Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2018-10-30
Topic: Social Welfare
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) I had an amusing conversation with a Conservative MP the other day. He argued that I think he and his Conservative colleagues wake up each morning planning how to make people’s lives more difficult. Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I reassured him that I do not actually think that. I actually believe that, at their core, people are fundamentally good. But I also believe that our actions and experiences are shaped by our experiences of the world: what we see, hear and feel informs our understanding and, therefore, what we believe to be right. That is the only generous explanation I can find for why the Chancellor has failed to give our public services, education and local government the sustained and substantially increased funding they desperately need. He has failed to listen and understand why it is needed. Surely if the Chancellor had seen the levels of poverty that I have seen in Hull, he would not be so quick to disregard our requests. My first ask for the Chancellor and the Minister is this: walk a mile in my constituents’ shoes, and see, feel and hear what they have to experience every single day. If I am right and people are, at their core, fundamentally good, surely the Minister and the Chancellor cannot ignore our call for greater investment and a change for our constituents Hull has a higher need than other places, yet has been disproportionately affected by austerity. One child in three lives in poverty in my constituency. My area has more children than average with special educational needs and disabilities, yet the budget for Hull has been cut by a third compared with the national average of just over a quarter. Only one unitary authority has been hit harder than Hull. But those are just numbers, and numbers do not explain the very human cost and the very human stories. Here are just two of my more recent ones My constituent Steve is disabled with an advanced case of multiple sclerosis. His care bills rose from £50 to £86 a week because of the cuts. He could not afford to pay them and ended up being chased by East Riding of Yorkshire Council for the money he was unable to pay, which caused him extreme distress and upset Diane is 60. She has been affected by the changes to state pension rules for women. She was recently refused a benefits award because apparently she is not poor enough. She has been working for 42 years—since she was 16. She wrote me an email saying that she was a proud woman who did not want to be asking other people for help, but that she could not afford to buy new glasses because she did not have enough money Put simply, because of the cuts, people in our country are not getting the support that they need and the support they have worked their whole lives for and deserve. The consequences of austerity are being felt up and down the country. Public services are being stretched to breaking point. The tough choices we hear people speak about are easy to say here in this environment, while we are in our cosy lives going back to our warm beds. It seems that tough choices are only tough for the very poorest in society Public services are a good thing. Funding them is the right thing to do, because that gives everybody, or tries to give everybody, the same chances in life. My life has been shaped for the better because of the public services I have used: from the NHS who helped to deliver my children to the health visitor, Ann, who came to help me in those first weeks, which are terrifying as a new parent; and from my teachers in my local comprehensive who made me believe in myself and that I could do things to make the world a little better to the Sure Start centres that offered me so much support with my youngest. I could go on. My life experiences—what I see, hear and feel—have been made better by the public services around me. This is my truth, and it is why I stand here today demanding that those services are saved Public services are not like private care. They are not just about benefiting me; good public services benefit everybody. The Budget so deeply patronised and angered our parents, teachers and governors in mainstream schools with the promise of a "little extra". Many schools are sending out begging letters to parents asking for funding for basic supplies. Done right, investment in public services can save money in the long run, for example by enabling children to stay at school and preventing off-roll exclusions through investment in pastoral care and family support I have significant and deep concerns about how our vulnerable children can be exploited. I fear for their future. Today, Barnardo’s issued a statement saying that our excluded children are at risk of being groomed and exploited by criminal gangs. Those children might not have had to be excluded if the schools had the money for the pastoral care and support they needed, and if our social workers had the money for early intervention and family support. There is no mystery to why the number of exclusions has increased along with austerity. As I tell my children, actions have consequences. In this case, the Government’s inaction has a consequence The Equality and Human Rights Commission published a report that asked, "Is Britain Fairer?", and I will quote from the executive summary. It said: "Disabled people are…more likely to be in poverty… They…face poorer health and lack of access to suitable housing." It said that "Child poverty has increased" and that infant mortality has risen "for the first time in decades." It said that tax and welfare reforms continue to have a "disproportionate impact on the poorest in society" as well as on some ethnic minorities, women and disabled people, and that the reforms are "weakening the safety net" for "those unable to work, or stuck in low-paid or precarious work." It said: "Homelessness is also on the rise" In society, in government and in Parliament, we reap what we sow. There are huge consequences of pushing a policy that leaves people behind for not only the people themselves, but society more widely. Where austerity is being pushed the hardest—in cities such as Hull—the consequences will be even worse. It is time for the Chancellor to think again. The cost of austerity is simply too high.