Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2016-02-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Following the comments of the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), people in the ESA WRAG have been classed as not fit for work, unlike those on jobseeker’s allowance, so one would not expect the same success rate My concern about this change—in essence, this repeal of the Child Poverty Act 2010—is that the policy seems no longer to be about wanting to eradicate child poverty but about airbrushing it out of existence by removing the phrase, the measurements, and not just the reporting but the statutory aim of eradication. We see many measures: a benefit cap being reduced or a benefit freeze, changes to tax credits after having two children, and people in the ESA WRAG losing £30 a week. I dealt with patients like that as a breast cancer surgeon. These people are stuck at home; they do need to keep the house warm and they do need that extra bit of help. They have been classed as not yet fit to work. We have had impact assessments on some of these measures, but we have not had a cumulative impact assessment. Some families will be hit by all these measures, and the IFS is talking about losses of between £1,000 and £1,500 a year. To take that kind of money away from the poorest people will have a huge impact Like the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), I had the honour of taking part in the all-party group investigation into the impact of these changes on child poverty. We heard evidence from the Faculty of Public Health and from many charities on the changes that we can expect in child poverty and the impact that child poverty has on health. The University of Liverpool has estimated that we lose 1,400 children a year under the age of 15 because of poverty. That number is equivalent to the size of a big secondary school. If the roof of a secondary school was collapsing every year, we would be out there doing something about it, but we do not. This is about neonatal mortality, infant mortality, accidents, violence, suicide, addiction and alcoholism, and the problem is that we think we can just ignore it Earlier in the debate, we talked about mental health. Children in the poorest quartile have three times the incidence of mental health problems. If their parents suffer from depression and stress, which we know is aggravated by poverty, they have a 60% increase in mental health problems. There is a five times higher incidence of infant mortality. The Marmot report estimated that the deaths of one in four children before the age of one could be prevented if their mothers had had the same nutrition, health, chances and lack of stress as the people who are most comfortable Five times as many children who are in the poorest quartile are likely to die as a result of road traffic accidents, while 15 times as many are likely to die as a result of a fire. Malnutrition is on the increase. There is evidence of low iodine and low folate in teenage girls as a result of poor nutrition. That leads to cretinism and spina bifida. We are going to produce generations of children who will suffer in the future. Marmot said that disadvantage starts before birth and accumulates through life I am not against including a measure of life chances. I do not accept that we have to choose between two separate horses. We can measure both. The only life chances that are being talked about are worklessness and educational attainment at 16, which is long after the horse has bolted. Two thirds of children in poverty have a working parent, so they will simply be dismissed. At 16, we have no chance to do something I accept the argument of the hon. Member for Torbay that we need to develop measures, but we also need interventions. We keep hearing that there is going to be a focus on changing these children’s lives, but how are we going to do that? There should have been a White Paper first so that we could know what was being offered to change their lives, because they will cost us throughout their lives, through failed education, worklessness, ending up in the justice system and addiction It makes sense to invest money in their childhood so that they are not a year behind. American research has also found that their brains do not develop to the same level as others. We need to change that, but we must not simply think that by ignoring the phrase "child poverty" it will disappear. There should be a statutory obligation to report it and we should aim, as was promised, to eradicate it by the end of this Parliament.