Social Security and Pensions — House of Commons, 2022-02-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow some excellent speeches, and to join colleagues from the Work and Pensions Committee in their sincere request that the Minister really looks in detail at the issues we have been describing. [Interruption.] I want to keep my mask on, if that is okay. As a former public health consultant, I want to practise the precautionary principle. When we take a mask off, we increase the risk of spreading what may be behind our masks. In the time I have, I want to focus on the context of why this issue is so important and why I urge the Minister to respond to those several requests to think in more detail not just about today’s uprating order, but how we move forward in future. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that over the last 12 years, 9% to 17% of working-age support for claimants has been cut. The Resolution Foundation put a figure on that of £34 billion a year. Although the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 had a number of different policy aspects, the arbitrary reduction and freezing of social security payments accounted for 6% to 8% of the cut in that support Several highly reputable think-tanks and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have identified the disproportional loss of income to low-income households, and the skewing and exacerbating of inequalities. The poorest 10% have lost 11% of their income, about £1,200 a year, and those with children about 20%, £4,000 a year. The EHRC showed that disabled people would be most disadvantaged, with a household with one disabled adult and a disabled child losing £3 in every £10, or £6,500 a year. The Disability Benefits Consortium is another organisation that has analysed the impact of social security cuts over the last 12 years, particularly on disabled people. The EHRC estimated the increase in poverty for children by 2021, as did the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. We are seeing their figures come true: six out of 10 households in poverty are working households The Joseph Rowntree Foundation also identified that although physical disability rates have stayed the same over the last five years, the number of people with mental health conditions, while not receiving the same recognition, has increased. By 2017, an additional 1.6 million people with a severe mental health condition or learning disability were being plunged into poverty Importantly, the EHRC and the JRF also concluded that social security cuts are the key determinant of the increase in poverty and that our social security system no longer plays a part in protecting people from poverty and destitution. What a thing to say in the fifth-richest country in the world. From 2018 data, the UK’s social security spending as a percentage of GDP was below both the EU27 and OECD average. On out-of-work support, even with the pandemic universal credit uplift of £20 a week, the UK still had the least generous support of the OECD. According to the IFS, unemployment support is 14% of average earnings, compared with 25% after the second world war. Many have spoken about the impact that is having on debt, fuel poverty, food poverty and so on. We must not forgot that there has also been an impact on homelessness The increase in poverty and inequality has had an impact not only on levelling up but on our life expectancy and our healthy life expectancy. I read the White Paper somewhat in dismay when it was published last week, as it tried to say that it would make all the difference. Clearly, the Government have not grasped what has been going on over the last 12 years. As Professor Sir Michael Marmot said, it is an order of magnitude less than what needs to be considered to make a difference and address the inequalities our country is experiencing The estimated mortality rate of vulnerable social security claimants is three times that of the general population; that also needs to be considered. There is also evidence of the devastating causal impact of child poverty on infant mortality. A very good article in The BMJ a year or so ago managed to quantify that each 1% increase in child poverty was associated with an extra six infant deaths per 100,000 live births, with about a third of the increase in infant mortality between 2014 and 2017 being attributed to the rise in child poverty There is also evidence that the unprecedented increase in infant mortality in England was not experienced evenly across the population. In the most deprived local authorities, the previously declining trend in infant mortality reversed and mortality rose, leading to an additional 24 infant deaths per 100,000 live births. I have been bandying about a lot of statistics; it is all sourced data, and I invite anybody who is interested to please contact me In February 2020, Michael Marmot published his 10-year review showing the declining value of social security and the lack of protection provided to the most financially vulnerable, which contributed to the decline in life expectancy. Rolling on to the pandemic, his review at the end of 2020 showed the UK’s high and unequal covid death toll; in the first wave we had one of the worst death rates in Europe and the world. He showed that that was related to our structural inequality, to which social security cuts had contributed Other Members have mentioned the inflation rates we now face, and the 54% increase in the energy price cap coming in April; frankly, the measures that are proposed to combat that are ridiculous. I urge the Minister to take back the views from this House, including from his own Benches. Clearly, the measures are inadequate, and I urge him to think again.