Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old — House of Commons, 2022-05-16
Topic: Social Welfare
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I would love to do that, but more than that, I look forward to the cooking book from the hon. Member for Ashfield, because I am sure that will be a really popular volume. I will even buy some copies for my own food bank if we think we can be making meals for 30p a day—incredible The fact is that people on low income or on benefits are far superior with managing their finances because they have to be. According to Jack Monroe, the bootstrap cook who gave evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, the impact of the cost of living crisis on "millions of children living in poverty in Britain today" is "going to be, in some cases, fatal" This is first and foremost due to the rise in the cost of everyday essentials, not because families on low incomes cannot budget or cannot cook a meal from scratch But it gets worse. The Minister for safeguarding—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean)—said on Sky News today that people struggling with the cost of living should just "take on more hours" or "get a better-paid job". This shows how detached this Government are from the lived reality of so many people in our communities that we represent. Hunger impacts on the ability of children to learn. As one Member has said, they cannot concentrate and they cannot think. I know of teachers who are keeping cereal bars and snacks in their desk drawers to give to children to make sure they have something in their tummies In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State talked about extracurricular activities, and I think every Member here understands the importance of these. But for families who are just about managing—they are just about managing to pay bills and to feed their children—the things that will go are the little extras. These are the sports clubs, the activities, the birthday parties, the days out, the holidays—in fact, all the little things that together make childhood so special, and that enrich their experience and their ambitions It is good to hear the Secretary of State also talk today about the importance of teachers. As a former teacher myself, I know the difference that good teachers can make to young people. It is good to hear him talking about his ambition to make the starting salary for teachers £30,000 a year. That will only be £3,000 below what Scottish teachers currently start out on, with £33,000 a year In Scotland, we want to create a more equal society. One way we aim to do that is through widening, rather than restricting, the opportunities for our young people once they leave school. The Scottish Government’s young person’s guarantee ensures that every young person from 16 to 24 has a chance to go to university or college with no tuition fees, or has a chance to secure an apprenticeship or high-quality job. It is significant that, of anywhere in the UK, Scotland has the highest proportion of young people with positive destinations post school Time and again, we see this Tory Government undermining progress towards a better society for our young people. They talk of untapping aspiration, yet just a couple of weeks ago the chair of their Social Mobility Commission said that fewer girls than boys are studying physics because they dislike "hard maths." That perpetuates outdated and harmful gender stereotypes about girls, particularly in science, technology, engineering and maths, which is close to my heart. That is no way to untap aspiration or ambition Students in England are considering their career and whether they are willing to take on a lifetime of debt. The Government’s equality analysis found that their student finance reforms will likely have a negative impact on graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds, while benefiting those who are already more privileged. The reforms will not, in fact, increase social mobility. This Government are making policy decisions that will hinder opportunity, to the obvious detriment of so many young people I could talk about Brexit and our lack of mobility across Europe, and about the international collaborations that have been lost, but I want to speak a little about our elderly community. According to the Centre for Ageing Better, one in five pensioners—more than 2 million people—is living in relative poverty. Worse than that, many are living in abject poverty. This represents an increase of more than 200,000 in just the last 12 months, and the problem will only get worse The report also presents a stark picture of up to a 10-year difference in lifespan between wealthy pensioners and poor pensioners. Pensioners have been abandoned by this Government, who scrapped the pension triple lock. Pensioners will be among the hardest hit by the rising cost of living; some already have to resort to spending the day on buses or eating one meal a day just to keep warm, as we heard last week. "The best place to grow old" Many UK citizens abroad, including a significant number of veterans, are living in poverty because of the freeze in overseas pensions. Their pension is frozen at the point at which they moved. Countries such as Canada have formally requested a reciprocal arrangement to cover pension uprating, but this UK Government have declined Our pensioners include veterans who have given the very best of themselves through their service. We have a duty of care to them, and I will talk briefly about one particular group that I know has support from both sides of the House—the nuclear test veterans. Their numbers are dwindling and they have had a lifetime of health issues, yet they have received neither a medal, recognition nor compensation. This is the only country not to have compensated its nuclear test veterans. Surely we can do better for this small group The SNP Scottish Government are doing what they can to support households during these difficult times—fully mitigating the bedroom tax; mitigating council tax; doubling the Scottish child payment; providing free tuition, free prescriptions and free school meals for all primary schoolchildren—but just as Scotland tries to mitigate the worst excesses of this Tory Government, the Scottish Government are suffering from budget cuts by them. A lack of powers for the Scottish Government means that we can only really deal with things around the edge—with the symptoms of poverty, not the deep-rooted causes of inequality in our society that deliver child poverty and pension poverty. Only with full independence can we realise our ambition for our children, our young people and our pensioners.