Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I hope that the Committee will forgive me, as this is the first time that I have spoken in Committee in this House. If I stray from the conventions, I hope that noble Lords will put me right. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood mentioned my former constituency of Glasgow North East—it used to be known as Springburn—where I have lived since I was 14 years of age. Even within that part of Glasgow there are many differences between communities. The poverty can be different from one part to another. I am very sympathetic to the idea that we must put housing into the equation as often as we can. I remember that a friend of mine, a previous Prime Minister, said, "Education, education, education". I always used to say to him, "No, it is housing, housing, housing". When I first became an MP, the local authority had in good faith built non-traditional housing. It did not do that on its own; central government told it that unless it built non-traditional housing it would not get grants to rehouse people out of the slums—the slums where I lived in the 1950s. In the 1950s there was a lot of heavy drinking, particularly among the men. They went out drinking because there was no room in their kitchens as families had five or six children. I am not saying that those men acted rightly, but they often used to say that they went to the pub to get a bit of peace and quiet. Many of them stopped drinking when they got a decent house with a garden and separate rooms for their sons and daughters and for the mother and father. They did not have that in the old tenements. In these non-traditional houses, water used to run down the walls. It is one thing to talk about poverty, taking the rent into consideration, but someone living in a traditional house could heat the house easily. People living in a non-traditional house with water running down the walls had to get extra heating, particularly given the climate in the west of Scotland. You could have cold evenings even without the snow that we have had recently. Sometimes the only thing that they could turn to was paraffin heating, which created more condensation and bigger problems than they had to start with. No one can tell me that that did not lead to problems for children. We are saying that a child living in poverty is unhappy. Therefore, a child living in bad housing is unhappy. I told the previous Prime Minister that there is no point in a clever child coming home from school to do his or her homework if they are living in a very cold house. At times, I really despair about the media. During the recent by-election in my old constituency, the media churned out statistics on how people in the east end of Glasgow can die earlier than people in India. However, they did not mention the good points. You should look at all the good that is in our communities. I recently counted about 14 community-based housing associations. They involved men and women, with help from central government—I give the Government credit—and the great help of the local authority. The local authority says: "There is no use in us being one big social landlord and we will give the work to the community". Not only did these community-based housing associations become landlords, which was their first job, but as a spin-off they created community halls where the child in poverty could get a decent night’s entertainment, whether that be a club, a dance or a disco. It should be remembered that, where there is bad housing, people tend to leave and facilities shut down. That means that the youngster in poverty has to pay bus fares if there is a bus transportation system to get them to a place of entertainment in the city centre, whereas, in more affluent areas, such facilities can be around the corner. I could go on and on. In one of the poorest parts of my old constituency, which I still keep in touch with, is a district called Possilpark. I am very fond of it, because that is where I served my apprenticeship and met my wife Mary. I cannot complain about it. However, a lot of people say: "Possilpark? A terrible place". The poverty was such that people could not afford a community-based housing association in the normal sense. They had to make representations to the Scottish Office and now the devolved Government to get a community-based housing co-operative, which meant that all the funds went back into the association. It is marvellous because, in an area where there are serious problems with drugs and break-ins, elderly people live very safely, because the co-operative has provided not only decent housing but a sense of community spirit, which means that the old folks are well looked after. I learn more about the ideas of the Bill when I listen to the Minister. However, all that I can say is that it is hard to define child poverty. One family can have X income, while another family can receive exactly the same but the child is deprived because of serious problems in that family—it could be alcohol, drugs or even buying luxuries rather than food to put on the table. Many things go on in families for which it is difficult to legislate, create a Bill and say, "We have eradicated the problem". I say this as someone who came from the old tenements in Glasgow, which, by the way, were terrible slums. They were a disgrace, but the community was absolutely marvellous. I could count some 24 relatives in three different tenement closes. There was a sense of security and belonging, which was fantastic. At the same time, there are many problems that we must look at. When we put housing into the equation, if a child lives in a decent home, if the rent is not high and the parents are relaxed, the child is happier. If the mother and father are worrying about where the next shilling is coming from because they have to pay a big mortgage, the child will be unhappy. We are tackling child poverty because we want children to be happy. Housing must always be in the equation. Thank you.