The Economy — House of Commons, 2018-03-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Absolutely; it is well known that people will spend money in local shops and support the local economy. Welfare reform has had a similar impact in Glasgow. The welfare rights department of Glasgow City Council says that 636 households in Glasgow, where housing costs are relatively low, are affected by the benefit cap, and 94% of those households have children. The Government should know that they are taking food out of the mouths of bairns. That is what is happening, and they should be ashamed Ethnic minorities are affected as well. The Equality and Human Rights Commission report that came out last week highlighted that three quarters of the cuts to welfare benefits affect Pakistani families. The Government deny that they have done any such thing and do not regard that report as important, but it really is, because it is relevant to how people can be included in the economy. If people are having all agency and money taken away from them and the cuts disproportionately affect particular groups, the Government have a real problem on their hands. They have to acknowledge that There has been a significant impact on women. Engender has highlighted in its excellent reports how 86% of the cuts to welfare benefits have come from women’s pockets. There are households in which women are not getting money and are not being able to put food on the table, as I have already outlined, and women have less capability in the world. That makes it far more difficult for women facing domestic violence to leave the situation, putting them in danger. It makes it far more difficult for women to achieve all the things that they could do in life and ruins women’s potential. If women who have had children want to go back into the jobs market, it makes it far more difficult for them if they do not have the means to get by as they work their way back in. I pay particular tribute to the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaigners across the country who see this at first hand. Those women have worked their whole lives, often in low-paid, strenuous jobs, lifting and shifting and moving people and goods around, only to see just as they approach retirement age—the goal that they were set to reach—the date move away from them in the cruellest possible way I wish to mention Rosemary Dickson in particular. Rosie is a stalwart WASPI campaigner in Glasgow. She was raised in Calton by a single mum. She started working at 15, while she was still at school, to get through her exams, and since then had always paid the big stamp. At 17, she moved into the NHS and qualified as a clinical perfusionist. She ran heart-lung bypass machines and was in organ retrieval teams. That job took its toll—it was very strenuous—and she retired. She is now 60 and cannot find employment. She has tried all different places—she even applied for a job with the Department for Work and Pensions, but was told she was not qualified enough. As advised by the Pensions Minister, she tried to get an apprenticeship, but was told that she was not qualified and that if she wanted to be trained, she would have to pay £2,000 to get the qualification. She is really struggling Rosie has seen her dreams of a happy retirement—of moving on to spend the retirement time that she wanted in the way that she wanted—fade. She may have to sell her house. Many women she knows now find themselves dependent on their husbands for the first time in their lives. It does not say very much for gender equality in 2018 that women who have worked their whole lives in jobs that made them work hard and paid them less now find themselves dependent on their husbands when they thought they would get some time and independence back for themselves. That is a stain on all our consciences I wish to mention the hugely valuable contribution that people who were not born in the UK make to our economy. They may be EU nationals or non-EU nationals, but so many of them make a tremendous effort and contribute hugely to our economy but have not seen that effort rewarded by the UK Government. I could list any number of immigration cases, although I see you indicating that you do not want me to, Madam Deputy Speaker. I see again and again people who have come here, worked, set up a business and employed native Glaswegians in that business, only to find that, for some small, technical reason with which the Home Office seems to have no flexibility to deal, they are no longer allowed to work or to get public funds. They are left absolutely high and dry with a family to feed, a house to pay for and bills to pay and—nothing. That is really cruel. These folk have so much to contribute to our economy, and we should thank them for their efforts. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for all that they have done for choosing to make Glasgow, Scotland and the UK their home I wish to raise the issue of those who have been caught out by paragraph 322.5 of the immigration rules. They made a legitimate change to their tax returns, sometimes years ago, and are now told, when they apply to regularise their status here, that they are a threat to national security under the discretionary powers of paragraph 322.5. It is absolutely ludicrous and I would be grateful if the Minister looked into the issue. We encourage people to make minor changes to their tax return—we do not want people not to make changes to their tax return if they are due—but this group of people who have come here to work hard in highly skilled jobs and never taken a day’s benefits or anything like that, now find themselves at risk of removal from this country under this discretionary rule. If people feel so unwelcome because of that, it will be a huge threat to the economy Finally, we need to talk about austerity. We have to look at its long-term impact on the nation’s health and wellbeing and the knock-on effect on our economy, and we need to consider women’s place in that. Women’s Aid Northern Ireland told me that most women’s equality issues are in fact economic, but wrongly get described as fluffy, marginal social quibbles. Caring work, which has propped up our economy since Adam Smith’s ma fed and clothed him every day, is not counted as a valuable contribution to the UK’s economic functionality. If we want to be a country that, as the Prime Minister says, works for everybody, we need to recognise what everybody brings to the country, and we need to make sure that people are rewarded properly.