Child Poverty

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Long-term unemployment is falling and we are getting to the root causes of the problem. That will continue and is the key to helping people out of poverty.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

With the approaching long school summer holidays, this is a particularly difficult time for children living in food poverty, as they do not have access to free school meals or breakfast clubs. What is the Department going to do to tackle that issue?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is not directly in my Department, but I am very happy to talk about any specific issues and problems if the hon. Lady wants to come and see me. Through my Social Justice Cabinet Committee, we can drive to ensure that the support is available for those who need it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is right about social mobility. He is also the living embodiment of it, as he comes from a council estate in south London, son of a single mum with many mouths to feed. He then set up a multi-million pound business and won young entrepreneur of the year from Ernst and Young. The Government have provided support and encouragement, creating the sort of environment in which people like my hon. Friend can develop their businesses and employ other people.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

15. What plans he has to respond to the recent recommendations of the all-party parliamentary group on hunger and food poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The report is a serious contribution to an important debate, which recognises that the reasons behind the demand for emergency food assistance are complex and overlapping. I have already responded and will continue to review the recommendations and engage with the inquiry as it takes its proposals forward. That is an undertaking I gave at the last Question Time. My Department has already agreed to do more to raise awareness of short-term benefit advances, including advertising in jobcentres so that everyone can see it.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The report showed that about a quarter of a million people last year used food banks because of benefit sanctions. I have a constituent who showed me evidence that he applied for hundreds of jobs, but, because he applied for one by handing in a CV in person rather than through the website, he was sanctioned for three months without money. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is completely outrageous?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am afraid I simply do not recognise the kind of case the hon. Lady raises. She knows that if she wants to raise a case directly with me or with the Minister for Employment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), she should do so, but there is no such rule in jobcentres or in respect of sanctions. [Interruption.] Yes, I am very happy to see the hon. Lady, but let me bring her to the wider issue, which is simply this: the report made it very clear that there are multiple issues. What the Opposition have tried to do non-stop, as they have with the spare room subsidy and other matters, is try to scare everybody up and down the country into believing that there is a magic wand. Let me remind her that under her Government the number of food banks doubled. The reality is that long before the coalition came to power, they were already delivering a failed economy and forcing people out of work and into difficulty beyond whatever we may have done.

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[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Today I welcome the new cross-Government report on drug addiction which shows that, for the most complex cases, residential treatment delivers a rate of positive outcomes nearly three times better than community treatment. Instead of not prioritising full recovery, as used to be the case, we are now getting people off drugs, into work and on the path to a better future, rather than leaving them languishing on methadone.

[Kerry McCarthy]

In answer to my earlier question, the right hon. Gentleman talked about the number of food banks under the last Labour Government. In the last year of that Government, there were 41,000 food bank users, but the number is now nearly 1 million a year—a figure that just before Christmas he referred to as “tiny”. What do we have to do to get him to accept that food bank use and the scandal of food poverty in this country are his responsibility and that he needs to do more about them?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As we have always said, these are complex issues. We welcome the fact that voluntary sector organisations provide for and support people in their community, through food banks and often with clothing and various other things. Having had the allowance passed down to them, many local authorities now use it to engage with food banks and send people there and to other organisations providing food and so on. Instead of simply saying that everything is the fault purely of the Government, the hon. Lady should take stock of one thing: it was her Government who crashed the economy and made people worse off. [Interruption.] I know the Opposition do not like to hear it, but they should do the maths: destroying the economy leaves people worse off. By getting more people back into work, the Government are helping them get beyond the need for food banks and other support.

Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Absolutely. It is simply not the case that hundreds of families in Wigan are packed together like sardines, waiting for people with extra rooms to move out. The Government say that it is about fairness and levelling the playing field between those in social housing and those who rent privately who cannot afford spare bedrooms. Again, that is not the case in Wigan where one-bedroom properties are much rarer and people in the private rented sector can have a spare bedroom without paying for the privilege. That is because—contrary to the myth perpetrated by Government Members—the local housing allowance does not exactly work in the same way. It was not introduced retrospectively, and it is based on the average rent in an area for the size of property. Therefore, if a family can find a larger property that remains within the LHA rate, they can rent it with no penalty, as can be the case in Wigan.

