British Sign Language Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

How wonderful that you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you represent Doncaster School for the Deaf, which is one of the oldest deaf schools in the country since 1829. How wonderful to be here to speak on the Bill on behalf of the Opposition with my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper). As she said, she is not famed for her patience, but she is famed for her determination. How wonderful, too, to have been one of the Merseyside kids who learned to finger spell, as I did in the early 1990s. Until today, I never realised that I had her to thank for it.

The stories that my hon. Friend tells of her mum and dad echo across this country, in which working-class talent has too often been written off because of a loss not on their part, but as part of a structural flaw in our society. Every step, like today, on the journey towards equality offers us all a better hope of using all our talents not just for individual gain, but in service of our wonderful country.

I want to pay tribute, as so many Members across the House have, to all those who have campaigned long and hard for a British Sign Language Bill that would provide the legal recognition that the language deserves. I say to all those who have led campaigns up and down the country, right across the United Kingdom, that their potential success, which we begin today, is a credit to their work. I know that all Members join me in that thanks and celebration. At the last two general elections, the Labour party manifesto committed to legislating for a BSL Act and to giving the legal recognition that the language deserves, and we are very pleased that the Government are backing the Bill today.

All too often, as we have heard, deaf people and BSL users are not provided with the support that they need. Throughout society, we impose far too many barriers on the use of British Sign Language that need not be there. As a result, the deaf community live with worse outcomes and life chances that could be so much better. That includes the failure to provide the correct support in schools, which harms children’s outcomes, or the inability of NHS services to provide qualified and registered BSL interpreters at appointments. That means, as we have heard so often, that people are put in situations that they do not want to be in, where family and friends have to act as an interpreter, which is just not appropriate, or people leave appointments unclear about a diagnosis or how they should take their medication. Those clear examples demonstrate why the Bill matters.

Legal recognition can be a powerful moment to raise the status of British Sign Language across the UK, but the Bill can do much more than that. The Opposition fully support the mechanisms in the Bill to publish guidance to Government Departments and public bodies and give them clear, objective standards.

I will not say much more except to agree with the many and good contributions that have been made. It would be great if the Minister said a bit about how the Government will implement the Bill. I know that many in the deaf community will want to hear her say how she will continue her work with them to make this the beginning of a journey that will fundamentally change our country.

The Bill commits Departments to review their implementation of the guidance as set out in the Bill, and it would be great if the Minister also confirmed some details about publishing that so that we can see the path ahead and, as has been mentioned, how it will interact with the national disability strategy. We also want to see the Bill progress swiftly through Committee and make progress in Parliament without delay—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State is nodding and I thank her for it. People outside this House will see our joint determination on this issue.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for West Ham (Ms Brown), who made excellent contributions from the Opposition side of the House, and to all the Members who have joined together today to send a message about the change that we want to see. I want to say how proud we are of the deaf community for winning this fight and for the journey that our country will go on.

I say, lastly, to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire that Merseyside today is very proud of her. Atheist though I am, I cannot comment on the Almighty, but I can say that all kinds of Scousers, plastic and otherwise —that is, people from Birkenhead—are exceedingly proud of her. I know that if her mum and dad were in the Public Gallery right now looking down on her, they simply could not be more proud. Let her example spur on every single campaigner for equality in our country. Sometimes progress happens; this is what it looks like.

Cost of Living

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship in this important debate, Mrs Cummins, and I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on having secured it. It is a fairly obvious truth that there are things that really matter to our country, and the subject of today’s debate is one of them. There are also things that are embarrassing and we wish we did not have to talk about, and frankly the sorry state of Downing Street is one of those, so I am glad to be here in this debate, talking about something that really matters.

The cost of living crisis that we are facing is going to come to a crunch this year, but let us be honest: it has been a problem for the past decade. When a country has had slow or no growth for a decade, and when wages are held down while prices rise, that will cause a problem for the vast majority of families in that country. Those who are in the worst financial situations face the indignity of having a food bank parcel where their shopping should be, unlike every other normal family in this country. It is outrageous that 2.5 million of our fellow citizens, including half a million children, are in that position. That is not the product of events that have happened in the global markets in recent times; it is the product of 10 years of lost economic growth, and 10 years of lost progress on tackling poverty in this country. That is why we are here today.

[Jim Shannon]

As we look at the rise of referrals to food banks, it is important to note that a different category is increasing: those in the middle class are also squeezed now. We are finding that more and more people are under the cosh of prices. We all know how important the role of food banks is, but the Government have to recognise that this crisis is greater than it ever was before.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and to a degree, I agree with him: any of us could end up needing to go to a food bank. This can happen to any of us, but important though food banks have become, I want a Government that seek to end the need for them. Is that too much to ask? Do we just have to accept food banks as a permanent feature of our country now, or might we one day have a Government that set out to end the need for them?

As much as I agree with some of the points made by colleagues from the SNP, I have to challenge them. How are they going to meet their own goal set in 2017 of child poverty reduction? It was made without qualification. We all want to see an end to child poverty and therefore it is important that that goal is met. I feel strongly that the Tories in Westminster made the wrong choice in getting rid of Labour’s national goal to end child poverty and wiping the Child Poverty Act 2010 from the statute book. It is equally important that those who have made commitments to the people of Scotland stick to them.

[Marion Fellows]

The way the Scottish Government will do this is through independence and the control of our own economic levers—it is as simple as that. We make commitments and we hope to be able to achieve them, because then we can do things the way they should be done and in the way that is best for people in Scotland.

[Alison McGovern]

I look forward to hearing how that is going to work. I think the way to tackle poverty everywhere in the United Kingdom is through co-operation and the use of the redistributive force of the United Kingdom Treasury. Members rightly mention the bad impact of the botched Brexit deal on our country’s economic fortunes. I would hate to see any part of our country go through the same thing with the loss of access to the United Kingdom single market, so I look forward to hearing more in future debates about how that will work.

I turn to the UK Government and the issue of inflation. Members have mentioned that the headline inflation rate in no way represents the specific forces of inflation that are faced by those with the least. I think people who suffer poverty must be some of the finest economists in the country, because they are able to monitor prices and make every penny they have stretch further when they need to. The Government should take some responsibility here. What has the Minister asked of the Office for National Statistics, in respect of its measuring and reporting, so that we can know exactly what situation is faced by the people who have the least in this country?

I point the Minister to the comments of the chief executive of Iceland, who says that he is losing customers not to his competitors but to food banks. That should tell the Minister that we really do have a problem with prices in this country that cannot simply be understood from the headline rate of inflation.

Secondly, on work, does the Minister accept that whatever the intention of a jobs plan that set aside £9 billion for a job retention grant that was then cancelled; whatever the intention of a jobs plan that had a kickstart programme that was supposed to get jobs for 250,000 of our young people but failed to do so; and whatever the intention of a jobs plan that was supposed to bring older people back to the workforce, given the level of vacancies in our country now, that jobs plan was a failure?

Does he further accept that when it comes to people’s wages—the other side of the cost of living crisis—a crucial part of the problem is that people have too little choice about the job they do? The OBR says that one in five people is working below their skill level. They could get a better job, but they have not. The Government have much more to do to improve people’s prospects at work. I would bet the Minister agrees that the best route out of poverty is work. Why do we have a Tory Government that are failing to get people jobs that can pay for their bills and shopping? It is an outrageous situation.

