Funeral Poverty

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for introducing this important debate, which has inspired uncharacteristic consensus around the Chamber. Everybody in this room agrees that there is a problem and that funeral poverty is a huge issue affecting every constituency and every part of the United Kingdom, a trend shown by the 80% rise in funeral costs over the past 10 years—or higher in some parts of the UK. In the past year, the cost of a funeral has risen by more than 7%. Household incomes are simply not keeping pace.

As many Members have said, at an already difficult and stressful time, families are being forced into credit card debt and unwise access to money. They do so in desperation, to cover funeral expenses. Everybody understands that when a loved one dies, we want to give them the dignity and respect of a fitting send-off. What families are left with at the end, as well as their grief, is debt anxiety, which does not allow people to grieve properly as they ought to be allowed to do. There is also wide disparity in pricing. People can find out that in another part of the country, the funeral might not have cost quite as much as they paid for it.

Far too many families on low incomes face the brutal reality that they simply cannot afford the sudden death of a loved one. Of course, there is the option of life insurance, but to people struggling to put food on the table for their family, it too often seems like an unnecessary luxury. In certain circumstances, local authorities step in to provide a public health funeral, but recent research shows that the demand for such funerals is rising and many local authorities are struggling to cope. Funeral plans have been mentioned, but we have evidence that some companies offer over-50s plans to provide for their funeral, which can lead people on low incomes to pay thousands upon thousands of pounds without their families ever recovering the full amount paid in, because they paid in more than the funeral costs.

It is unacceptable for a bereaved family coming to terms with the loss of a loved one to have to go through the turmoil of worrying how to afford a funeral. Many Members have spoken about Scotland. The power to deal with funeral payments is due to be devolved under the Scotland Bill. Currently, the social fund is the mechanism that can, where conditions are met, help individuals in such circumstances with certain one-off payments, but as we know, the social fund has become another victim of the Government’s austerity cuts, and more pressure is being placed on families. The fund has failed to keep pace with the true cost of funerals, leaving some families with substantial debts. To illustrate further, the social fund reported a 35% increase in the number of clients facing funeral debt in the year 2013-14.

Tribute has been rightly paid to the social fund in this debate, but the issues I have raised have led some groups to take a more direct approach. I hope that we can all pay tribute to the Quaker Social Action group which, along with a network of not-for-profit organisations, has established the Funeral Poverty Alliance, dedicated both to raising the profile of funeral poverty as a social justice issue requiring the attention of Government decision makers and to ensuring that the public and the funeral industry alike are aware of the options available and the wider challenges. Such developments further elucidate the seriousness of the issue of funeral poverty.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. I hate to interrupt the hon. Lady’s speech, but there are two more speakers waiting, and the debate finishes at half-past 5.

[Patricia Gibson]

I will wind up. I have not had time to say all that I wanted to say, but I shall end by saying that we know that many people in our country struggle to make ends meet. They can barely afford to live; now it would seem that they cannot afford to die either. We have spoken about the distress and the lack of dignity into which funeral poverty plunges families and the deceased. Let us hope that the Government are listening.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for that point. It is important to reflect on what we can do to help people be in work rather than rely on welfare.

Thirdly, I turn to the measures in the Bill about work and disability and a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate made. Let this not be a taboo topic that we find too difficult to deal with. There is a case for making the best of everybody’s talents in this country. My right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench are right that we all ought to be disability-confident, and we should all encourage businesses in our constituencies up and down the land to be disability-confident. Why should we do that? According to Mind, the mental health charity, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and many other reputable sources, work can be extremely beneficial to a person’s health—in the case of those two organisations, mental health. The measures in the Bill range from mental health to other aspects of health, but let us understand that we can and must offer chances to everybody in the country. We can all look at ways to do that in our constituencies.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

rose—

[Chloe Smith]

I am afraid I will not give way. Out of fairness to other Members, I must finish and then allow others to speak. I have already taken one intervention.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said, we need to ensure that the support provided in jobcentres is proportionate to the distance claimants have to go to find work, and to the height of the barriers in their way. That is the right thing to do.

