Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which I think will interest the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) as well. From April this year, our new DWP in-work progression offer will support working universal credit claimants to progress and increase their earnings. It will include better support to upskill and retrain, and low-paid workers are eligible for training funded by the Department for Education via skills boot camps in digital engineering and the green sectors.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

T5. It is welcome that the Government have proposed reforms to the Child Maintenance Service following the recent National Audit Office report highlighting the failures in that organisation. Will the reforms address the issues with self-employed fee-paying parents hiding their income, as well as the concerns around previously unco-operative parents being moved off collect and pay after minimal evidence of compliance?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. All parents automatically go into the direct payment process. I am working with my noble Friend Baroness Stedman-Scott, the Minister who has direct responsibility for this portfolio, to see what more we can do to accelerate reform if people are clearly not being compliant and not paying. Meanwhile, our financial investigations unit will investigate where people are hiding money and, if necessary, take them to court to ensure that the money gets paid.

Regional Inequalities: Child Poverty

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for having secured this debate. Sometimes we can become numb to poverty and inequality, and we can allow the symptoms of poverty that should appal us to become fixtures in society. Food banks, anti-poverty charities and now clothing banks, although they are great sources of good and bring out the best in us, should not be necessary in 2022, yet in County Durham—as in too many places—the evidence that our communities are becoming ever more reliant on them is all around us. I also read the briefing from the North East Child Poverty Commission, and the figures for poverty in our region are indeed scandalous: the UK’s second highest. That means that in our region, in an average classroom of 30 children, 11 are living in poverty.

Growing up in poverty can have a corrosive effect on a child’s life chances. Their social, educational and health development is likely to be reduced compared with that of their richer peers. Growing up in a poor household can reduce a child’s expectations, and an absence of clear opportunity can reduce aspiration for what can be achieved in life, creating a cycle in which poverty is repeated from generation to generation. Many of us will have witnessed those tragic problems in our own communities. In the village of Witton Gilbert in my constituency, I recently met with volunteers from Children’s Hopes and Dreams, a community group whose food bank and other support activities for children have become a vital community safety network. With the cost of living crisis that is hitting many families at the minute, the work of that charity is needed more and more each day.

However, charity alone cannot eradicate poverty or regional inequality. The Government cannot stand idle and ignore poverty as a natural tragedy; they are not powerless to counter it. The daily decisions of Government can reduce or increase children’s life chances, and as we have heard, poverty is a political choice. We have witnessed this at first hand in the north-east—the region that saw the largest drop in child poverty during the last Labour Government, yet the largest rise since the Conservatives took power over 12 years ago. Consistent policy choices and spending priorities at every level of Government are needed to tackle a decade of worsening regional inequality, which has been exacerbated. We should not forget the view of Philip Alston, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extreme poverty, who said that the Government’s approach to poverty is

“not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one”.

The levelling-up White Paper should have been the moment at which every lever of Government was seized to counter that tragedy. However, we have been left without a proper industrial strategy for reversing economic decline and, in the opinion of Michael Marmot, we do not have the funding to meet the Government’s goal of reducing health inequalities by 2035. If the Government had committed as much money as they have rhetoric to levelling up areas such as Durham, that goal would be in reach, but sadly, it is increasingly clear that the opposite is true.

Income Tax (Charge)

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab) [V]]

Cutting through the fanfare, this Budget was devoid of imagination and substance. It may see Britain through to the end of the Prime Minister’s road map, but it does not come close to addressing the social, economic and climate crisis we face.

From this Budget, we can assume that the Conservatives intend to increase poverty, rather than end it. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that the Chancellor has created “a perfect storm” by planning to cut universal credit just as unemployment peaks, while he has also continued the Conservatives’ hostile environment for disabled people by ignoring legacy benefits. I dread to think what it will be like for the families who will be forced to use food banks because of his cruelty.

What was there for Durham’s NHS workers, teachers, prison staff and the rest of our public-sector key workers? There were a few claps and a pay freeze. That is not levelling-up; that is a slap in the face.

I cannot have been the only one who was shocked by the absence of any reference to our NHS and social care from the Budget speech. These sectors have been stretched to breaking point, held together only by the determination of those who staff them, yet instead of a recovery plan the Chancellor chose to slash NHS spending, with no strategy to tackle the backlog or the mental health crisis.

The Chancellor also seems to be clueless when it comes to the challenges facing our communities over the coming years, with a £14 billion cut to public services over this Parliament. In Durham, our council and schools have led the way in their pandemic support for residents, but they simply cannot continue on minimal funding. The Government’s council tax rise serves only to deflect blame for Tory cuts while making our local communities pay for the crisis. Durham’s public sector is desperate to lead our local recovery. The Chancellor just needs to give it the resources to do so.

The Chancellor’s remedy for businesses seems to be to help them to limp along until after the pandemic and then leave them at the mercy of the upcoming economic crisis. Durham’s high streets were struggling before the pandemic started. Where is our fightback strategy? This Chancellor is no friend of the independent businesses that are the heartbeat of our high streets.

This Budget called for vision and ambition that met the challenges of the pandemic head on with a bold plan for our recovery—a Budget that learned the lessons of a decade of austerity, deregulation and the eradication of workers’ rights. Instead, the Chancellor came up short yet again. Rather than rebuild, we got a sticking plaster designed to tide us over. Our health services were ignored, our key workers abandoned, our environment forgotten and our economy failed. Britain needs and deserves better.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The people in Warrington will benefit significantly from this addition to what is—in effect, through the covid winter grant—an extension of the local welfare fund, which we had already given money to earlier in the year, as he identifies. I think it is important that we continue to use the strengths of local councils in order to make sure that the help goes to those who need it the most and is really well targeted. I am sure that they will draw on every capability and insight in order to make sure that no child in Warrington will go cold or hungry this winter.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Last month, Conservative Members took to social media to claim that free school meal vouchers were being spent on prostitution and drugs, as well as to criticise selfless business owners who stepped in to provide the support that the Government refused to. Will the Secretary of State condemn these comments by MPs as not only false, but as yet more demonisation of those in poverty by the Conservative Government?

[Dr Coffey]

This Government continue to strive to help people who are vulnerable and disadvantaged, and we will continue to do that. I welcome any support given in order to help local communities. I am conscious that we need to continue to try to make sure we reach people of all ages; in particular, this grant is focused on children. There will be flexibility in supporting local organisations to do the right thing, but I also continue to welcome other organisations, such as businesses in the hon. Member’s constituency, that also reach out to help.

Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I would like to congratulate these four women on their victory for social justice. It is shameful that the Government have pursued this case to the Court of Appeal. These were working women who were paid a regular monthly salary. Welfare rights experts described them as perfect candidates for universal credit. Does the Minister agree that a system that does not work for people like them does not work at all?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I do not recognise the picture she paints. As I said earlier, judicial reviews are brought for all sorts of reason. Like her, I pay tribute to the ladies involved in bringing this case, but I point out gently to her that the Court of Appeal accepted our interpretation of the UC regulations. Nevertheless, we accept and note that some people may face budgeting difficulties. That is why I have committed to take this action.