Finally, I turn to some of the other ways in which people need help. If we think about people’s ability to earn more, some of the things that are holding them back are those facts about our economy that we have known about for far too long. The childcare system in this country is expensive and complicated. What steps has the Minister taken to simplify it? People trying to make ends meet on a lone parent’s income, for example, are limited by the cost of childcare and whether it is available at all. I think again of the one in five people who work below their skill level. A lot of them have caring responsibilities for children or older relatives and cannot work longer hours in their jobs because they do not have care support. What conversations has the Minister had about solving that?

I also want to mention the simple fact that in too many parts of our country it is hard to get around on public transport. The price of buses has gone through the roof in recent years, and in some parts of the country people cannot travel to a job because there is no public transport. Yes, the price of motoring has gone up, but it is hard to get a better job if someone relies on public transport in areas that have too little.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that too few people are members of trade unions in this country, and that limits their ability to bargain for better wages.

The Labour party has put forward some simple, compelling and obvious ways in which the Government could take steps today to tackle the cost of living crisis. Whether it is cutting VAT on fuel or extending the warm home grant through a windfall tax on oil and gas, we know there are steps that we can take now. However, I want to hear from the Minister about the bigger structural changes that we need to fundamentally shift our economy so that every family in this country can truly make ends meet.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mrs Cummins, and to see your wonderful smiling face. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on securing the debate. It has been a lively one on important issues, but it was brightened up by the wonderful tie of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas).

The Government are taking the present challenges of those on low incomes very seriously. The pandemic has been challenging for many people. We acted quickly to put in place unprecedented levels of support during this period, as has been highlighted by some Members today. After yesterday’s debate, it feels a little like groundhog day discussing these issues today, but they are important. As was highlighted yesterday, given the current cost-of-living challenges, we in the Government are actively working on the best way to build on the existing support that is available. I hope that will reassure the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who raised points on this, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives.

Since the pandemic started, we have spent more than £400 billion on protecting people’s jobs and livelihoods and supporting businesses and public services. There has been unprecedented welfare support. Universal credit has stood up to the challenge of covid-19, providing a vital safety net for 6 million people. We must thank the hard-working staff at the Department for Work and Pensions, including the thousands of work coaches across all our constituencies, who worked tirelessly to ensure that the benefits system did its job. Many of them are the pandemic’s unsung heroes. I hope that we make an extra effort to thank them when we perform our constituency duties over the weeks ahead, if we have not done so already.

[Alison McGovern]

I just want to add that whatever the policy disagreements between our parties, I agree wholeheartedly that those who work for the DWP, particularly on the frontline, deserve all our thanks.

[David Rutley]

I am grateful for that comment. The hon. Lady did not have to say that; I know her well enough to know that she feels that way. We have differences over policy, but we know we have very dedicated public servants in the UK and Scottish Governments who are committed to addressing the issues, and we are grateful for their work.

It is also important to highlight the fact that our successful vaccine programme is providing us with the protection to fight the virus in all its forms. Although we need to remain cautious, the latest labour market statistics show that time and again we have made positive decisions during the pandemic. As we have shown throughout the pandemic, the Government will do what it takes to support people who are struggling financially. Supporting vulnerable people in our society is of paramount importance to me, our Secretary of State and the Government.

The proportion of Government spending that goes on welfare reflects a strong commitment to the poorest in society. This year, we will invest more than £250 billion through the welfare system, including £110 billion on people of working age. That rightly provides an important safety net. We also take notice of the clear evidence that work, particularly where it is full time, plays an essential role in reducing the risk of poverty. With our economic recovery continuing, it is right to focus our attention on getting people back into work.

The latest job figures tell a positive story. A record number of people are now in payroll employment in the UK, with 23,000 people added to the payroll in Scotland in December alone. The UK has a buoyant labour market, with 1.25 million vacancies. That figure is has increased by 33,000, or 2.7%, on the month, and by 462,000, or 58.9%, since the start of the pandemic, offering people opportunities to secure a job, progress in work and increase their earnings. Current estimates show that the number of online job adverts in Scotland alone has risen by 13.3% since the start of the pandemic. To help people take advantage of those vacancies, our extended multibillion-pound plan for jobs will help people across the UK find work and boost their wages and prospects.

The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) will probably shake her head at this point, but we are making real progress. We have opened 150 temporary job centres; I had the honour of opening the most recent one in Macclesfield last Friday. We have recruited 13,500 work coaches. They make a difference because they care about individuals, often meeting them face-to-face—increasingly so as we come out of the pandemic. There are 1,200 extra work coaches in Scotland, helping with this vital task.

We are also investing in our young people through the kickstart scheme: 112,000 young people have started a life-changing six-month work placement, and 10,000 of those starts were in Scotland.

[Alison McGovern]

It was supposed to be 250,000 by now. Given what the Minister just said, what accounts for the gap?

[David Rutley]

There are more vacancies available, and we are encouraging people to take them up across the country, in Scotland as well. The scheme has seen real success in turning people’s lives around. There are further opportunities in the months ahead for people to get involved with that important programme.

It does not stop there, because we want to ensure that we help address some of the gaps in the workforce that were highlighted yesterday: in hospitality, health and social care, and technology. Sector-based work academies help people to get new skills and a guaranteed job interview at the end of their placement.

I also recognise, along with many others here, the immense value that older workers bring to the workforce. That is why the DWP is providing specific funding for that cohort. There is funding available for the over-50s to get tailored Jobcentre Plus support, to help them find work and build on skills to get into the workforce.

In addition, to support those jobseekers who are out of work for 12 months or more, our Restart scheme provides intensive support to help claimants in England and Wales find jobs in their local area, which I am sure will be welcomed across the Chamber today. Through regular contact with all participants, providers will develop a strong understanding of the individual’s employment history, skills, aspirations and support needs to help each one succeed. That will break down the employment barriers holding claimants back from finding work.

I remind hon. Members that the DWP is focused on helping people to increase their income by progressing in work. We often talk about the importance of getting people into work, but we are equally committed to helping people progress in work and move ahead with their career aspirations. We will shortly respond to Baroness McGregor-Smith’s report on in-work progression and set out our approach. I hope that will be welcomed by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who was concerned about that issue.

Universal credit incentivises work as part of its design. With that in mind, we have gone further to make work pay, as has been referred to, by cutting universal credit taper rates from 63% to 55%, and increasing universal credit work allowances by £500 a year. That is essentially a tax cut for the lowest paid in society, worth around £2.2 billion in 2022-23. That means that 1.9 million households will keep, on average, around an extra £1,000 a year. In addition, from April 2022, we will boost the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50, which is ahead of inflation and worth another £1,000 each year to workers on the lowest pay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now welcome the shadow Minister to her new post. I call Alison McGovern.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. People across the country who have had a really hard time at work in the past year need DWP Ministers focused on their jobs. It will not have escaped your notice that it was reported over the weekend that the DWP has joined the last Christmas naughty list of Whitehall lock-ins during lockdown, but it is not me the Secretary of State should be apologising to—it is the more than 100,000 young people who will not be helped by the time the underperforming kickstart scheme comes to a close before Christmas. So may I ask the Minister: when kickstart comes to a halt and thousands of young people still need help, what then?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and welcome her to her post. I know that she has a strong interest in young people in every constituency doing as well as they can. Kickstart has not underperformed. Let us be honest: more than 112,000 young people have joined the programme. Of course, when we created the programme, we expected an unemployment level of perhaps 12%; it is just over 4%. Let us focus on the outcomes for those young people, which we are tracking carefully. We are linking up with the Department for Education to ensure that the traineeships and apprenticeships are there.

