Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady makes such a poignant point, and I am sure all of us will reflect on the role of women in our own families in getting us here today.

There are other women in our communities whom we need to celebrate. We are incredibly privileged in Hampshire to have one of only four female chief constables in the country, Olivia Pinkney, who is doing an incredible job of running one of the largest police forces in the country. The chief executive of my local hospital in Basingstoke, Alex Whitfield, succeeded another female chief executive, to make sure we have some of the best health services in the area.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady is right to point out the need to have more women in senior policing positions and to encourage more women police officers to rise up through the ranks. Will she join me in paying tribute to the woman Met Commissioner, the woman head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the woman head of the National Crime Agency? To have Cressida Dick, Sara Thornton and Lynne Owens all in those top positions is a huge tribute to them and the work they have done to rise through the profession.

[Mrs Miller]

Coupled with a female Home Secretary, they make a formidable team.

I also want to point out the role of women in business. I represent one of the top 10 centres of business in the south-east, and it is local businesswomen in smaller businesses who I find incredibly inspiring—people like Beryl Huntingdon in my constituency, who runs a business to support other businesses. When I look at my local charities, I see it is often women who are not just helping to run existing charities—people like Evelyn Vincent, who was a founder member of Headway Basingstoke—but setting up new charities. I think of women like Charlie Porter, who set up the Muffin’s Dream Foundation to support families with disabled children, Catherine Waters-Clark, who founded Inspero to help children understand where their food comes from and how they can cook it, and Mary Swan, who is the artistic director of my local producing theatre company.

It does not stop there. If it was not for the women, I do not know what the Church of England would be doing. It is people like Jo Stoker of St Michael’s Church who keep our churches running. We were talking earlier about football teams. Basingstoke Town ladies football team plays in the FA women’s premier league south-west division, and I am hugely proud of the fact that they are doing extremely well—in fact, better than the men’s team.

Online Abuse

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

That is a very good point about under-reporting. Even when those crimes are reported, the police might find it almost impossible to know how to tackle them. That might be because the law is inadequate, but it might also be because their training is inadequate.

I was recently given some evidence by “Good Morning Britain” of a freedom of information request that it made, which uncovered the fact that one in six crimes reported under revenge pornography laws involves children under the age of 18. That is not revenge pornography; that is child abuse. It is potentially misattributed in that way by the police. That leads, exactly as the hon. Lady said, to the under-reporting of one of the most appalling crimes in existence.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the work that the right hon. Lady has done on this subject. She and I are both involved in the Reclaim the Internet campaign to bring together the police, social media and organisations and individuals across the country to tackle online abuse. I agree that there are big questions for the law and for policing, particularly when it comes to protecting young people. Does she agree that much stronger responsibility is needed from everyone, including other organisations, individuals and social media platforms? Does she welcome the work that Stonewall and Facebook have been doing to tackle online bullying, LGBT discrimination and homophobia, and that they are launching a new online guide tomorrow?

[Mrs Miller]

I thank the right hon. Lady for highlighting the work that is going on. I pay tribute to Reclaim the Internet, the cross-party campaign that she started to make sure that we can come together and find a solution to one of the biggest that the country faces. Online abuse, as she rightly says, does not simply affect one group of people. It goes across society, and it is wrecking the lives of adults, too. The Government must be applauded for being one of the first in the world to recognise online image-based sexual abuse in their revenge pornography laws. The Leader of the House, when he was Lord Chancellor, was instrumental in putting those laws into place.

That action has been vindicated, because there have been more than 3,000 calls to the revenge pornography helpline since the laws were enacted—laws that I was told were not needed because there was adequate law in place already. There were 1,000 reported incidents in just six months last year. There is much more to do to make the laws effective and to enable the police to prosecute effectively, but I think it shows that the Government are open to persuasion on the matter, and I hope it demonstrates an open-mindedness for the future. Now is the time for a very clear strategy to tackle these problems. Every person in the country, regardless of their age, should have an expectation that that they will be able to use social media platforms and mobile technology without being subject to criminal abuse.

The online world is part of everybody’s lives. The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is sitting on the Front Bench, has a deep interest in and knowledge of these issues. I know the personal work that he has done behind the scenes to try to press forward on many of these issues, and he should be commended for that. I know that the proposals in the Digital Economy Bill on stopping under-age access to pornography will have been subject to a great deal of attention from him. Those proposals are very welcome, but reinforce, I feel, the piecemeal approach to the problem. Experts have already made it clear that children will be, frankly, more than well equipped to get around most barriers put up to stop them getting access to pornography.

