DWP Data

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

If the hon. Lady will let me respond, I will tell the House exactly that.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Arrogant.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

You are the Father of the House!

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. When we publish the data, they will cover all the relevant periods to which he has referred.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) every good fortune in awaiting a reply to a letter to the Prime Minister, in view of the fact that in the last five years I have had exactly one letter from him, and that was after I had received a letter from No. 10 signed by somebody who did not exist.

I say to the junior Minister that she needs to take some lessons from her boss in dealing with questions in this House, because whatever the nature of his replies, he replies with courtesy. She needs to learn about that as well. Let me put it to the junior Minister that yesterday the Government broke a pledge about providing information and conducting consultation, and today we have a further example of the Government breaking a pledge. Will she explain whether this is simply arrogance or incompetence?

[Priti Patel]

With courtesy to the Father of the House, I would re-emphasise that the data will be published, and when they are published, he can review them.

Housing Benefit

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

The speeches we have heard from the Government Benches demonstrate very clearly that there is a Liberal Democrat-Tory world and there is the real world. The issue we are debating is the most blatant example of this Government’s total inability to understand how people live. To them, a spare bedroom is simply an unused sleeping space that must not receive housing benefit, but the many constituency cases that I have needed to deal with show that it is by no means so simple.

One reason why this cruel tax does disproportionate damage to the disabled is that the so-called spare bedroom is very often used by a non-resident carer. They might not sleep in it every night, but its use is indispensible to the welfare of the disabled person. Arrangements of this and related kinds cannot be categorised by the over-simplistic language of parliamentary draftsmen, let alone the policies of this Government. There are all kinds of other reasons for those rooms, depending on individual, family-by-family arrangements, that outsiders cannot begin to understand and that this Government do not wish to try to understand.

The Government’s simple cure is: “Move to a smaller house.” They must be living in a dream world. Have they never heard of the housing shortage, made much worse by their policies? My constituency has 75,000 electors. In the three or four years that this lot have held office, there have been 340 housing starts in my constituency, which is only 60% of the low national average. In Manchester, under a Labour Government, the council used to build 3,000 new houses a year. Because of Tory cuts—Manchester has been hit harder by this Government’s cuts than any other local authority—Manchester city council can now build none. There is no new social housing at all in my constituency, and private landlords are too often predatory.

I had a woman come to see me on Saturday who was totally frantic. She lives in a shorthold tenancy, but has been given notice to move at the beginning of April. Not only can she not find any accommodation for herself and her two children, but the freehold owners have sent her the ground rent bill, which is the liability of the landlord, who is evicting her. That is real life in the Gorton constituency. When somebody does manage to get rehoused—such as a constituent who was a victim of the bedroom tax who came to see me the week before—the consequences are so confusing or even catastrophic that they lead to potential eviction from the new home.

This is real life, not the theorising of the Liberal Democrats—we remember them in Manchester, which is why this year there will be no Liberal Democrats left on the city council—or the Tories. What they are doing—and they are doing it with great calculation, because of its political implications—is transferring tax liability from the better-off, who they hope will vote for them, to the disabled, who will not vote for them. This Government build castles in the air. They do not build houses and they make life hell by causing tragic difficulties for people who are in houses. The Government create misery wherever they go, and the sooner they go, the better.

Food Banks

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

It is disgraceful that the junior Minister, having made one of the nastiest Front-Bench speeches I have heard in my 43 years in this House, has now sloped off and not bothered to listen to the views of the House.

Last Sunday I attended a carol service at New Covenant church in my constituency, where a leaflet of activities distributed to the congregation read,

“Food bank to alleviate poverty among the unemployed and low income earners.”

The previous Sunday I attended a carol service at St Chrysostom’s, also in my constituency, at which Canon Ian Gomersall always makes an appeal. In previous years it has been about alleviating poverty abroad—helping a Romanian orphanage, for example. Last Sunday he made an appeal for food for hungry people in the area around the church. He said that the prospect was that there would be soup kitchens—soup kitchens in my constituency! He is not political, but he felt that he had to say that to a crowded congregation.

