that our country needs proper care, childcare and social care, and we will not give up on disabled people. Harold Wilson said that unemployment above all else made him political. Anyone who grew up in Merseyside before the advent of the last Labour Government knows exactly what he meant, and this is personal to me. We will not stand by any longer and see low ambition and the tick-box culture of the Tory DWP run people down. We are bigger and better than that as a nation. If the Government think that a few attack lines from the Tory Whips Office will keep them going until the general election, I say, “Bring it on!”

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I think the Secretary of State should be embarrassed today, what with the Prime Minister scrabbling around to reannounce tiny bits of funding to put a sticking plaster over the levels of mental ill health in our country in order to distract attention from the dreadful behaviour of his colleagues. The Secretary of State has mentioned the Access to Work scheme, and we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) just how difficult it is to gain access to that scheme at present and to secure an award. One would be forgiven for thinking that nothing works in this country, not even the schemes that are supposed to help people to obtain work. Will the Secretary of State tell us how many people are currently waiting for Access to Work to help them?

[Mel Stride]

I would be very happy to write to the hon. Lady on exactly how many people are waiting for access to that scheme. We should not in any way play down the importance of the Access to Work scheme, which is highly successful and provides up to nine months of support for those who badly need it. On recent announcements being made on the hoof, as the hon. Lady seemed to suggest, we have been supporting those in such situations for many years and have made much progress over so many years to get those with mental health issues and wider disabilities into employment.

[Alison McGovern]

The Secretary of State says that we should not play down the importance of Access to Work, but he does not even know how many people are waiting for a decision. The charity Scope says that the number of disabled people waiting for a decision on their award in March 2022 was nearly 21,000. That is an increase of 327% on the same point the previous year. That is dreadful. Nothing works in this country. When will the Secretary of State sort it out?

[Mel Stride]

I stand by, and make no apology for, our record on encouraging disabled people back into work. We were set a target for dramatically increasing the employment level for disabled people by 2027. We met that target of 1 million new disabled people in work a full five years early. I think that record speaks for itself.