I know that visiting her jobcentre is on the hon. Lady’s to-do list. When she does so, I am sure she will hear amazing stories about what is happening to young people locally.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab) [V]]

The best reason to shut down food banks that I ever heard was given to me by a woman who ended up starting her own food co-operative—a mum of four. Following the Osborne benefit cuts, money was just too tight. She was advised to go to the local food bank, but when she got there, she sat outside and cried. She could not go in; she just could not do it. That is why no one in our country should have to beg for food, and why there has been public outrage about child hunger during this crisis. It is wrong.

However, today’s debate is not about Marcus Rashford’s child food poverty campaign; it is not about scrappy food parcels, or whether a child ought to be able to survive for two weeks on dry pasta and a loaf of white bread. Today’s debate is a result of what happens if we ask ourselves why that campaign exists at all. It is a result of daring to ask the bigger question: “Why do we have food banks in our country?” If we ask ourselves what the cause of poverty is, we reach the following conclusion: too many people have jobs that pay too little, or for family reasons cannot work enough to pay for the necessities of life. This trend has been exacerbated greatly by the covid-19 pandemic, but it was set from 2010 onwards. Rising self-employment and uncertain, often low, income have undermined our battle against low pay; covid has made this 100 times worse, and many of those facing poverty are families with only one wage coming in, or where disability affects work prospects. That is why the social security system needs to support them, and make sure the indignity of food banks is no more.

What is the truth about social security today, and why does it fail to protect? Child benefit—the most dependable, easy-to-process family support—was cut in real terms by 22% from 2010 to the end of the decade. Proportionally, that was the largest welfare cut of all, and it fell on our children, meaning that all families with children have been squeezed for a decade. For those in low-paid work, the consequences have been severe, as we have heard from other Members. That is why we should welcome the extra money for families in this crisis, which went some way towards addressing the problems created over the past 10 years. I want the Government to go much further now, with no third or fourth child being sent the message by our country that the state does not care about them. Every child should be invested in through child benefit, and should never have to see their parents in distress because of an enforced visit to a food bank.

The contribution principle that Beveridge set up in our social security system is being undermined. We pay in when we are able and we take out when we need, but a generation is now being robbed of that promise. If the Minister does not know this, let me tell him that the anxieties we face in childhood echo on through our lives; they never leave us. That is why protecting our children is always the right thing to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

There are multiple questions there. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already responded by introducing the new job support scheme, which he updated for particular sectors, thinking of tier 3 in England, to extend even further the furlough scheme. It is clear that this Government are doing what is needed. In terms of the other things that the hon. Gentleman mentions, he will be aware that I continue to have regular discussions with my Treasury colleagues on the best way that we can help to support people during this pandemic.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

What recent assessment she has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of child poverty.

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

This Government’s unprecedented support package has supported the poorest working households the most, with Her Majesty’s Treasury’s analysis showing that the poorest 10% of working households have seen no income reduction, owing to the fast action taken by this Government in responding to the pandemic, including a £9.3 billion injection into the welfare system.

[Alison McGovern]

The problem with the Minister’s answer is that this crisis is only revealing problems with policies that we knew were there already. Members of this House are against it; members of faith communities are against it; leading charities are against it; and now Marcus Rashford is campaigning against it. So what is the Minister going to do to end the two-child policy for universal credit once and for all?

[Will Quince]

The two-child policy in universal credit is one of fundamental fairness, and it means that those who are in receipt of benefits should be in the same position as those who are not. I am not a particular football fan, but I certainly know Marcus Rashford’s name now, and I congratulate him on his MBE. We welcome the establishment of the taskforce and will carefully consider its recommendations as we approach the spending review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

We strive for 100% accuracy with high quality, objective, fair and accurate assessments. All our assessors are health professionals and experts in understanding the effects of a health condition on an individual’s daily life. They are occupational therapists, level one nurses, physiotherapists, paramedics or doctors with at least two years’ experience. We continue to monitor performance, share best practice, and work with claimants, stakeholders and charities to improve training and guidance.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

T10. The Health Secretary has said that changes will be made to provide financial support to workers currently ineligible for statutory sick pay. Will the Minister confirm that those changes will include emergency legislation to remove the £118-a-week threshold that currently excludes 1.8 million low-paid workers from receiving sick pay—a measure supported by both the TUC and the Confederation of British Industry?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the £118 a week is an average over eight weeks, and it will swing about whether people are eligible or not. I have tried to make it clear to the House, reinforcing the comments of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Health Secretary, that people who are working will not be penalised because they cannot work in this regard. We continue to work across Government to bring forward the necessary legislation or other changes required.

Department for Work and Pensions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to lead this debate on the Department for Work and Pensions public spending estimates. In so doing, I shall explain what I think are the purpose and principles of the Department; where I feel that, unfortunately, it is currently failing; and what needs to happen to change that.

Today is about public spending. Most people in the House will know that the Department for Work and Pensions is the largest spending Department of all; it spends around a quarter of the Government’s money. However, although this is an estimates day debate, we should not focus on the money. The money is interesting really only in so far as it is for something—in so far as we spend it for a purpose and we carry out that purpose in accordance with our principles.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has probably noticed that there is nothing in the estimates to help the women born in the early 1950s who lost out on their pensions. Does she agree that there will be a round of estimates coming up shortly, and we would like to know from the Minister what the Government are going to do about that, and whether the Department will include it in its estimates to the Chancellor for a future Budget?

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend makes an effective point—which I will come to—about the position of the WASPI women, born in the 1950s. They dealt with challenges in the labour market that I have never faced. They fought for the changes that my generation benefited from, and at their point of retirement the Government undermined them. I will say why I think that is contrary to the principles on which we operate the welfare state in this country and I thank him for that appropriate intervention.

Before I come to the principles, I shall address the purpose. What is the purpose of all the money spent by the UK’s biggest spending Department? What is it for? The spending has a simple principle—and Beveridge articulated it in his report, which really commenced the modern welfare state in the UK—and that is to smooth incomes. The idea is that we spend to allow people to take money from the system when their income is low and to pay in when their income is high. It is very simple. If we allow people to smooth their potential for getting wages and income over their lifetimes, on average people will be richer than if they have to cope alone in the hard times. If we allow people to use social insurance to smooth their income, we are all better off. We pay in when we can, we take out when we need; that is how it works. It has a simple purpose. How does the system do that? It operates by some simple principles. It is a huge amount of money, but our welfare state adheres to a straightforward and simple principle—the contributory principle, one that any student of Beveridge will know all about. The idea is that we all pay in when we can and we are all entitled to take out when we need.

Why have I made those points about the simple purpose and principles of the welfare state? I do not think that very much has changed since Beveridge’s time when it comes to the fundamental way that the labour market operates and the risks that people face in their lives that will make them poorer if we do not have an effective welfare state. We are still fighting the same evils that Beveridge identified, and the reasons people might not have enough to get by are fundamentally the same as they were when he wrote his report. The one that we all know about is old age, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has already mentioned. That is why it is right that, in the 10 years since the crash, the incomes of pensioners in our welfare state have—by and large, with one notable, shameful exception—been protected. We have seen pensions keep pace with earnings and with the general movement of our economy. When the economy is growing, pensioners’ incomes have kept pace. We know that the uprating, the increase in spend on pensioners, has protected them from the possibility of poverty. No one wants to see people who have worked hard all their lives go without and struggle with poverty in their old age.