The approach in the Bill may well help in stopping younger children inadvertently coming across pornography—an issue I know the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has highlighted in recent research—but if the Government’s policy is to be effective, it must be part of a much broader and clearer strategic plan, including mandatory sex and relationship education in all state-funded schools to give children the opportunity to understand how to make the right choices for them and put any pornography they may see into the proper perspective in their lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am wondering how that question relates to tax and benefit changes, but I will of course always encourage the BBC to make sure that women have a full role in the work they do.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister will agree that it is really important for pregnant women to be able to afford to eat healthily and to take their full maternity leave when the baby is born, so why is she cutting £180 from maternity pay, cutting more than £1,000 in tax credits and, according to the House of Commons Library, even including the tax allowances that she mentioned, cutting a total of £1,300 from new mums on low income, yet giving a £13,000 tax cut to someone—usually a man—who is earning over £400,000 a year? In her role as the Minister for Women and Equalities, did she even try to stop the Chancellor hitting women, especially new mothers, so hard?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady will have heard my response to her colleague earlier—the Treasury is looking at the detail of how its policies impact on various groups and has made it an absolute priority to give support to those who need it most, ensuring that more families are able to get into work and that work pays for more people. Above all else, it is making sure that our children do not have to deal in the future with the record levels of deficit left by the right hon. Lady’s Government.

Equal Marriage Consultation

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—it is good to be here again. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to introduce same-sex marriages, but I am at a loss about why she could not have made all those points in the House yesterday, especially as most of them were made by Ministers to the press on Friday.

I agree with the Minister that we should support same-sex marriage. When couples want to get married and to make the long-term, loving commitment it entails, we should celebrate and not discriminate. Marriage is more than a historic tradition; it is about how the state and society today view and value long-term commitment. We should not prevent people from getting married and gaining recognition from the state on grounds of gender or sexuality, and Parliament should not say that some loving relationships have greater value than others.

While Labour was in government, we changed the law many times to tackle outdated prejudice and discrimination against lesbians, gay men, and bisexual and transgender people. Many of those measures were controversial at the time but are now taken for granted even by those who opposed them at the start: an equal age of consent, ending the ban on serving in the armed forces, ending discrimination in adoption and fertility treatment and abolishing section 28. Year after year, we changed the law and argued for the justice and common sense of each of those changes, and opponents were proved wrong—the sky did not fall in. This is the next sensible step. To deny same-sex couples the chance to marry and have their relationship recognised by the state as of equal worth to other loving couples would be unfair and out of date.

The Minister will know that I have argued for some time for those Churches and religious organisations that want to be able to celebrate same-sex marriage to be able to do so. I have met religious leaders from many faiths who want to be able to treat all loving couples equally and who show powerfully that the debate on same-sex marriage should not become polarised between Church and state. There are very different views between and within faiths.

I agree that freedom of religion is important. The Minister is right that no Church or religious organisations should be required to hold same-sex marriage and that respect for freedom of religion should be built into the proposed legislation, but we will need to look at the details of the proposals because it is important that she does not become too defensive about this. Freedom of religion also means that those faith groups, such as the Quakers, the Unitarians and others who want to be able to celebrate same-sex marriage should be able to do so. Those who argue that marriage should never change are out of touch with public feeling. Based on that argument, civil marriage would never have been introduced in the 1830s, married women would never have been given the right to own property, no one would be able to remarry after a divorce and the law would not have been changed to outlaw rape within marriage.

It is deeply disappointing that some in the House yesterday wanted to link same-sex marriage with polygamy or to suggest that it was somehow an affront to those in so-called normal marriages. I hope that those who have opposed the plans in the House and some Church leaders will think carefully and not repeat some of the hysterical language they have used before. These proposals include considerable respect for freedom of religion, freedom of belief and freedom for those who wish to continue to oppose same-sex marriage within their own organisations. I hope, however, that they will now respect the majority of us in the House and beyond who wish to support same-sex marriage and will not try to veto everyone else. No one faith, group or organisation owns marriage.

Surveys have found that seven out of 10 people support extending civil marriage to same-sex couples and that six out of 10 people of faith support extending it too. Marriage has never been a rigid, unchanging institution. It is only when marriage loses its relevance to communities or is seen as outdated or unjust that it risks becoming weakened or forgotten. I hope that the Minister will accept the support for these measures, promote them with confidence, not be defensive about the changes, and urge everyone to support the reforms, which will strengthen marriage and support equality too.

[Maria Miller]

I welcome the right hon. Lady’s support for the statement. She is right to highlight the widespread support for what the Government have outlined outside this place and on both sides of the House.