Even if it were possible for a family to move easily to a smaller property, what would be the consequences? After all, a “spare”, or to put it crudely, “extra” room measure takes no account of disabled people’s adapted homes, foster parents who need rooms to take children in, separated parents who share custody of a child, or the grandparent in my constituency—as I know, grandparents are not always pensioners—who looks after her daughter’s child while she works nights. She would have to move.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I have had situations in Bristol where the housing department has decided that someone needs a second bedroom, but the housing benefit people have said that they are eligible for the bedroom tax. On one hand it is judged that someone does need an extra room, but on the other they are told that they have to pay for it. Is that not grossly unfair?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Absolutely, and that is the problem with a discretionary payment. Do we really want people to move every time their circumstances change? Let us look at it logically. A young couple move into a one-bedroom flat. They have a child so they move to a two-bedroom flat. Then they have another child. The children start school and can share a bedroom for a certain time, but when the first child is older the family move again to a three-bedroom property. Then, when the eldest child is 18, they move back to the two-bedroom flat. Then they go to a one-bedroom flat. Is that not a sure way to break down communities, take away social cohesion and spoil children’s education just when they need it? However, that point is academic, because, as I said, there just are not the properties available for people to move around like that. People are not chess pieces.

Perhaps the Government know that. This is not really about overcrowding, but saving money. Even by that yardstick, however, it still does not work. The Department for Work and Pensions assessment has been downgraded a number of times. It now appears that the cost of dealing with the debt, eviction, abandonment of properties and widespread misery and mental health problems caused by this pernicious tax might mean that cash savings are minimal or non-existent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am familiar with this issue. We set out in the paper published today the fact that we have extended the contracts until next September. I am making every effort to make sure that we can announce a long-term solution before the general election next year, so that those colleges can have some confidence in the future. My hon. Friend can give my assurance to the college principal that I will strain every sinew to do so and will keep him fully informed.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Figures show that the Work programme is performing very badly when it comes to helping disabled people into work. Why are its contracts being extended for another year even though it is clearly not doing the job it was intended to do?

[Mr Harper]

As the hon. Lady will see if she looks at the latest figures, the programme’s performance has improved considerably—indeed, it has been more successful than previous programmes—and Work Choice is also performing very well. I think that she should have a little more confidence. The document that I published today refers to a range of programmes initiated by Departments whose spending we have protected, at a time when difficult decisions are having to be made across Government to deal with the deficit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I very much support my right hon. Friend, who is very knowledgeable about these matters, and congratulate Mencap in her constituency on its Aspire project. It strongly supports the work of the Disability Confident campaign in getting more disabled people, including those with learning disabilities, into work, and I commend it strongly.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

15. What recent estimate he has made of the incidence of in-work poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The number of people in in-work poverty fell by 300,000, according to the latest figures. The rate is flat in general terms since the election, despite there being more people in work than ever before, and there are almost a million more people in working families and above the poverty line.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Tomorrow is equal pay day, which marks the day on which women effectively start working for free because they earn on average only 80p for every £1 a man earns. Does the Secretary of State agree that addressing the gender pay gap, which has got worse under his Government, is key to tackling in-work poverty, and what does he intend to do about it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

First, let us start from where we are: more women are now in work than ever before, which is a huge start. I also accept—[Interruption.] The rate is even better: it is a record rate. Of course, it is absolutely vital and right to ensure that women who go to work get paid a decent salary. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment has been leading the charge for the Department, doing a lot of campaigning. Universal credit, as it rolls out nationally, delivers for working women a far better deal, with higher wages, than they would get under the present system.

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[The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)]

I will indeed join my hon. Friend in congratulating not only the businesses that are supporting young people into work but the young people who have now got a job and are on their career journey, which we hope will be successful for them. Equally, I congratulate my hon. Friend on having a jobs fair in Leamington town hall and helping more people into work. It is Members on the Government Benches who are having jobs fair after jobs fair and really looking at ways to help people into work. [Interruption.] Rather than chuntering, it would be good if Opposition Members copied what we are doing.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T4. A couple of weeks ago, a very disturbing press report said that teachers are having to resort to spending their reserves, or even the pupil premium money, on providing food, clothes, transport, beds, and even ovens for children living in poverty because they take the view that if children are not fed and have nowhere to sleep, they will never be able to achieve educationally. Is it not an absolute disgrace that schools are having to resort to that because the safety net is not there to meet the fundamental needs of these children?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have not seen that report, but I am happy to look at it. However, I believe that the work being done in schools under this Government to support people who come from low-income families is phenomenal. Introducing that support for those children means that more children are now staying in school. As I said earlier, they are getting better results directly as a result of that support provided for them in school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Again, the rules are very clear: under a long-standing agreement, NHS hospitals and trusts are obliged to provide the relevant information free of charge and within 10 working days. However, from listening to my hon. Friend’s question it sounds as if he may have encountered at least one case where that has not happened. I will speak to him afterwards to see whether that raises any issues about whether this policy, which is clear, is actually being implemented by NHS organisations.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