Fourthly, I turn to the measures on child poverty. I referred earlier to the comments of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead—I think in his absence, I am afraid to say. He noted that the definition of poverty, and everything that is needed for someone not to be regarded as poor as defined by academics and politicians, can be utterly bewildering. I agree with that, and we are right to attempt to improve on a measure that the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission and others readily say is unattainable. It makes no sense to press on with something that is unattainable when we have the opportunity to improve the situation and do better for children by referring to educational attainment and being in work.

Fifthly, a measure connected to the Bill is the national living wage, which is a crucial part of serving the strivers in this country. No doubt the right hon. Member for Birkenhead knows far more than I do about the difficulties of encouraging high pay at the same time as the Government are effectively subsidising pay with a high welfare net. Nevertheless, I support the measures in the Bill and the Budget for turning Britain into a higher wage economy and a lower tax society, and for creating a more reasonable approach to welfare.

Finally, my constituents in Norwich, where the gross median income is £23,000, will welcome the measure in the Bill to reduce the welfare cap one step further to £20,000 outside London. That is the right thing to do and will support work over welfare.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Let me take this opportunity to welcome the vision of welfare reform that has been set out by the Government, and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in particular. I think we all agree—certainly those on this side of the House—that we have a problem with the amount of money spent on welfare. When Gordon Brown first became Chancellor and introduced tax credits, he promised they would cost £2 billion. They now cost £30 billion, which is a fifteen-fold increase. We have been in a ludicrous position: people have been in work, on the minimum wage, and paying tax, only for those tax payments to be recycled through the welfare system and returned to them in the form of welfare payments.

[Patricia Gibson]

According to the Government’s rhetoric, work is the best route out of poverty, but is this not the reality of their proposals: it does not matter how hard those who live in poverty work; their poverty will remain stubbornly present in their lives owing to cuts in child tax credit and low pay? Is this not about ideology rather than necessity? Is it not about rolling back the frontiers of the state?

[Oliver Dowden]

No, it is not about rolling back the frontiers of the state. The points that the hon. Lady has raised are addressed by our introduction of universal credit, which gives people who are in work a progressive route out of poverty by helping them, as they earn more, not to have all their benefits removed. Moreover, by introducing a national living wage, we are ensuring that everyone who is in work and has a low income will be given a pay rise.

Faced with the current problem, a Government might be tempted simply to salami slice benefits across the board. However, this Government have set out a coherent vision of welfare, which has a number of elements. First, if we are to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy to a higher wage, lower tax, low welfare economy, we must deal with the tax problem. The last Government, with their coalition partners, set about massively increasing the amount of money people could earn without paying tax. We are continuing that agenda, so that as people earn more they keep more

Secondly, we have grasped the problem of people who are in work but do not earn a sufficiently large wage, which is why, for the first time, we are able to increase the minimum wage significantly. Our increase is far greater than any increases that were made by the Labour party when it was in power.

Child Poverty

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Would the Secretary of State care to comment on a recent policy proposal from the Resolution Foundation, which has pointed out that if one really wants to target help to working families on low and middle incomes, the best way to do it is to increase or boost the working allowance as opposed to giving them tax cuts?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have never seen such things as either/or. A well-balanced Government will decide how they can help certain specific groups with support where necessary. We have done that in a variety of areas, including through the tax credits we inherited from the previous Labour Government and now through universal credit. I am a great believer in this: if, as we have done, we give people incentives by raising the threshold and taking millions of low-paid people out of tax, that has got to be good because now that they do not pay tax, they can hold on to more of their money.

Scotland Bill

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

No, not the current Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath; my hon. Friend would not do anything so rash.