Of course, the WASPI women are an exception to that. The principle that they have paid in and that they should be able to take out in an equitable way has been undermined for them. For the reasons that have already been mentioned, that is shameful and must be changed.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the way she is introducing the debate. Does she agree that at a time when the Conservative leadership contenders are splurging billions of pounds in spending commitments, not a single penny is available for the WASPI women and that really shows where their priorities lie?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Conservative leadership election feels like the reversal of politics as I had come to know it. I had always expected that Labour would be on the defensive when it came to public spending. I thought that my party would always have to prove that we were the ones who would deal responsibly with the economy, that we would always be on the defensive and the Tories would always be on the attack. But those competing in the Conservative leadership election seem to want to reverse that principle. They seem to want to be accused of splashing the cash. Given that one of the candidates found nearly £10 billion to be spent on tax cuts, I suggest that the debate should never again be about whether austerity was necessary, but should instead be a simple question of political priorities.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making some powerful points, many of which I agree with, and I am also concerned by some of the pledges in the leadership contest about the spending of taxpayers’ money. What does she think about Labour’s election manifesto pledges of £1 trillion of spending?

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman asks about the 2017 manifesto. I simply remind him that before the publication of the manifestos in that election most people expected the Conservative party to get a stonking great majority so that it could push through its version of Brexit based on the quality of their manifesto as opposed to ours. I point the hon. Gentleman to the historical facts, as it did not turn out at all like that.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

To return to the point about the WASPI women, I completely accept that we all want to make sure that people have dignity in retirement, but does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the Government’s figures show that reversing the impact of the decision to raise the state pension age in line with rising life expectancy would cost £181 billion? Where on earth would we find such a sum of money?

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman is a fellow member of the Treasury Committee and I thank him for his intervention. That is an interesting forecast. I do not think that dealing with the injustices would cost anything like as much, but if he wishes to have the discussion, we have many hours on the Committee together and I will happily discuss his spreadsheet any time he wishes.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

Before my hon. Friend gets to that spreadsheet, she is making an important point. The budget has been brought more into balance by the cuts in welfare benefits, which have been concentrated on families with children. In our constituencies, many people have been pushed into hunger and destitution for the first time in their experience, not because they have lost talent or the ability to manage, but because for the first time in a century we are cutting benefits to the very poorest.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that intervention. He brings me to the point that I was just about to make, which was what Beveridge might have thought of what we have done to family benefits. When we have children, life costs more. Beveridge knew that in the 1930s and 1940s, and family benefits were always designed to be a solid part of the modern welfare state that would help our country rebuild after the second world war. That is also because those benefits rely on the contributory principle. How on earth do we expect to get responsible adults who are able to use their talents for the benefit of our country and get to the point in their lives when they can adequately pay back to the welfare state if children’s ability to grow and learn has been undermined at the very point when they needed the welfare state to pay out for them? We take out when we need, and we pay in when we can. That goes for family benefits along with everything else.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, as I would expect of her. Last week the Scottish Government introduced a new Scottish child payment which, when delivered in full, will mean an extra £10 a week for more than 400,000 children. The Child Poverty Action Group has described it as a “game changer” for tackling child poverty. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is the sort of proposal that this Government should be implementing for the whole of the United Kingdom, and to which the Labour party should commit itself?

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. and learned Lady will know that I believe in the pooling and sharing of resources across the United Kingdom. If the Scottish Government have found evidence that there is a way of aiding children that can work, I will be learning the lessons, but I firmly believe that the way the United Kingdom’s welfare state pools and shares resources is the most powerful tool that we have with which to tackle the child poverty that worries me today.

We know that the projections for child poverty over the next few years are a disgrace. We will see it rise to record highs, and if we do not make a decision and do something about it, it could affect more than 5 million children by 2024. I do not know about you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am not prepared to stand by and see the welfare state that this country has built over many years fail at that level. I am not prepared to see the contributory principle that says that we pay out to people in need so that they can pay in when they can, become fatally undermined by the growing wound in our country that is child poverty.

I should like all Members who are present today to ask themselves a simple question. On the basis of the purpose of the welfare state and the principles by which it operates, is the DWP’s current spending a success? We all know the answer to that question. It stares us in the face when we think about what is going on in our own constituencies, and the people whom we see in our surgeries. It stares us in the face when we walk through the doors of the House of Commons and see the destitution, and when we know that a person died on our own doorstep. It stares us in the face when we hear from the Trussell Trust that last year it handed out 1.6 million food bank parcels.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) made exactly the right point. Do we think that there were 1.6 million incidences of fecklessness? Do we think that there were 1.6 million incidences of people being so unable to deal well enough with their lives that they had to turn to food banks and beg for help? Do we think that there were 1.6 million incidences of error, or mistake, or confusion? Quite clearly not. What we have seen are 1.6 million incidences of injustice and unfairness.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way yet again; she is being very generous.

One of the main contributions to poverty is poverty wages, as a result of which people have been driven to food banks. A couple of months ago, I visited a food bank in my constituency. Think about it: in a semi-rich city like Coventry, 22,000 people used a food bank last year. Does that not tell us a story?

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend has made his point well. We all know that the DWP is failing because we see it every day, but why is that failure happening? I think it is pretty obvious from the DWP’s policies that it has radically misunderstood poverty. While its aims and objectives in dealing with poverty are all absolutely worthwhile and worthy, they will never get to the root cause of it.

The DWP’s policy paper sets out its next steps for action on poverty. It wants to help through the troubled families programme, and it wants to identify people with complex needs. It talks about addiction, and it talks about education. The problem is that while those are factors in people’s lives that are associated with poverty—of course lower educational achievement is a risk for people who grow up in poverty, and of course addiction is a problem in communities that have less wealth—it is possible to do very well at school and still be poor, and it is possible to be poor and not addicted to anything. It is possible for people to have excellent family relationships, to look after each other and be able to take care of their families, but still to suffer the consequences of low incomes, because the root cause of poverty is not any of those other things; it is not having enough money. What my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South said about poverty wages was right, and that is why the DWP must change course.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, and no one would question some of the things that she has said, but does she not understand that when people suffer from addiction—the terrible pain of addiction— they struggle to get into work, and to earn and look after themselves? Addiction is a root cause of poverty. [Interruption.] Of course it is; don‘t be ridiculous.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because he has illustrated exactly the point that I am making. I have every sympathy and every empathy with people who suffer from addiction and associated mental health conditions, but those conditions affect everyone in society. They are not solely about people who are poor. Moreover, there are plenty of people who just do not have enough money, and who do not suffer from any of those problems. The point that I am trying to make is that the DWP is failing because it has missed the central point. The cause of poverty is not having enough money, and it is our duty in the House to do something about it.

[Alex Burghart]

rose—

[Alison McGovern]

If the hon. Gentleman really wants to argue with me, then be my guest.

[Alex Burghart]

I very much want to argue with the hon. Lady. The truth is, is it not, that poverty is a result of some of the problems that people face in society. If those problems are removed, people are considerably less likely to be poor, because they are more likely to be able to work. I have met people who have started out in life from a very good position, but have suffered terrible heroin addiction and have consequently been unable to work. The reason those people have no money is that they have suffered from heroin addiction.

[Alison McGovern]

Let me try this another way. The people whom the hon. Gentleman has mentioned who are suffering from addiction deserve our sympathy, empathy and solidarity, and they deserve help, but so does the kid at school who is working hard, who has great teachers, but who goes home and sees his parents struggle. The cause of poverty is a simple thing: it is not having enough money. It is possible for the Government to have brilliant programmes in all other spheres and still fail to deal with the wound in our society that means people turning up at food banks and children who are unable not to be hungry during the holidays because they can no longer rely on free school meals.

I simply say to the hon. Gentleman, “Ask yourself this question: if we had dealt with every addiction problem in our country, would that necessarily solve the problem of poverty if wages were still too low and this Government were still hellbent on taking money, year after year after year, out of the welfare state which is there to support the family of that child who is working hard at school?”