When people in my office were chasing up Atos the other day, they were told that it is still dealing with ESA claims from the beginning of 2013, and that one reason for not being able to process claims more quickly was a difficulty in recruiting doctors to submit the medical information. Will the Minister examine this situation urgently, because it is obviously causing huge distress to people who are having to wait well over a year for their claims to be looked at?

[Mr Harper]

I am not quite sure whether when the hon. Lady talks about Atos she is referring to the work capability assessment—

[Kerry McCarthy]

indicated assent.

[Mr Harper]

She nods to say that she is. We have made inroads into the backlog of claims, and it is worth remembering that ESA claimants will normally be in receipt of benefit while they are waiting for the work capability assessment to be looked at.

DWP: Performance

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

I hope the Secretary of State also responds to the calls we are making today for the Government to give sick and disabled people some clarity and assurance by publishing a guaranteed time limit for the assessment of claims. For example, Macmillan Cancer Support has recommended that the personal independence payment assessment process be limited to 11 weeks. I hope the Secretary of State will tell us today that he will undertake to give that guarantee—if not, why not?

We are also calling for the Secretary of State to own up to the extent of the problems in his Department, particularly the mounting costs arising from problems with the personal independence payment, the work capability assessment and universal credit. The introduction of personal independence payments in place of disability living allowance was supposed to save £780 million in annual spending by next April, but with £200 million a year being spent on administration, including £127 million a year going to contracted-out assessment providers, this change is set to be completed not next year but, at this rate of progress, in 42 years’ time.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I received an e-mail today from a constituent who is in considerable distress. She first applied for her PIP on 1 November 2013, so she has now been waiting for eight months. She is in work and she has always been physically fit but she has now just been struck by misfortune. She is in such distress and Atos has told her that her referral is subject to a quality check to see whether Atos is doing its job properly. Clearly, if it has taken eight months to get to this stage, it is not doing its job properly.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Interventions must be short because a great many Members are waiting to speak and it is simply unfair if people make speeches instead of interventions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises the valuable work of foyer projects. My noble Friend Lord Freud, the Minister for welfare reform, leads on housing benefit for the Department, and I will ensure that he is aware of those projects, if he has not already held specific meetings about them. If the hon. Gentleman would like to give us further details, we will be happy to look at them.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The under-35 shared accommodation rate is a particular problem for fathers who do not live with the mother of their children, but want their children to stay with them at weekends, when it is simply not suitable for children to be in the sort of accommodation with other young men that people get under the rate. Has the Minister examined that situation?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, in exceptional cases, housing benefit can be topped up, but she will also know that the same issue could arise under the shared accommodation rate for under-25s. However, if two single people choose accommodation together, the combined total of their shared accommodation rates is larger than one family’s standard rate for a two-bedroom flat, so two people coming together can rent a larger property than a family requiring two bedrooms.

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[Esther McVey]

Absolutely, I can. All the money that we said that we would be spending on youth schemes—we are doing just that.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. It is a great shame that Tory Members of Parliament criticised the Trussell Trust and Oxfam—in fact, some might say threatened them—for daring to suggest a link between food poverty and the social security system: the cuts, the delays, the misapplied sanctions and the abolition of the social fund. Will the Secretary of State now accept his responsibility for what has been a 54% increase in the need for food aid in just one year, and commit to working positively with those organisations to see how his Department can help to address the root causes of food poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Inequality is at its lowest since 1986. There are 500,000 fewer people in relative poverty than at the election; 300,000 fewer children in relative poverty than at the election; 200,000 fewer pensioners in relative poverty than at the election; and 450,000 fewer workless households than at the end of 2010. We have done more to help people who are hard up than the hon. Lady’s Government ever did.

