Department for Education — House of Commons, 2019-02-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Neil Charles Gray (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the impassioned, articulate and erudite speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and to speak from the Front Bench for the SNP. It has been a good debate, and I commend the speeches from the hon. Members for High Peak (Ruth George), for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Blaydon (Liz Twist), the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the many others who made fantastic speeches. I agree with the Chair of the Finance Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda, that this debate is far too short and that it is no way for us to scrutinise the spending of the largest-spending Department While I agreed wholeheartedly with all that was said by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, he listed a number of problems and areas that require improvements, and the Scottish Government are already acting on two of them. I hope that he will reflect on the fact that the Scottish Government have maintained council tax benefit and fully mitigated the bedroom tax, and we can see the difference in the child poverty in Scotland as a result The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who is not in his place, was right to say that work is the best route out of poverty, but while the nations of the UK have record employment levels, child poverty rates are still rising. We know that the Government are about to publish some very damning child poverty statistics, so Conservative Members cannot ignore the need for greater state intervention in this area. It cannot just be about work. In the limited time available to me, I will raise a number of topics that expand on some of the things that have already been said by others. First, I want UK Ministers to look in greater detail at the benefits freeze, which was introduced in the 2015 Budget—a Budget, of course, that attempted to obliterate the social security system in these isles. The freeze has seen the value of the benefits affected drop by 6.1% over a four-year period, which has hit households hard and is seen by many groups as the key driver of rising child poverty. The Resolution Foundation said this month that child poverty is projected to rise by a further 6% by 2023-24, which would mark a record high Billions of pounds of savings have been made through the benefits freeze on the backs of the lowest-income families. In the final year of the freeze, the Exchequer is set to achieve even greater savings than anticipated. The higher than anticipated inflation rate means that the freeze will save over £1.2 billion more next year than the £3.5 billion that had been targeted When we know that the freeze is contributing to higher rates of poverty and that the Treasury is about to save more money than even it had targeted, surely the final year of the freeze needs to go. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has already said that she does not want to see the freeze continue any longer. She is acknowledging the difficulties it has caused, so why do she and others not go one step further and stop the final year? The spring statement would be the ideal opportunity for that to happen I turn now to an area that the Government do not want to be debated. I have called for a debate and a vote on this issue on three occasions, and other Members across the House have, too, but we are being ignored by this Government. UK Ministers want to enact a piece of legislation that is seven years old—it was brought in two Governments and two Parliaments ago—to cut pension credit entitlement. It will mean that mixed-aged couples will no longer be entitled to pension credit and will have to claim universal credit if one member of the couple is under state pension age. It has been estimated that this will cut £7,000 from the incomes of affected households When the measure was passed in 2012, we were in a very different political and economic landscape. Pensioner poverty was decreasing, but now we know from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that pensioner poverty could be on the rise again. It is clear that this Government need to seek a new mandate for the cuts. They need to test the will of the House on what it has inherited and see whether it is still the right thing to do Staying with pensions, we know that a number of those who will be affected by the cuts to pension credit will be some of the 1950s women who have been ripped off on their state pension entitlement by this and previous Governments. The UK Government must do more to help the WASPI women, and they must listen to some of the suffering that cutting their state pension entitlement has caused. Despite the rises we have seen via the triple lock, it is worth pointing out that the UK state pension remains one of the most miserly in Europe An area where the new Secretary of State has shifted ground is on the two-child policy. She has accepted that rolling out the two-child policy to children born at any time, not just those born after the policy was introduced, would be unfair. We appreciate the small steps the Government have taken in some areas of universal credit, including the two-child policy, but they are clearly not enough. Given that the Secretary of State has accepted the injustice of one aspect of the two-child policy, surely she does not have far to travel to accept that limiting social security payments to two children is morally and socially wrong in its entirety. I urge her to rethink this disastrous policy, which is already forcing more children into poverty There is also a growing campaign, as we have heard again today, for the Government to do more on the five-week wait for universal credit. They have taken some steps to assist people moving from the legacy system to universal credit, but they have not gone far enough. A good place to start would be to use the assessment period for the advance payment of UC proper. If there is an acceptance that people need an advance, why say that the money needs to be paid back? People cannot be expected to live off fresh air, and they should not be expected to prolong indebtedness or financial hardship The pressures of UC do not stop at those who are receiving it. We heard yesterday that the Public and Commercial Services Union members who are working at service centres in Walsall and Wolverhampton have balloted to strike over changes to workload, recruitment and staff consultations. On top of the problems in UC, ongoing scandals are facing the personal independence payment, employment and support allowance, which was debated yesterday, and the withdrawal of disability premiums—even with some transitional provisions from this Government, this is letting disabled people down Meanwhile, the Scottish Government are building a social security system based on dignity and respect, one that garners the confidence of those who need it and the buy-in of taxpayers who pay for it. We have created a carers allowance supplement, to uplift payments by £442 a year, better to reward carers for the incredible job they do. We have introduced the best start grant and baby payment in Scotland, which expands on the UK’s maternity grant by providing eligible families with £600 on the birth of a first child and £300 for subsequent children, without a cap on the number of payments made. What the Scottish Government have done already, and plan to do with new announcements soon, shows this Government what is possible In conclusion, while the problems I have listed with the UK system persist, we cannot be expected to agree with the Department for Work and Pensions estimate. The Government need to do more and come back having built a system based on dignity and respect, as we see starting in Scotland. This Secretary of State, the sixth I have faced, is taking steps in the right direction. She has admitted that there are problems with the two-child policy and finally admitted that there is a link between this Government’s social security policies and the rise in food bank use, but they must go further. I know she is pleading with the Treasury for the resources to go further, and we hope we can hear of that at the spring statement.