What, then, has to change? We have to reassess the contributory principle as it affects families, and we have to decide that in this country we will ensure that families can make ends meet. That is why I—along with a number of other Members and the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown—have set out over the summer to try to establish the principles of a programme that could enable them to make ends meet.

I believe that the programme should look like this. Step one must be to end the policies that are breaking the principle of Beveridge’s welfare state. We know what they are. The two-child limit means that 800,000 families with three or more children who are currently receiving tax credit are at risk. While the Government say that the two-child policy will save them billions of pounds, we know that every child matters—every child counts for something—and that is why that policy cannot be allowed to continue. If it does, we know from all the evidence and the child poverty forecasts that it will drive up poverty for children in this country living in a household with three children or more. If anybody thinks that somehow knowing that the Government are going to punish the third child in a family will help to guide families as to family size, I simply say they have probably missed the fundamentals of reproduction. We do not hold children responsible for the actions of their parents, and our welfare state should not do that.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making a very important point extremely well. Does she agree that one of the unbelievable aspects of the two-child cap is that it does not take into account that not everyone who has two children and decides to have a third is on benefits when they make that decision? A family’s circumstances can change overnight through no fault of their own, yet the Government seek to punish them for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that important point, and that is the entire point of the welfare state: our circumstances can change overnight through no fault of our own. And the idea that the Government have set up this arrangement of the two-child policy because they want to send some sort of political message to people about having children or not is crazy; there is absolutely no evidence that it works.

The second thing that has to change immediately is the benefits freeze for working-age people, specifically families. We know the cost to families of the four-year freeze that people have already lived through. That should come to an end this year, but who knows—who knows what the next Tory Prime Minister will choose to do; who knows if they will still choose to punish families. But we know that the reality is that working-age families have not had that lock that pensioners have had; they have not had that connection between the wages going up for everybody else in society and the money that they have to support them. It is simply neither fair nor effective to have a welfare state that does not help families grow up with enough to get by. We are simply undermining the ability of our next generation to contribute to the welfare state when it is their turn.

Thirdly, we need to reappraise the welfare state and find a balanced approach of universal benefits and targeted benefits. We do not have time to go into the intricacies of the ways in which universal credit has failed, but we know that it has. We know that the sanctions regime has caused destitution, and we know that so many of the ways in which Universal Credit was supposed to make life easier for people have not turned out to work like that in practice, which is why the Government are yet to deliver the Universal Credit roll-out; we know it and they know it. That is why for the future we need a range of benefits, some of which are simpler to claim, like child benefit. Child benefit is easy. Those who have a child are, by and large, apart from the highest earners, entitled to it; it is easy and straightforward, and it would be an excellent way to stop child poverty rising if we were prepared to invest in child benefit while we also still use targeted means-tested benefits to get money to the poorest.

Finally, we need a mix of the work that the DWP does through the welfare state and through cash transfers to deal with poverty with all the other things that we know help families to get along and move forward, whether that is services for early years, nursery school, childcare or skills development, so that people can move on and move up. We know that the problem is not just low pay; it is also families being able to have enough time to build up their skills so that they can move on to the next job and get higher wages. So we need that balanced approach of universal benefits, targeted benefits and a balanced mix of the welfare state and other services that the Government can provide to help families.

But in the end my point here today is really very simple: the DWP has failed in its purpose of helping people balance their incomes throughout their lives simply because it decided that families in the UK would carry the burden of the cuts they wanted to see to the state. It has failed to adhere to that simple Beveridge principle that we pay in when we can and we take out when we need, because if we cannot fund children who really need help and support, how on earth will they grow up to be able to pay? The DWP under this Conservative Government is a failure; it is time that changed.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I welcome this opportunity to scrutinise the DWP’s spending, because when I sit in my surgery, week after week, listening to the stories of people living in poverty and struggling to survive while facing a continual battle with the benefits system, I find myself wondering just where nearly a quarter of all Government spending is going. It is certainly not reaching the people who need it most in my constituency. People have had overpayments, underpayments, long initial waiting periods, inaccessible and complex online forms that lead to uncompleted claims, a lack of support with claims, and cruel disability benefits tests, with fines consistently being overturned at appeal.

We have had plenty of debates about universal credit, and it is not working. The five-week wait for initial payment is driving people into poverty, debt and rent arrears, forcing them to turn to food banks to survive. We have already heard about the number of people using food banks. In my constituency, like everywhere else in the country, the numbers are going up year on year at an alarming rate. Despite the Government’s claim that nobody will be worse off under universal credit, we now know, thanks to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that 1.9 million adults will be at least £1,000 worse off.

While the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report at the start the year upheld the Government claim that 1 million ESA households will, on average, receive an extra £110 a month, it also showed that exactly the same number of ESA households will lose, on average, £217 a month. It is no wonder, therefore, that the UN special rapporteur, Professor Philip Alston, accused Ministers of window dressing to minimise the political fallout. That is both damning and shaming.

I have spoken on many occasions about the cruel, unfair disability benefits tests that my constituents have to go through, and for what? Record numbers of people are winning appeals against the Department, and it just looks like the whole process is a stick to beat people with. As we have heard, more than 70% of personal independence payment and employment and support allowance appeals will find in favour of the claimant. One of my constituents was assessed five times in eight years of being on ESA, and despite being found fit for work each time, they won every time on appeal. How flawed must the assessment process be to be so consistently wrong? How can the cost of defending five separate appeals be justified when the decision is the same each time?

More than 16,000 appeals have overturned a PIP decision in the first three months of this year, and nearly three quarters of the 22,000 that went through a tribunal also ruled against the DWP. Waiting times for a PIP appeal are coming up to a year in my constituency—nearly a year in which some of the most vulnerable people in our society are denied the financial support that they need. Things can get worse, because if they have a Motability vehicle, they can lose that as well. I met someone last week who clearly could not get to her job on public transport, but she now faces losing her car due to a PIP assessment. I have little doubt that she will win her appeal, but what consolation will that be if she loses her job in the meantime?

[Alison McGovern]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this poor decision making fatally undermines the relationship between the citizen and the state, and that it must make his constituents wonder what kind of country we live in?

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her intervention. I do sometimes wonder what kind of country we live in when vulnerable people feel the cards are so stacked against them that it is not even worth their while to appeal. Those are the people who come to see me. I do not know what happens to the people who are so beaten down by the system that they just give up, which I feel is the unintended consequence—or possibly the intended consequence—of this policy time after time.

We know that the cost of successful PIP appeals was £27 million last year. ESA is not included in that figure, but 74% of those claims were successful, too. Let us not forget the figures I uncovered towards the end of last year, which show that the Department is not even turning up to four in five appeal hearings. We know what would happen if my constituents did not turn up to four in five appointments with the DWP: they would be sanctioned straightaway.

I also hear from parents whose children are not eligible for free school meals because their household income is just a little too high, and they are struggling to provide their children with a school lunch because they cannot afford it. Many of these families are struggling to make ends meet.

We now come across parents who are eligible for help but who are not getting it due to the complicated application process and the long waiting times. I have constituents who, in the period before the first universal credit payment is made, are desperate for support but are told that they are not eligible for free school meals. Surely we can do this better and provide eligibility for free school meals when the universal credit application is made, rather than waiting until the first payment comes through.

Briefly, on access to benefits for people at the end of life, the current special rules for terminal illness—SRTI—exclude many people with terminal illnesses. I am meeting the Minister next week to discuss this, and I hope we have a constructive conversation, but I raise it now so that people are aware of some of the difficulties and of the money and time being wasted on inappropriate and unnecessary assessments.