Points of Order

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), contradicted my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn) earlier when he asked about the sanctions rate. She said that the number of successful appeals was around only 10%. According to the Trussell Trust’s “Below the Breadline” report, the average success rate was 58% over the period from 22 October 2012 to 30 September 2013, and in the three months to 30 September 2013 it was 86%. How can we put on the record whether those figures cited by the Trussell Trust are correct and where the Minister managed to get the figure of 10% from?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

rose—

Jobs and Work

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I have been contacted by many constituents who are disappointed by the Queen’s Speech, not just by its broad failure to tackle the real economic and social problems they face, but, in particular, its failure on recall and the inexplicable omission of a Bill to ban wild animals in circuses.

Today’s debate is about jobs and I want to start by talking about the prevalence of low pay—and, indeed, no pay—in one of the fastest-growing and most successful sectors of our economy: the arts and creative industries. I speak here as chair of the all-party group for the Performers Alliance, which works with the Musicians Union, Equity and the Writers Guild to provide a voice in Parliament for musicians, actors, writers and performers.

The headline figures on the success of our creative industries are impressive, but they mask a situation in which those with talent and creativity often go unrewarded. Equity’s most recent survey of members found that virtually half earned under £5,000, and 86% earned less than £20,000 a year. Similar research by the MU demonstrated that 60% had worked for free in the past year. We must get a grip on this situation to ensure that work in this sector does not become the preserve of only those from privileged backgrounds, as is increasingly the case.

The all-party group’s report, “Work Not Play” sets out what action is needed, such as clear, industry-specific guidance on the national minimum wage on the Gov.uk website. That is something Equity and I discussed with the then Minister with responsibility for employment relations, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), back in October. We will keep pressing the Government on this matter.

As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is in his place, I will take the opportunity to highlight Equity’s concerns that the roll-out of universal credit will prove extremely detrimental to the ability of many of its members to sustain careers in the creative industries. Many will be assumed to have an income they simply do not have, as a result of the application of the minimum income floor, or subject to increased conditionality. This is why Equity is calling for a reduction in the minimum income floor and a relaxation in conditionality for creative industry workers. The creative industries are characterised by unpredictable and short-term patterns of work, and the system must acknowledge that.

I want to talk about the need for action against unscrupulous—or perhaps, to be generous, unwitting employers—who profit from the exploitation of workers both here and abroad. We have heard how the failure to pay the minimum wage and the use of zero-hours contracts have undercut the wages of workers in the UK, and I fully support my party’s efforts to push the Government further on tackling such abuses. There is much more to be done, particularly in relation to company supply chains.

We have heard horrific stories in this Chamber before about the use of trafficked, child and forced labour. According to International Labour Organisation estimates, there are 21 million victims of forced labour around the world, working in unimaginably harsh conditions for little pay or enslaved for no pay at all. People will have seen today’s coverage of the Environmental Justice Foundation’s report, “Sold to the Sea”, which documents the severe conditions in the Thai fishing industry, where, it is said, men are

“bought and sold like animals,”

held against their will, abused and even murdered. An investigation by Finnwatch into Thai factories also revealed forced and child labour, illegally low wages, excessive working hours, abuse by managers and unsafe working hours.

Such factories form part of the supply chains for European companies. As Anti-Slavery International has said:

“If you buy prawns or shrimp from Thailand, you will be buying the produce of slave labour”.

I know that the Modern Slavery Bill is being introduced by the Home Office, and I welcome it, but the Business Secretary clearly has a strong interest too in ensuring that British companies and British consumers do not support the exploitation of workers in that way. I urge him to talk to his colleague the Home Secretary about whether the Bill can be strengthened to legislate against slavery in the supply chain. The EU imported over $1 billion-worth of seafood from Thailand in 2012, so I would also ask the Business Secretary to raise these issues in the EU’s free trade agreement negotiations with Thailand, which is in his remit too.

Given more time, I could talk at length about other examples of the exploitation of workers by unscrupulous employers, whether it be one individual taking advantage of another’s vulnerability or the systematic exploitation of hundreds of workers by huge companies. We need a fundamental shift in power and a Government who stand up for such workers—in whatever industry or, indeed, whatever country, because in today’s global economy the exploitation of workers abroad has an undoubted impact here—using whatever international mechanisms we have at our disposal, such as the ILO, to ensure that everyone gets a fair deal. The Government have singularly failed to step up to the plate so far. I hope they will do so now.