It is important to pick up on the right hon. Lady’s point about showing respect for both sides of the argument. As we participate in these or any discussions, none of us should try to polarise the debate. The language we use and the stance we take are looked at far and wide—people will be looking at how we deal with these issues—so I hope that hon. Members will appreciate and echo in their comments the respect that I am showing to religious institutions and to people in same-sex relationships. I think I made it clear that it is up to religious institutions to decide how they deal with these matters. That is not being defensive; it is about respecting those important religious beliefs.

Same-sex Marriage in Churches

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving me the chance to talk about this today. I share the House’s disappointment that we are discussing this issue in response to an urgent question, given that I am planning to set it out tomorrow. Equally, though, I am pleased to have the opportunity to make sure that my hon. Friend is very clear about the situation. The Prime Minister did not announce anything new this weekend; he simply restated the Government’s position and, in particular, expressed a personal view regarding the possible role for churches in future—a view that he first expressed in July. However, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this is an important matter that should be discussed first here in the House, and that is why we have brought forward our statement to tomorrow.

Let me respond to a couple of other points that my hon. Friend raised. We have not changed our support for equal civil marriage; the consultation that we have just gone through is about how to put equal civil marriage in place. There may well be policy implications, on which I will be better able to provide further detail when the consultation response is set out tomorrow. I hope that he can bear with me on that, and perhaps we can give him the responses that he is looking for at that time.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her answer, although I regret that it was not a full statement—the media were obviously briefed on Friday. Her answer raises some additional questions.

We are clear that when couples love each other and want to make a long-term commitment, that should be cause for celebration, not discrimination, and they should be able to marry regardless of their gender or sexuality. I agree with the right hon. Lady about that. When Labour was in government, we legislated for the equalisation of the age of consent, civil partnerships, an end to the armed forces ban, and other provisions to tackle discrimination. Many of those measures were controversial among some at the time, but they were the right thing to do, as legislating for same-sex marriage is now.

Freedom of religion rightly means that no church or religious organisation should be required to hold same-sex marriages, so can the right hon. Lady confirm that that will be in the Bill? Freedom of religion also means that people of faiths such as the Quakers, the Unitarians and others who want to be able to celebrate same-sex marriage should be able to do so. The right hon. Lady will know that I have been arguing for this for many months. Can she confirm that the Government will include that, too, in the Bill that she brings forward?

I strongly disagree with Government Back Benchers who are not only calling for these plans to be dropped but supporting the invidious section 28, which would turn the clock back on discrimination and homophobic bullying and which should be condemned in all parts of this House.

I also disagree with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). Marriage is not the preserve of any individual faith or organisation. Civil marriage is about the way the state views and values long-term relationships, and the state should not discriminate. Marriage laws have rightly changed before so that married women are no longer treated as their husband’s property and can no longer be legally raped—something that was possible as late as the 1990s. Does the right hon. Lady agree that changing the marriage laws again now to bring in same-sex marriage will strengthen rather than weaken the institution of marriage, and that we should urge everyone to support it?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the right hon. Lady. There are many things that one can control in this world, but media comment is certainly not one of them. However, I also draw the House’s attention to the fact that she asked me a great number of detailed policy questions that the media have not set out, so perhaps that requires more of a detailed policy announcement from us tomorrow.

I agree with the right hon. Lady that marriage is a source of joy and celebration. The Prime Minister and I have set out really consistently in recent months that we want to make sure that more people are able to enjoy the benefits of marriage, hence the consultation that we have been carrying out. I hope that the proposals we bring forward will enjoy cross-party support; that is certainly my intention.

The right hon. Lady is right, however, that safeguards are incredibly important for those who have deep-seated religious beliefs in this area. As I have said, I believe that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and rights under the European convention will put protection of religious belief beyond doubt. When we, the Government, give our full response to the consultation, I am sure that I will be able to give her and other hon. Members more detail in that regard.

The right hon. Lady is right to say that the proposals being considered by the consultation will work to strengthen the relevance of marriage in our society today and for the future. She drew on some of the innovations that have been put in place in recent centuries; perhaps this is our opportunity to make sure that marriage is relevant for our century.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree, one of the best ways we can support lone parents to get out of poverty is to help them into work. That is exactly what universal credit is trying to do—to ensure that lone parents can stay close to the labour market and, for the first time, get child care support if they work under 16 hours a week.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Minister for Women and Equalities, on her double promotion. I hope that she and her new team will enjoy the work on women and equalities.

