Welfare Spending

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that lengthy intervention. I deeply regret that he does not feel the need to look his own record in the face and, more than anything, that he has nothing to say to the 4.5 million children in this country without the means to make ends meet.

Emergency food parcels distributed by Trussell Trust food banks have increased by 164% over the past 10 years, and 1.1 million children are living in households that have gone to a food bank over the past 12 months. In this country we now have more food banks than police stations. Are the Conservatives proud of that record? I hope not.

Nobody in this country should be begging—no child should face that indignity. The consequences are serious. Over 80% of parents say they struggle to get basic support, such as a GP appointment, or to see a health visitor. Schools are in an attendance crisis, with one in five kids now missing a day a fortnight or more, and it is worse for poor kids. That is the Conservatives’ record. These failures for our children will echo down the years and will turn up in our nation’s life expectancy, the benefits bill they say they care about and, worst of all, in the sense of hopelessness that far too many people in this country now have.

Do the Conservative Opposition have a response on their record? As we have heard, no, they do not. Have they apologised to families in the UK? As we have heard, no, they have not. Have they reflected on their record? As we have heard, no, they have not. They bring a motion to this House to do none of the above, but to agree with the Tory party policy from 10 years ago. They are the same Conservative party that created the mess we are in now, and they have no regrets. Their motion talks of a benefits trap, and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) just repeated that. They will be awfully cross when they find out who spent £3 billion on the universal credit system that they now say traps people in poverty. They promised that universal credit would get people into work; instead, it pushed people into incapacity benefits.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I gently say to the Minister that she and her Back-Bench colleagues do not have a monopoly on talking about poverty. If she really cared about poverty, she would not have allowed a policy to be brought before this House last week that, before it was changed, would have put 150,000 extra children into poverty. If she genuinely believes in tackling poverty, why is she still standing at the Dispatch Box as a Minister, because she should have resigned for putting more children into poverty under her proposals?

[Alison McGovern]

I do not believe for a moment that it is just people in the Labour party who care about poverty in this country. Former Conservative Members of this House who were discharged from their duties by previous Prime Ministers, and many other Members of different parties over many years, have cared about poverty. We should deal with facts in this place, and I am merely repeating, for the benefit of the House, the Conservative Government’s record on poverty. I will cover the details of the child poverty taskforce in my speech. If the hon. Gentleman wishes at any point to make representations to the taskforce of Ministers dealing with child poverty in this country, I will happily receive them.