Only 45% of people with motor neurone disease are claiming personal independence payment under SRTI. The majority of people in that situation are still using the standard claims route, which is inappropriate for their situation. They are required to fill in a long form, attend a face-to-face assessment and then wait weeks before the benefits are received.

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[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

It is a privilege to take part in today’s debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on opening it. This is an important issue, and we all know that the DWP goes to the heart of so many of our constituents’ lives.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), to the Front Bench. He has done important work on all the issues surrounding bereaved parents over the past few weeks, and I think everyone on both sides of the House welcomes the Government’s new position.

Over the two years I have been an MP, I have seen at first hand the hard work, considerable commitment and personal dedication put in by the staff at Loftus jobcentre. I have seen it in the context of the redundancies at the Boulby potash mine in my constituency, which were caused by the move from mining potash to mining polyhalite. The way in which the emergency response team moved, and the work it did to support the workforce into productive and fulfilling jobs was impressive.

That speaks well for the professionalism of the men and women in our jobcentres, many of whom are sometimes unfairly miscast as people who either do not know or do not care about the lives of the people they help—that is certainly not my experience. I do not recognise the Opposition’s characterisation of so much of the front-facing work of the DWP. I tend to find that, if anything, the jobcentre workforce are unbelievably adept, graceful and kind.

[Alison McGovern]

To be clear, not one thing that I or any Opposition Member said criticised the work of the people on the frontline for the DWP. It is the Conservative party’s policies relating to the DWP that are at issue.

[Mr Clarke]

I would not ascribe it to the hon. Lady’s speech, but I have heard speeches in this place from Labour Members that have come very close to blurring the line between the policy and the people. There is sometimes a real determination to make people afraid of their experience of programmes such as universal credit by stoking up concerns, rather than pointing out the progress on rolling out this fundamentally important reform, which originally enjoyed the Opposition’s support—mainly because it is the right thing to do.

The hon. Lady rightly referred to the Beveridge principle of a welfare state that acts as a strong safety net to help those in need when the chips are down. That is not what we had under the last Labour Government, when the cost of welfare benefits rose by some £84 billion—an enormous sum of money. Welfare has to be fair to the taxpayer, as well as to recipients. This is an important issue. The balance was lost, and the public knew it was lost.

That was one reason, among many, why we won the 2010 general election. There was a widespread perception that the welfare system had strayed from its moorings and was no longer necessarily about helping people into work, or helping them to stay in work longer. For too many, it allowed a lifestyle based on the trap of dependency—my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) referred to that trap. For too many people, the logical incentive created by the system was not to work, or not to work more hours. There was nothing kind or moral about that. It was, in fact, profoundly the opposite, as the system did not help people take the true route out of poverty, which is, of course, work.

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman is being characteristically generous with his time. Will he answer a simple question? How does the two-child policy provide an incentive to work when children, by definition, cannot work?

[Mr Clarke]

Child benefit is, obviously, a sensitive issue, but the point is that a family not in the welfare system, perhaps just above the entitlement level for welfare support, has to make rational choices in their life. All families have to make rational choices in their life about the size of the family they can afford. Lots of people find it wrong that the system would allow people to have any number of children, whereas those people not in the system have to make budgetary choices. That is not a principle I am uncomfortable defending.

Let us go to the wider point, as we need to go back to first principles on this. I do not doubt the sincere differences we have and Labour Members’ concerns, but they have to justify the fact that under their Government 1.4 million people spent most of 2000 to 2010 trapped on out-of-work benefits, with some receiving more than the average wage. Some 50,000 households were allowed to claim benefits worth more than £26,000 a year. I represent a low-wage constituency in the north of England and I simply cannot justify a situation whereby the logical thing was for people to stay earning that amount of benefits rather than to be in work. That has profound and adverse social consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am glad to be speaking for the Scottish National party in this debate, because it is an important issue on which I have campaigned for some time, particularly in relation to the two-child limit. I will discuss that in my speech.

It is perfectly clear that the welfare state is no longer a safety net for those who need it. It is a labyrinthine maze of bureaucracy, traps and loopholes to cheat people out of ever feeling safe or supported. The safety net is full of holes. This Chancellor, like the one before him—and, no doubt, the one to follow—has attempted to balance the books on the back of sick, disabled and vulnerable people. Even by the UK Government’s own flawed criteria, they have abjectly failed. The IFS has said that the Chancellor’s plan of running a budget surplus by the mid-2020s is no longer a sensible proposition. Public spending was as high in 2018 as it was in 2008, but what have we got to show for it? We have a rise in child poverty, in homelessness, and in food bank usage. In the fifth richest country in the world, that is a shameful situation. The two-child policy alone is expected to push thousands of families into poverty by the end of this Parliament. The Child Poverty Action Group has said that if we were to intentionally design a policy to put children into poverty, we could not do much better than that one.

The report “All Kids Count: the impact of the two-child limit after two years” was issued last week by the Church of England, CPAG, Women’s Aid, Turn2us and the Refugee Council, with support also from the Interlink Foundation, representing the Orthodox Jewish Community. It paints a stark picture: of families forced into poverty, debt and borrowing money from friends and family. I have to say that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) is absolutely incorrect in so many of his assertions on this policy, because it will affect families in so many different ways and it absolutely traps them in a situation where they cannot work their way out of poverty. I commend this report to him, because it has modelled this. I recommend that he read all of its details, because it makes it absolutely clear that families cannot compensate for the two-child poverty through work.

The report gives the example of a single parent with three children working 16 hours a week at the national living wage—the pretendy “living wage”—and says that she

“cannot ever compensate for the loss of a child element by increasing her hours, if she incurs childcare costs from doing so (because these are never covered in full by universal credit). Only if she can access free childcare (e.g. by using help from family members in addition to the free entitlement for 2-4 year-olds), can she compensate for the loss, but she would still have to more than double her hours from 16 to 40 per week.”

This is also true for families where there is a couple and for others: nobody can work their way out of the poverty caused by this policy.

The findings from a survey done on the two-child limit by those who are claiming are stark—the impact on those families is dreadful and in some cases it results in family breakdown. That ought to concern the Tories, who seem to like to maintain the family in all circumstances. I will read out some of the quotes. One read:

“I’ve recently split with my long-term partner and father of my four children. When I had my children, I did not intend to be a single parent— and now that I am, I feel like I’m being penalised by the government.”

Another read:

“My partner became ill and unable to work due to disability and I’m now at home having to care for him and our four children. Me and my partner are literally not eating at all during the day to feed the children.”

I would like to see the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland try to justify why that is fair, because it is absolutely not.

The report shows 95% of families who responded reporting that the two-child limit has affected their ability to pay for basic living costs, with 88% saying it had affected their ability to pay for food, 88% saying it had affected their ability to pay for clothing, 71% saying it had affected their ability to pay for gas and electric—and the list goes on. This is absolutely catastrophic for these families and they cannot do anything to get out of the situation.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing that report to the House. Does she not agree that, contrary to what the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland said, life is full of unforeseen and unintended occurrences and the welfare state is simply there to help us out with all of them?

[Alison Thewliss]

None of the families in this report could really have predicted their circumstances when they had their children, and this has been acknowledged by the Government, because they said that if the child was born after the cut-off date in April 2017, it would be unfair to bring this in. They have acknowledged that it is unfair for some families but not for all families, but if they acknowledge it is unfair for some, they should just scrap this brutal policy for all and for ever.

Despite all this, families are trying to cut back. They are trying their best to get by. One parent said:

“We try our best to make sure

the children

“are well fed and pick up the leftovers if they leave anything, or just toast.”