Despite the many good intentions behind universal credit, the detail could prove worrying, particularly in cases of domestic violence. Ditching the principle that payments go to the main carer and having just a single payment to the household could make things harder in cases of financial coercion. In addition, the way that housing payments are delivered could make it difficult for refuges, which fear that they could lose around 60% of their funding. It looks as though the detail of universal credit has been designed without any consideration for those vulnerable women. Will the Minister remedy that and ensure that the Government Equalities Office looks urgently at the matter, and will she discuss the issue with her colleagues to ensure that the regulations are right?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady is right to say that the detail on universal credit is vital, and she will be reassured that we have already looked at the issue in detail. We have worked with women’s aid organisations to ensure that refuges have special treatment in that respect, and we have retained powers to ensure, if absolutely necessary, that payments can be split between men and women if domestic violence is in play.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am sure that we can learn a great deal from many different areas about how to improve the recording of hate crime, which is still a work in progress. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the work that we are doing with organisations such as Radar to increase third-party reporting of hate crime, but I will certainly take up his suggestion.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I know that the Minister is deeply concerned about violence against disabled people, and she will be concerned by the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) raised about reports of increasing threats of violence against disabled people. She will be concerned also about the fear of many disabled groups that that is being fuelled by the tone of some of the Government’s remarks and their approach. There is a fear that certain elements of the Welfare Reform Bill, for example, have crossed a basic line of decency. In that light, will the Minister look again at the measures that the Lords voted on yesterday, and particularly at the Government’s proposal to deny young people who have been disabled since birth and who cannot work the chance of getting contributory employment and support allowance?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Flexible working is vital for the economy and for families. The only thing the Government have done so far on flexible working is to stop regulations coming in that would have extended the right to request flexible working to parents of 17-year-olds. At the same time, policies on jobs and on child care are making it harder and harder, with every day that goes by, for women and parents to work. With women’s unemployment at a record high and rising, and with child care support being cut as costs rise, her Government’s own memo on women says:

“we have made bold statements or promises but haven’t delivered enough”.

The truth is that they have not delivered at all; they are making it worse. What is the Minister going to do, and when does she think that women’s unemployment will start to fall—this month, next month, next year?

[Maria Miller]

Unlike the right hon. Lady’s Government when they were in power, we do not blow hot and cold on flexible working; we are committed to it. This Government absolutely take seriously the issues that are faced by women, and we have already taken a great deal of action to ensure that women are supported not only in the workplace but throughout their family life. We have increased spending on health and child tax credit, and the right to request flexible working is part of that package. We have taken 880,000 of the lowest paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. The right hon. Lady needs to look at the score card of achievements that we have put in place and compare them against her own.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that evidence shows that women on low incomes are less likely than those on higher incomes to take their full maternity leave because they struggle to afford it. She will also know that the impact of cutting the baby element of the tax credit, the Sure Start maternity allowance and other measures will take an estimated £1,200 from young families with small children. Will she assess the impact of those cuts on mothers’ ability to take maternity leave? Does she agree that this means more new mums will feel forced to go back to work earlier than they would choose because they cannot afford either the rent or the mortgage?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. As we put forward a whole package of support for families, we will obviously do everything we can to make sure we support women on low incomes—or, indeed, parents on low incomes—to get back into work. I know that the proposals in the Welfare Reform Bill, which was debated yesterday—and particularly the way universal credit will deal with child care—will help people to be able properly to make those decisions.

Jobs and the Unemployed

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I start by commending Labour Members on securing this debate, because it gives us an opportunity to talk about something we think is integral to putting Britain back on the right tracks. It has been an interesting debate, but sadly, that probably has less to do with the quality of the facts from the Front-Bench team, and more to do with some of the theatrics and selective memories that have accompanied them. In the interests of everyone here, I hope that hon. Members will permit me to set the record straight, because we need to be absolutely clear about the legacy left by Labour after 13 years of failed policies.

The spin from the shadow Secretary of State simply does not match the facts. In the real world, almost 2.5 million people are unemployed across our country, and 1.4 million under-25s are not in employment, education or training. Some 2.2 million are currently languishing on old-style incapacity benefits, written off by the system that was designed to help them. Even before the recession, more than 15% of children were growing up in a household where no one worked. Income inequality is now at its highest level since records began.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Maria Miller]

I hope the right hon. Lady will forgive me for not letting her in, but I want to pay tribute to Members who have contributed to the debate today, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) did.

We are now staring down the barrel of the largest peacetime deficit this country has even seen. That is Labour’s record loud and clear.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Maria Miller]

Okay, I will give way.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister confirm that the number of children in workless households fell between 1997 and 2010 from 2.3 million to 1.8 million?

[Maria Miller]

The fact that I would give back to the shadow Secretary of State is that we have the highest number of children living in workless households. If she is proud of that fact, she deserves to be on the Opposition Benches.