There is a crisis in the funding of such schemes and the tax treatment of dividends requires a fresh examination. Pension freedoms were initiated in the last Parliament. While we broadly welcome the enhancement of consumer choice, SNP Members have gone on record as questioning the appropriateness of the advice that consumers receive and the risks of mis-selling. Those concerns have not been adequately addressed, and if pensions are devolved to Scotland, the Parliament in Edinburgh may want to look at it.

We welcome the amendment, especially in the light of the threatened attack on the most vulnerable in our society if the Government go ahead with their £12 billion-worth of cuts. We recognise that we can deliver only if we have fiscal responsibility as part of the equation. We recognise our responsibilities to look after the vulnerable in our society. We firmly believe that we need power over our economy to deliver sustainable economic growth and grow the tax base to generate the resources to create not only a wealthier but a fairer Scotland. Passing the amendment today would at least give us the power to intervene to ameliorate some of the pain that will be inflicted on so many of our people by the policies of the UK Government.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to speak in favour of amendment 118 and new clause 45, which call for the removal of the requirement for the Scottish Government to obtain consent from the UK Secretary of State in relation to universal credit and the cost of claimants who rent accommodation.

In the light of our mandate from the Scottish people, and the lack of democratic mandate that the Conservatives —indeed, any of the other parties—have in Scotland, we urge all in the Committee to support the amendment. We set it out unequivocally in our manifesto that, as part of our welfare priorities, there should be an immediate scrapping of the bedroom tax and a halt to the roll-out of universal credit and PIP payments. We said that we would support an increase in the work allowance. Those policies were supported by both the people of Scotland and civic Scotland and we have a clear democratic mandate for that demand, given the result of the general election.

We are particularly concerned about the work allowance element of universal credit—the amount of income that a household can earn before their universal credit entitlement is reduced. We demand that the work allowance be devolved to the Scottish Government as part of new clause 45, and democratic integrity requires that that demand be met. We support increases in the personal tax allowance, but we also back an increase in the work allowance. In this, we are in keeping with a Resolution Foundation policy proposal paper, which pointed out:

“if we really want to help working families on low and middle incomes, boosting the Work Allowance would be more effective and better value for money than any tax cuts”.

For a lone parent with housing costs, for example, the work allowance is currently set at just over £3,000 per year. After that point benefits start to be withdrawn. For example, those on universal credit lose £65 of benefit for every £100 of post-allowance salary. Of course we need to put in place some sort of tapering system to make work pay, but the complexity of the system allows—indeed, encourages—the Government to focus on simpler measures, even if those simpler measures are far less effective. Take the personal allowance. People begin paying tax at 20% after earning £10,000 a year, but we pay less attention to the fact that a sole working parent faces a 65% deduction rate when they earn over £3,000 a year.

For people who receive universal credit and pay income tax, the Chancellor’s £600 a year increase to their personal allowance is welcome. That would boost their income by £42, but the same increase in work allowance would increase their income by £390.

Even the Institute for Fiscal Studies has weighed into this debate, arguing:

“In-work benefits provide a more precise and cost-effective way of supporting low-earning working families than changes to direct taxes.”

The freezing of work allowance is profoundly misguided and effectively cuts the benefits of workers on low incomes. What happened to making work pay? What we need is a work allowance to help to ensure that those in work have a better chance of lifting themselves and their families out of poverty. We need the power in Scotland to change work allowances in Scotland, so that we can help families to help themselves out of poverty as they go out every day to earn a living through increasingly difficult times.

Universal credit does not help some of our poorest households, but much could be done by increasing work allowance and making work pay. This could be one—only one—of the tools that could help to combat the scandal of those in work having to rely on food banks to put food on their tables and feed themselves and their families. Scotland needs powers over the work allowance element of universal credit—no ifs, no buts.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the letter in The Herald today, which has already been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). It is a letter from the third sector in Scotland protesting against the socially divisive and damaging impact of the UK Government’s cuts of a further £12 billion in social security spending—cuts which, despite attempts to rewrite history, the Labour party signed up to prior to the general election. [Interruption.] These cuts—[Interruption.] Let me put the cuts in context. In the pre-election debate the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said that the Labour party was not the party of people on benefits. I notice that there is no retort to that. These cuts first and foremost—

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

No, thank you. [Interruption.] I have already responded informally to the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), who is on the Front Bench.