So families—parents—are living on just toast, at best. What kind of society is this that the Minister presides over? Families are not able to pay their bills and are going into arrears—into debt—which means they risk going into homelessness and losing the roof over their head. They are relying on other members of the family to try to support them. One woman said:

“At 36 years old you shouldn’t have to rely on your mum and dad”

to feed the children. People are going into debt because they are not able to pay for things because there is no spare money. They are going into debt on credit cards and with the other types of lenders. Families are so far away from being able to pay for these things that it puts tremendous financial strain on them.

The two-child limit also has an impact on other members of the family. Other children feel as though they are losing out because of their baby brother or sister. That is really quite sad. It gives me a lot of pain to think that children feel as though they are losing their ability to go out and have fun, to live their lives, to go swimming or to do anything else they want to do, because their parents were unfortunate enough to have a third child. That is absolutely appalling, and it affects families’ mental health and wellbeing, as I have said.

The two-child limit has lots of other impacts. There is good evidence from the survey—which should concern all Members, regardless of their opinions on the policy—that families are choosing to abort healthy babies because they are worried about how the two-child limit is going to affect them. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) shakes her head on the Front Bench, but there is evidence. She should read the report and do something about it.

There are also issues for women who have come through refuges—through domestic abuse—and who have to use the rape clause to claim for a third child. Nobody should have to fill in a form to prove that they were raped, just to put food on the table. That is unacceptable, and the Government’s policy is despicable. Last year, 190 women were forced to fill out the form. The figures are not yet out, so I do not know how many women are affected this year, but my bet is that it will be more.

The impact of the rape clause is such that those 190 women are not even all the women who are likely to be eligible for support. There is in the report a good and heartbreaking case study about a woman called Sabrina. The name has been changed, but it says Sabrina in the report so that is the name I shall use. It says:

“Sabrina had been experiencing abuse at the hands of her husband for almost a decade when she and her two young children came to a Women’s Aid member refuge in England. Whilst in the refuge, Sabrina discovered that she was pregnant…Sabrina wept at the news—tears of anxiety and worry about how she was going to cope financially when she eventually moved out of the refuge. Sabrina knew that, because of the two-child limit, she would struggle to bring a third baby into the world. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to tell the government how the child was conceived—out of abuse and fear—in order to get the money she was entitled to. Soon, she packed her family’s bag with the few belongings they had and returned to the home she had shared with her abuser, utterly defeated.”

That is not a situation that this Government should be putting women in. They should be helping women out of abusive relationships, not sending them straight back to their abusers for fear of losing out. I do not want to hear about how a form can be changed and what could happen to make the process better; it should not exist at all. There should be a universal support system for everybody, and that is why it is such a fundamentally important issue.

Although I know that others wish to speak, I could go on all afternoon about the injustices of the two-child policy, because it also affects religious minorities who cannot or will not use contraception or abortion, and it affects refugee families, who come here, wait a long time to be processed, and then find that they are not able to get the entitlements that they had hoped to get to support themselves and their families. The impact of the policy is devastating, and it disproportionately affects families who are already in work. The Minister should look at the report, look at the evidence and scrap the two-child policy, and the rape clause that stands part of it, immediately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

I do not believe that it is correct to say that the Government are taking money out of universal credit. I am sure the hon. Gentleman remembers the previous Budget when a considerable amount of additional money was put into universal credit. I think that he is, perhaps, slightly out of date on that score.

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman has obviously missed the fact that working age benefits have been frozen for four years. That is a real terms cut. Will he just explain to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who talked about a single parent with three children who simply cannot put any more hours a day into her working life, how, if benefits stay frozen, people are supposed to see their incomes rise and their children lifted out of poverty?

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point about the benefits freeze. That is something to which I intend to return at the end of my remarks. It is unquestionably the case that the benefits freeze has hit people—and hit some people very hard. She is aware of why the benefits freeze was needed: it was needed because of the disastrous condition in which her party left this country’s finances when it left office in 2010.

The DWP is playing its role in helping people back to work and helping them to find, sustain and progress in work. If Members talk to work coaches across the country, they will find that those coaches now have the tools and a service at their disposal to help them to form a working relationship with the people they are seeking to help. They understand that people who come into the jobcentre are, effectively, in work to find work. The agreement of claimant commitments between the jobseeker and the jobcentre creates an environment in which both the work coaches and the people with whom they are working can get results. No one who has spoken to work coaches across the country can doubt in any way that this has been substantial improvement.

Universal credit, as it is rolled out and improved, is helping to make work pay. It has overcome the terrible problems of the 16-hour cut-off that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison). It has helped to overcome these crazy marginal tax rates that popped up at different points in the system. Obviously, it is being rolled out in a test and learn environment. As it is tested, so DWP has learned, which means that a range of improvements have been made.

As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is no longer in his place, I was particularly pleased that we managed to work with the Government to scrap the seven waiting days, to ensure that people received their money sooner, to see advances of up to 100% on full monthly payments to claimants, and to develop the landlord portal to make it much easier for housing benefit to be sent to landlords and so on and so forth. These are important changes, but I have no doubt that there are still additional beneficial changes to be made. There is further to go—much further to go.

The hon. Member for Wirral South mentioned the benefit freeze. I very much hope that, in the comprehensive spending review at the end of this year, the benefits freeze is ended and the headroom that the Chancellor has built up is put to good use.

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[Huw Merriman]

Well, we can argue about statistics, but try this one. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady wants to throw one at me, but then will not let me respond with one, which I find slightly dictatorial. Some 2.2 million people were unemployed when we took office in 2010; that figure is now 1.4 million. I can give her the number of those who have clearly moved off unemployment benefit into work. We can argue about this all the way through—

[Alison McGovern]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Huw Merriman]

I am not going to take any more interventions because, to be fair, those making them have had a lot of time to speak, and I am not going to get much of a chance.

We have seen people moving into work, and that has been a huge success. From listening to Opposition Members, one would think that the benefits system was completely rosy. As I have said, not only were too many people on benefits—trapped on benefits—but if we look at the tax credits system and the attacks on universal credit, we can see that universal credit has been rolled out in a slow, progressive manner, and we have changed it as we have gone along, while tax credits, which were rolled out in one big bang, were overpaid by over £7 billion, and over £2 billion had to be clawed back from those who were actually the poorest. I do not want to take too many lectures on how to introduce a successful benefits system, because we have seen how things have failed before. What has most impressed me about the Department is that it has learned from the failings over the years and has tried to do things better.

I am absolutely passionate about universal credit, because I have spent time with my jobcentre and seen the enthusiasm that the work coaches have for it. When we go into a jobcentre now it is not like going into some cold, austere office where people are too scared to go in and get any help. It feels almost like a recruitment centre to help people. There are help points and people who are passionate about helping people into work.

I am really proud of this Government’s record. I believe that every Government should be judged on what they have done in helping people into work. As I have said before, on every occasion the Labour party has left office, it has done so with unemployment higher than when it entered, which has got to be considered a failure. The Conservative party has been able to secure 3.6 million extra jobs. We have also increased the living wage, taken people out of tax and incentivised them. We have tried to focus on people who need help the most. It is said that all these jobs are low-paid, but 70% of them are highly skilled. It is said that wages are not going up, but for the 15th month in succession wages are going up by more than inflation. The proportion of jobs that are low-paid stands at its lowest level for 20 years as a result of the national living wage. Yes, there is more to do, but let us not knock the record that we have delivered.