It was with some bemusement that I learned that the Opposition wanted to debate employment today, but it has been good to get some of the facts out. We have had a very wide-ranging debate with many thoughtful contributions, and I should like to take some time to pay tribute to those who have made them. First, of course, I have to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who gave his maiden speech. It was, as I think all Members would agree, a fine, assured speech and in the very best traditions of the House. His constituents have in him a strong voice who clearly understands the issues, and he will certainly find a place here as an advocate of the Norfolk way, turnips or no turnips.

As I said, the debate has been wide-ranging, but my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) summed it up when he said that this Government have inherited a horrendous financial situation. This is a financial crisis that Labour knew was coming, which was why it had already identified the need for 20% cuts in Government budgets. Yet again, the shadow Secretary of State refused to identify where those cuts were going to come in her Department when she was challenged by the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). She really will have little credibility until she answers that question—or did she think it would be right to continue to leave this country with the economic instability that debt creates?

The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) made a very thoughtful contribution and spoke at length about the importance of nurturing business, something in which we have a common interest. She was a lecturer at Cranfield School of Management and I worked in business for 17 years. Sometimes, theory and practice can be very different, but we both recognise that confidence is important when it comes to creating a stable business environment. That point was echoed by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). Such confidence will come if we can show businesses in this country that we have Government debt under control and financial stability, and that we do not have the threat of a hike in job taxes, such as the Labour Government so clearly put forward.

The hon. Member for Wakefield raised a number of questions that I cannot go into in detail on now, but if there is anything she wants me to cover in more detail, perhaps we can speak later. She particularly mentioned Jobcentre Plus staff, and I can assure her that the head count will be reduced by freezing external recruitment and not extending fixed-term contracts when they come to an end.

A number of hon. Members mentioned apprenticeships, which are an important element of our strategy for tackling poverty and worklessness. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald) talked eloquently about the role of apprenticeships in his constituency, and particularly the business-facing educational institutions in Hertfordshire that are pivotal in delivering the lowest level of NEETs in the country.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) also talked about youth unemployment. I should perhaps remind him that we now have 1.4 million unemployed or inactive under-25-year-olds who are not in full-time education either, which is 250,000 more than in 1997. However, that is an issue we will address. He also talked about apprenticeships, which the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford discussed in her speech. She needs to have a bit more faith in British industry. Apprenticeships are at the heart of British industry. There are already 240,000 apprenticeships, and we are talking about raising that by 50,000 among small and medium-sized enterprises. That is an opportunity being delivered by this coalition Government, which I know people in my constituency are crying out for.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) also raised the issue of apprenticeships, talking about the importance of getting young people back into work and the debilitating effects of worklessness. I know she will understand the importance of the Work programme in delivering for the people in her constituency.

Tackling Poverty in the UK

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Maria Miller

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I warmly welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was a firm supporter of yours in the recent elections. I also warmly welcome the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) to her position. She has been sitting in the Whips Office for a number of years now, and I am sure that standing at the Dispatch Box beats that any day of the week. I congratulate those hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today, which I will come to in a bit more detail later.

First, I want to pick up on some of the points made by the hon. Lady in her closing comments. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), began the debate with the bleak picture of poverty that the country faces. Despite record levels of spending on benefits in the last 13 years, we have more working-age adults living in relative poverty than ever before. The hon. Lady said that the Labour Government acted to tackle poverty, but I am afraid that her rhetoric does not match the facts. Income inequality is at its highest since records began, and a higher proportion of children grow up in workless households in the UK than in any other EU country. That is a damning indictment of the previous Government’s legacy, a legacy that I am afraid was absent from the opening comments of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). The facts could not be clearer. The tired old ways of continually throwing money at the problem, no matter how deeply entrenched or seemingly intractable, lie discredited.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her position. I am sure that she will do some very important work in the Department. Will she confirm that the number of children living in workless households has fallen significantly since 1997, having previously risen substantially?

[Maria Miller]

The shadow Secretary of State fails to point out that the previous Government completely failed to tackle the level of poverty in this country in the way that they set out that they would, and they did not hit their child poverty targets. They have left us to put in place a firm strategy to address that issue. The right hon. Lady should not be too selective with her facts.

It could not be clearer that we need fresh ideas if we are to reverse the dreadful situation that we face; and it could not be clearer that, if new approaches to tackling poverty are to have any effect, they require new, clear thinking. That is exactly what our coalition Government are able to offer: a new vision and a new strategy to tackle the root causes of poverty. Family breakdown, educational failure, addiction, debt, worklessness and economic dependency are the pathways to poverty and the underlying problems that can lead to a lifetime—even generations—of worklessness and welfare dependency.