Child Poverty: London Debate
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Rupa Huq
Main Page: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)Department Debates - View all Rupa Huq's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Child Poverty: London
Rupa Huq Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful and compelling speech. Her constituency is not dissimilar to mine. When we think of child poverty, we think of Dickensian cobbled streets and of it as some sort of inner-city malady, but we both represent suburban seats. In Ealing Central and Acton 7,179 children live in poverty, which is not a dissimilar figure to the one she quoted. We also hear about Victorian diseases such as tuberculosis making a comeback. Those places were built to fulfil the suburban dream to get away from the inner city, but the horrible scourge of child poverty is coming to our suburbs. Does she agree with me?
Siobhain McDonagh
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There are great similarities. Suburban London is not the suburban London that many of us think exists.
By the end of their lives, boys from poorer backgrounds have a life expectancy that is an astonishing 9.2 years shorter than that of their wealthier counterparts. Take my borough, Merton, where Wimbledon constituents have a life expectancy almost three years longer than those in Mitcham and Morden, despite a mere letter change in their postcode. The Government, I know, are extremely fiscally responsible so, if that is not enough to inspire the Minister to action, perhaps it is worth them considering that child poverty costs the UK economy a staggering £29 billion per year in services and wasted potential.