These cuts first and foremost will bear down on the most vulnerable and poorest in society. The whole of the third sector in Scotland supports the devolution of working-age benefits to Scotland because there is a recognition that the Scottish Government can and will do things better. They will set out a welfare system competently and with compassion. Make no mistake. Such devolution of welfare powers—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am listening with great care to the hon. Lady, as I hope are my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State, because I maintain that she is making the same point that I was making, although from a different direction. If we dribble out powers, the SNP will constantly blame us for everything that goes wrong—“Cuts? They’re responsible for the cuts.” Give them the responsibility and they will have to take responsibility.

[Patricia Gibson]

We will be proud to take responsibility for investing in the growth of Scotland’s economy, in our infrastructure and in the people of Scotland.

Make no mistake: the devolution of the welfare powers in the Bill is supported by Citizens Advice Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Church of Scotland, Oxfam Scotland, the Poverty Alliance, the Scottish Trades Union Congress—I could go on, but I think I have made my point.

We on the SNP Benches are seeking to protect those we represent in Scotland from the worst excesses of this Government. We speak with the clear democratic mandate of the people of Scotland, and behind that we have the increasingly raised voices of Scotland’s third sector and civic society. We must not balance the books on the backs of the poor. It is time that the Government listened to a valued and equal partner in this Union—Scotland—in the spirit of the respect agenda.

For the record, and for the avoidance of any doubt, the SNP set out unequivocally in our manifesto, as part of our welfare priorities, that there should be an immediate scrapping of the bedroom tax and a halt to the roll-out of universal credit and PIP payments. As far as working-age benefits go, the Bill does not meet what was set out in the Smith agreement.

The Secretary of State has argued that there is no effective UK Government veto over the powers in the Bill relating to welfare arrangements, limited as they are, yet there is a clear requirement for the Scottish Government to

“have consulted the Secretary of State about the practicability of implementing the regulations”.

The Secretary of State would then have to give

“his or her agreement as to when any change made by the regulations is to start to have effect, such agreement not to be unreasonably withheld.”

Is it likely that the current Secretary of State and the Scottish people would ever agree on a definition of what is unreasonable? For example, the people of Scotland believe that it is unreasonable that a party that has a far weaker mandate in Scotland than at any time during any of the years when it last led a majority Government now pontificates over what powers Scotland should have while reneging on the all-party agreements arrived at in Smith. The Secretary of State clearly thinks that this situation is entirely reasonable and presides over the Dispatch Box like a colossal Governor-General, with no shame, taking on the elected and legitimate representatives of the huge majority of the Scottish people.

For the sake of social justice in Scotland, for the sake of our most vulnerable, who are being crushed beneath the weight of the illogical and misguided attempts to punish those who require assistance from the state, for the sake of what was promised in Smith, for the sake of Scotland’s position as a “valued and equal partner” in this Union, for the sake of the wisdom of Scotland’s civic society, and for the sake of the SNP’s democratic mandate, I urge the Committee to support amendment 118 and new clause 45.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

We are considering a lot of amendments, and some of them cover quite technically detailed matters, but I think that the context of the debate is about big ideas; it is about big differences between this side of the House and the Government side of the House. I think that there can be no bigger difference than how we view our society with regard to welfare provision. On the Opposition Benches we see welfare as a means of social insurance whereby we work together to protect each other through periods of illness and disability and in old age, and also to protect people who are casualties of economic circumstances as they move from one period of employment to another. It is something we should provide with kindness and generosity and in the spirit of co-operation. I fear that the attitude of Government Members is founded on prejudice and parsimony. It is about a welfare state that grudgingly gives to people as a means of last resort. It is because of that difference in opinion that this debate matters so much.