I am going to make one suggestion, and I am echoing a point made by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who talked about the Motor Neurone Disease Association. He and I played football against that organisation, and I found it the most extraordinary moment. It was incredibly touching to play alongside them, and I then met that team. The organisation makes the very good point, which is also made by the Marie Curie cancer organisation, that it cannot be right that we have to test those with terminal illnesses for their disability benefit. They are reliant on a doctor saying that they will die within six months, but GPs are not comfortable saying that. The challenge for us as a Government is really to listen, and to look at how much such a change would cost. We know those people are going to be able to claim benefits in the main, so it is only a delay while they have to wait. However, they do not have time to wait, and I would like our Government to look at that. It is not just about those in that period of six months, but also those who have managed to survive their terminal illness three years and then have to be retested.

While I am very proud of the Government for what they have done in putting people into work and in targeting support, with almost an extra 1 million disabled people in work as well—we have record levels—we still have individual policy areas that we need to fix and on which we should do better. We must never rest on our laurels.

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[Will Quince]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth has already had an opportunity to contribute to the debate. She has intervened numerous times and, as I said at the beginning of my speech, far from being frit I will address a number of the key points raised during this debate.

We are creating a welfare system in which it pays to work, with universal credit simplifying the complex legacy benefit system that thwarted opportunities to work through punitive tax rates and a cliff edge for those wanting to do more work and that mired people in debt. We are establishing jobcentres that help people into work, not just to sign on—jobcentres where one-to-one personalised support is provided to a claimant from their work coach, offering advice and access to services to help the vulnerable, and where staff create links with businesses to make it their personal mission to help people not into just a job, but into the right job.

This is not to speak of the huge wider support that this Government offer. Our welfare reforms are assisting the incredible employment statistics we see month on month. The recent labour market figures show the importance of helping people into work, and this Government have created more than 3.6 million more jobs since 2010, helping people out of poverty and creating aspiration and a huge sense of purpose for millions. The employment rate is at a record high, while the unemployment rate has halved since 2010 and has not been lower since the 1970s. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle rightly said, no Labour Government have ever left office with unemployment lower than when they started, meaning that more people were denied the security of a regular wage. From May to July 1997 to March to May 2010, the unemployment level increased from 2.1 million to 2.5 million. There are now almost 1 million fewer workless households, giving more than 600,000 more children a role model in their home who is in work. The number of children living in workless households increased under Labour, meaning that fewer children were living in a financially stable household with a working role model.

[Alison McGovern]

rose—

[Will Quince]

Labour failed to help people into work so that they could provide for their families, with workless households increasing between 1997 and 2010.

Households Below Average Income Statistics

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State and I were in this House when the Conservatives repealed the Child Poverty Act 2010 and when George Osborne announced £12 billion of welfare cuts, which have not been restored, so she can be “disappointed”, but she cannot be surprised that child poverty is up by 200,000, with 65% of children in single-parent families in poverty. Is it not time that she came to the Dispatch Box and confirmed that no child in a single-parent family will be worse off under her system?

[Amber Rudd]

We have still lifted 400,000 people out of absolute poverty since 2010, but I acknowledge that there is more to do. Over the past two Budgets, the Chancellor has put in substantial additional sums: £1.7 billion a year is now coming in for the next three years. I hope that these changes will make a significant difference to improving the delivery of our welfare directly to people in the hon. Lady’s constituency.

Social Security

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will come back to the hon. Lady.

Turning to universal credit, in the 2018 autumn Budget statement the Chancellor announced additional assistance for those on universal credit. As such, the universal credit work allowance will increase by £1,000 after they have been increased by prices, helping 2.4 million working families. This measure raises the amount someone can earn before their universal credit payment is reduced and directs additional support to some of the most vulnerable low-paid working families.

Finally, let me turn to disability benefits. This year the Government will continue to make sure that carers and people who face additional costs as a result of their disability will get the additional support they need.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I have to ask the Minister: is that it? We are in the middle of a benefits freeze that is seeing family poverty rise—is that all he has got to say about it?

[Justin Tomlinson]

With this uprating order, I am bringing forward plans to increase support for some of the most vulnerable people in society to the tune of £3.5 billion, with £3 billion alone to help those with disabilities and long-term health conditions, and pensioners—key people who the Government, as we share the proceeds of growth, will continue to target support towards. That is why the incomes of the lowest-paid have risen by over £400 in real terms since 2010 while the wealthiest fifth of society have seen their income fall by £800. We recognise the right places to target support through additional measures, including the introduction of the national living wage, worth £2,000 a year, and the increase to the income tax threshold of £1,200.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

As I have set out before, as the economy has continued to grow, we have been able to share the proceeds of growth to support some of the most vulnerable in society. That has seen increases to the income tax threshold, which will reach £12,500 this year, taking 4 million of the lowest earners out of paying any income tax at all. We are also seeing significant additional support for those with children. Whereas spending on childcare was £4 billion in 2010, it will be £6 billion by 2020—a 50% increase as part of our doubling of free childcare support, particularly helping lone parents who seek to take advantage of the record employment in all regions.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. He knows as well as I do that none of the figures he has just announced add up to the £12 billion of welfare cuts previously announced in this House by George Osborne. By the end of the benefit freeze and the other measures that the Government have introduced, children in poverty in this country will be worse off—is that not right?

[Justin Tomlinson]

But we know from announcements in the last two Budgets that spending on working-age benefits will be £2 billion higher than it would have been under the legacy benefits. That is why we now see 300,000 fewer children in absolute poverty, as we continue to target support at the most vulnerable in society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Lady for making the point so powerfully.

The benefit freeze increases poverty. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the freeze is set to drive almost 500,000 more people into poverty by 2020. In 2018, a couple with children claiming universal credit were up to £500 worse off, and a lone parent with children was up to £400 worse off, due to the benefit freeze. The JRF says that the freeze is the single biggest policy driver behind rising poverty levels. Before the freeze was introduced in the Welfare Reform and Work Act, working-age benefits were capped at 1%, yet living costs are rising. In the 12 months to September last year, prices grew by 2.4%, according to the CPI inflation measure. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that between the introduction of the benefits freeze in April 2016 and November 2018, the annual cost of living for people on low incomes rose by £900.

Rising living costs and frozen social security mean that the value of benefits is increasingly inadequate to protect people from poverty. A recent report by the National Audit Office shows how the real value of the basic rate of jobseeker’s allowance and income support has fallen nearly every year since 2012-13, and it is now below its value in 2009-10. Overall, the real cut to many benefits from the four-year freeze is over 6%. According to the Resolution Foundation, child benefit is now already worth less than it was in April 1999. Beyond a family’s first child, child benefit in April 2019 will be worth 14% less than it was when it was fully introduced in April 1979. This is compounded by the Conservatives’ broken economy: low wage growth and the rise of insecure and zero-hours contracts mean that incomes are failing to meet the rising cost of living.

[Alison McGovern]

Simply, child benefit is easy to claim and has wide support in society, so are not the statistics my hon. Friend has laid out absolutely terrible for working families?

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely pertinent point, and I thank her for it.

Universal Credit

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I hope we have shown over the past couple of years that we do listen and that we do make changes. Of course we will continue to do so where that is appropriate.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Sometimes it can be hard to understand what the Minister is really saying to us. Most people call non-consensual conception rape, and that is what we are talking about. Most people in this country would call picking and choosing between the children we choose to support discrimination. The next time they Minister has to come to the House, as he undoubtedly will, to tell us about a policy change in relation to the two-child policy, will he commit to telling us exactly what the characteristics are of the kids that our Government will no longer support?

[Alok Sharma]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady feels unable to welcome the changes. The previous two Budgets have included additional support and, as I just said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), we will see what more we can do where that is appropriate.