[Andrew Selous]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s concern about the issue, but does he realise that in Germany, a country that is much richer than ours, 6 million people use food banks every month?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

My constituents who are going hungry do not study the foreign affairs pages. They want to know why, after three and a half years of this appalling Government, they have got no food, so the hon. Gentleman should not make silly and useless debating points.

The Salvation Army has sent around an appeal stating:

“In the present economic climate, many families will struggle to feed and clothe their children, let alone afford presents and treats.”

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman not detailing the symptoms of the massive inequality in our society? Professors Stiglitz and Krugman have detailed how the gains of productivity have gone to the top 1%. We are living in the fourth most unequal society in the OECD. Successive UK Governments have failed to address that, which is one reason why I want Scottish independence, but that argument is for another day. What he is seeing in his constituency is the result of the massive inequality that blights society.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

The hon. Gentleman is of course absolutely right.

The information provided for me by Tesco, which is conducting food banks in my constituency, tells the whole story. It refers to

“Tesco’s third National Food Collection”,

which means that within this Government’s period in office it has started to help to address food poverty, and to

“32,000 thousand shopping trolleys…the equivalent of 4.3 million meals.”

That is Britain today.

[Chris Ruane]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Will my hon. Friend allow me to continue for just a moment?

In my constituency we have widespread poverty and deprivation. Today’s unemployment figures show that we are No. 42 for unemployment out of 650 constituencies. This has not come about by accident. It is the direct result of this Government’s policies: the deliberate creation of unemployment, the bedroom tax, which is causing so many people to suffer, the benefits cuts, and the housing shortage. My city has been hit hardest of all the major cities by the Government’s cuts. We are having redistribution from the poor to the affluent.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Last week I visited Kids Company in Southwark and saw the industrial-scale packing of food bags that were then piled into vans and delivered to vulnerable families across London. When I asked Camila what had changed in the past few years, she said that she is still seeing the same number of abused kids but is now getting hungry kids coming to her directly because they are starving. Does my right hon. Friend think that is a damning indictment of this Government?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. If I may say so, as powerfully as she made it, it was made much more powerfully by St Matthew, who said in his gospel:

“Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”

That is the precise policy of this Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government. I note that the only Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Manchester has not even bothered to turn up to this debate. That will be noted by his constituents.

At our Gorton Philharmonic concert at Christmas, we sing “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”. Well, it will be a little Christmas for a lot of people but it will not be merry for many more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Field]

I totally accept that point and I am going to come back to it by talking about how inaccurate our data are on this whole issue, but the House needs to take into account that something very important is going on in our economy which is disadvantaging the poor the most.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Hear, hear!

[Mr Field]

I do not think my right hon. Friend actually knew Friedrich Engels, but Engels prophesied that as countries become richer, the proportion of income spent on food declines. That law has been reversed, so on that score something fundamental is happening. If we combine that with the changes resulting in a greater proportion of income now having to be spent on fuel and rent, we can see that that is difficult for many people, but it is a disaster for the poor.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that not one penny was cut and the fund has been devolved to local authorities, which is entirely the right thing to do. There was no acknowledgement of the past, however.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Hurd is exactly what he is.

[Mr Speaker]

That is not a point of order, but I am sure the right hon. Gentleman found it humorous.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that the budget for winter fuel payments is exactly as budgeted for by the previous Government. The winter fuel payment increases that were, mysteriously, for two years before the election and one year after—I cannot think why—were always temporary. However, what we have not done is cut the cold weather payment, which the hon. Lady’s party had planned to do.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

What made the Government think they could get away with reducing the winter fuel payment by £100 by smuggling it through and not mentioning it in the Budget statement? If they think that they have got away with it and that pensioners have not noticed, they should have been in my constituency at the weekend.

[Steve Webb]

Well, the right hon. Gentleman must not have been paying attention last year when the Chancellor announced in his comprehensive spending review that the winter fuel payment would be exactly as budgeted for by the previous Labour Government. Perhaps he was not listening.