Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2020-07-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Claudia Naomi Webbe (Labour, Centre-left): It was Mahatma Gandhi, a hero to many Leicester residents, who famously said that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. When it comes to ensuring that vulnerable children are fed and looked after, our Government should be ashamed of themselves According to the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission, 600,000 more children are living in relative poverty now than in 2012. That is projected to increase further because of benefit changes and, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. In 2018, the number of children living in relative poverty rose by 100,000 to 4.2 million, or around 30% of all children. That appalling figure reflects the Government’s failure on the fundamental principle of governance: to provide for the most basic needs of our citizens As of February 2020, around 14 million people were in poverty in the UK. The virus may not discriminate, but our economic and social system certainly does. Children from African, Asian and minority ethnic families are nearly twice as likely to be in poverty than children in white British families. Leicester East is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse places in the UK and has high levels of both child poverty and in-work poverty—we suffer from a perfect storm which enables the virus to have its impact Like many of our residents, I am deeply concerned about the recent increase in coronavirus cases in our city and the economic impact of the necessary lockdown extension. I am particularly worried about the impact that the pandemic will have on those Leicester children who are already living in conditions of unacceptable hardship. Over one in three children—42%—in Leicester East live in poverty. Nearly 6,000 households—around 14%—in Leicester East are in fuel poverty. As of April last year, the average weekly income for full-time employees in Leicester East was £420. That is £130 less than the east midlands average and £160 less than the UK average. The proportion of people claiming unemployment benefits in my constituency is also higher than the regional and national level. Do this Government believe that my constituents are somehow worth less than others? It is unacceptable that they have allowed such rank regional inequality to fester The worst thing about these shocking figures is that they reflect our local reality before the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic. We do not yet know the full impact of the unprecedented economic disruption caused by the virus. With widespread job losses, it is certain that it will have exacerbated hardship across Leicester and the UK. I have been helping countless local businesses and employees to stay afloat and access funding, despite the Government’s prohibitively strict guidelines. At a national and local level, we see companies such as British Airways take huge amounts of taxpayers’ money through the job retention scheme and then fire vast swathes of their workforce while imposing worse terms of employment. Too many Leicester residents have started to receive threats of redundancy at a time when the protection of workers must be prioritised. With Leicester required to maintain lockdown measures, it will be necessary for economic support to be extended and expanded. It is crucial that families in Leicester East have the material basis to stay safe and stay alive during the continued lockdown The Government’s callousness is demonstrated by the fact that benefit sanctions have been resumed at a time when we face an unprecedented period of economic hardship. For people forced to endure severe levels of hardship and such insecurity, it is impossible to comply, at times, with the Government’s guidance on self-isolation and social distancing. It is a moral imperative and in the public interest of everyone in our community that the basic needs of all residents are met. The cruelty of this Government over the last decade has transformed the Department for Work and Pensions into a symbol of fear. The coronavirus pandemic has further demonstrated the need for universal welfare support that will be there to help and support people, not punish and police them Even before the coronavirus hit, the Government had presided over a decade in which they cut essential services for the people of Leicester East while providing tax cuts for the wealthy, in which they allowed poverty and homelessness to rise in my constituency and across the country, and in which they sought to sow divisions as they facilitated the transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest. The Government must act now to prevent the further impoverishment of working people and their families during the pandemic. They must start treating the widespread poverty of our children as the national scandal that it is. This virus has demonstrated that we have a moral duty to ensure that everyone in Leicester and across the country is protected. That means that, after the crisis, we can no longer live in a society that is defined by extreme inequality and in which it is commonplace for our children to go to bed hungry.