I apologise, Mr Amess, for persisting in seeking to speak at this late hour. I sat through the five hours of Second Reading and time did not permit me to be called then, and I have tabled an amendment tonight which we will not reach. One could become paranoid at times. I wanted the opportunity to set out my views briefly on this core element of the Bill for my own constituents.
I will vote for every amendment that seeks to ameliorate the Bill. That includes the amendments that have been tabled from both sides, including by my own party. I feel there is a moral imperative to do so. There was a consensus for a time in our country about how we dealt with welfare benefit upratings: they would increase on the basis of either earnings or inflation, whichever was
the higher. That consensus was achieved because there was a moral commitment to protect the poorest in our society—in a civilised society. It went alongside a steady rise in wages at the time. What we have seen recently—it has impacted on my constituents particularly—is wage cuts and wage freezes across the public sector and in some parts of the private sector. I opposed the wage freeze in the public sector that was supported by my own party.
In the past 12 or 15 months we have seen a succession of measures—more than a dozen key measures—that have cut the income of my constituents. The Bill is the last straw. People in my constituency are suffering and will suffer more as a result of this measure. As I mentioned in a recent debate in Westminster Hall, there is a gulf between the views and experiences of some Members of the House and the experiences of many of our constituents and the way that they suffer. I thought that might be particular to my community—a working-class multicultural community that is taking a battering at present—but I looked at some of the statistics in the briefings that were prepared for this debate.
The Government’s own household survey of those living below the average wage identified 11% of families in that category who cannot keep their homes warm. I looked at the Save the Children survey, which found that 14% of children do not have a warm coat this winter. I looked at the survey undertaken by Contact a Family, the charity that works with families who care for disabled children. It was an extensive survey which found one in six families going without food, one in five without heating, one in four without the specialist adaptations that they need, and a third taking out a loan to pay for food and heating.
I looked at the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust work that has been undertaken by the Centre for Research in Social Policy, which demonstrated how the basic income from benefits has decreased in relation to the inflationary impact on basics such as food, heating and rents. I also looked at the work it had done on nutrition for expectant mothers and the concern, which was echoed some time ago by the Minister himself, about the incidence of poor maternal nutrition resulting in low birth weight.
The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) expressed his fear that this was, effectively, dog-whistle politics, that the poor were being used as a political football between the parties. I share those fears. I wish I did not. That was the tenor of the debate that was opened up in the budgetary statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the reference to curtains, and the debate that has gone on in the media about skivers and strivers. But I have more faith in the British people. I do not believe that they accept the terms of that debate. I think the British people have a sense of fairness and a sense of moral commitment to people less fortunate than themselves. That is why I do not think there is majority support for the measure. I think that, as a result of this debate, understanding is overcoming prejudice. Prejudice will be defeated by humanity; there will be an upsurge of popular support for those of us across the House who will oppose this legislation tonight and are calling for the Government to think again about the whole trajectory of their welfare cuts.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has done immensely important work about interventions to tackle deprivation. There is a whole
range of them, and they are not just about income. However, his work has found that those interventions are impeded from the outset if people are struggling simply to put food on the table, heat their homes and have some kind of decent standard of living.
Clause 1 is a major setback for large numbers of people right the way across our country. It undermines their standard of living and diminishes the whole of our society. It will have repercussions for a long time to come, unless we defeat it tonight.
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