Andrew Western
Main Page: Andrew Western (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)Department Debates - View all Andrew Western's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
Before I turn to some of the rawer politics as the debate demands, I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this important debate. Like other hon. Members, I am appalled by the level of child poverty in this country. Running through the debate was an underlying and understandable anger at the unacceptable increase in child poverty since 2010, with 1.1 million children using food banks to eat.
Graham Stuart
I am sure that the Minister wants to give a fair and balanced overview, and we all wish to see fewer people in relative poverty, notwithstanding his support last week for a measure that would have put it up by a quarter of a million. Just to have balance on the record, does he recognise that, in absolute terms, between 2010 and 2024 the number of children in poverty dropped by 300,000, and the number of people in poverty overall by 800,000?
Andrew Western
I absolutely accept that the Conservative party, because of its shameful record, made a fundamental change to the way in which poverty is assessed. We have returned to the internationally recognised comparator that exposes that shameful record. We will not run away from that internationally recognised comparator. It is on that on which we will be judged, and the Conservatives must also be judged on that.
I thank Labour Members who spoke in the debate so passionately about the work that the Government have already done on child poverty and the Conservative party’s shameful record. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German), for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan), for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) and for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)—and, yes, my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman). He and I may not agree on the process being followed by the Government to tackle child poverty wherever we see it, but I do not doubt his commitment and support to tackling it.
I thank in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for his powerful personal testimony about his upbringing, and about the stigma of poverty and the shame that many parents feel when they require extra support. Like him, I grew up in modest circumstances, as one of five children. For a period, in a single-parent household, we were dependent on tax credits, child tax credits and the education maintenance allowance—remember that? I will not allow privately educated Conservative spokespeople to lecture us on the plight of struggling families up and down the country when they have shown no care at all about the part they played in putting many of those families into crisis.
Andrew Western
What is low is scrapping the Child Poverty Act in 2016. The Conservatives’ record on child poverty is cheap and low. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) can continue to chunter from a sedentary position; I could reel off their record all day.
Andrew Western
I will not at the moment.
Let me come to the shadow Secretary of State, who, like many Conservative Members, was in total denial of the Conservative record, not only on child poverty, but on the welfare bill, which has spiralled enormously since 2020. They put 4.5 million children in poverty, and they come here with this motion. There was no recognition of the fact that almost 60% of families affected by the two-child limit are in work. There was no understanding of the lack of clarity in their motion, which does not specify whether it relates only to universal credit and child tax credit. It says that children “should not receive” any “additional funding”. What of child benefit? What of disability living allowance for children? The motion is not worth the paper it is written on, unless that is now their policy.
The Conservatives have talked about personal and fiscal responsibility—quite unbelievable from the party that crashed the economy and left the welfare bill spiralling. They take no responsibility for their actions at all, but they seek to lecture others on how they should live their lives. The shadow Secretary of State talked about giving families broader support—for instance, through family hubs. How many Sure Start centres closed under the previous Government? In their first 10 years alone, it was 1,300. Then, we heard that only the Conservatives understand the importance of living within their means. I have two words for the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately): Liz Truss.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
In Wales, sadly, we have some of the highest rates of child poverty in the United Kingdom, and some of the highest across Europe. Why is that? Why is poverty so stubbornly high in Wales, and would lifting the cap not improve things for Welsh children?
Andrew Western
Lifting the cap is one of the many levers that the Government are considering. We will look at that in the round, and when we come forward with our child poverty strategy, we will look to lift children in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and here in England—children up and down this country—out of poverty, because that is a moral mission for this Government. Indeed, we have already started that important work, with free breakfast clubs, free school meals for families on universal credit, restrictions on branded school uniform items and, to the point made by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), proposed changes to the Child Maintenance Service. We will also abolish direct pay, which was created by the Conservative party. This will lift 20,000 children out of poverty.
Andrew Western
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there was £1 billion worth of employment support alongside those measures, the impacts of which are yet to be scored by the Office for Budget Responsibility. We are serious about getting people back to work as a route to tackling poverty, as well as providing an important safety net for those who need it.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) asked why others should subsidise someone’s third, fourth or fifth child. I say gently to the Conservatives that it is never the child’s fault. A third child has the same right to thrive as the first two, and if they do not, all three children suffer. A hungry child is a hungry child, whatever their background.
Andrew Western
I am afraid I will not take any further interventions, as I only have a couple of minutes left. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) tempted me to speculate about decisions around taxation. He will appreciate that that is way above my pay grade, and I hope that he is patient enough to wait for the next fiscal event to get an answer to his question.
Graham Stuart
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given collective responsibility, is it in order for a Minister of the Crown to argue against a policy of his own Government? If I have understood correctly, it is the policy of the Government and the Labour party to maintain the two-child benefit cap.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman will know that that is not a matter for the Chair, and he is seeking to drag me into the debate.
Andrew Western
It is also not what I said, Madam Deputy Speaker. I said that we on our child poverty taskforce are considering all available levers in the lead-up to the child poverty strategy, which will come in the autumn.
The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), made a point about controlling welfare spend. Yet again, we heard that the four years post-covid were not an appropriate time to tackle the spiralling welfare bill that the Conservatives created. In those four long years, the Conservative party got through three Prime Ministers, five Ministers for health and work, six Secretaries of State for Education and seven Sunak resets, yet the welfare bill continued to spiral. Child poverty worsened, and we had wasted years, so we will take no lectures from the Conservatives on welfare spend, and certainly not on the best way to tackle child poverty.
This party inherited the Conservatives’ shameful legacy of disastrous levels of child poverty and a broken social security system that fails to command people’s trust. Across Government, we have started the urgent work to fix these problems and to drive down child poverty once again, as the last Labour Government did, in partnership with the devolved Administrations, charities, local authorities and others, and to build a fairer, more sustainable social security system that helps people build better lives by giving them the right incentives and support. We will do that important work because tackling child poverty is a moral mission for this Government, and we will oppose this motion today because all levers are under active consideration as we seek to do so.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Before I put the Question, I will just remind the Minister that, like the shadow Minister, he should not be referring to Members by their name in the Chamber but by their constituency.
Question put.