I apologise at the outset for the fact that I will not take interventions, but a lot of people want to make speeches and not everybody got in last week. Also, I am not sure that my voice will hold for very long.
I will speak to Lords amendments 1B, 1C and 1D on child poverty reporting and to Lords amendments 8B, 8C, 9B and 9C on the proposed cuts to the employment and support allowance work-related activity component and its equivalent in universal credit.
On Lords amendments 1B, 1C and 1D, I was going to welcome the Minister’s agreeing to publish the percentage of children living in poverty in the way originally described in the Child Poverty Act 2010, based on household income and material deprivation. However, I found the tone that she took in introducing the debate very regretful. I also regret that the Government have not conceded to the request to submit an annual report to Parliament on the progress on these measures.
As I argued last week, we cannot deny the fact that in relation to child poverty, income matters. As experts in child poverty and child health have stressed in recent weeks and months, it is entirely regrettable that the Government are trying to conflate the consequences of child poverty, for example debt and family breakdown, with the cause—a lack of material resources. I have to disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field): there is no evidence to support the Government’s proposed interventions. They are likely to have no effect on child poverty and they may even make things worse. Contrary to that, support such as income supplements has been shown to be highly effective.
The Government’s predilection for focusing on worklessness, when two thirds of children living in poverty are from working families, reveals exactly where they are coming from. It is about hammering the poor, whether they are in work or not. As I predicted last week, and as yesterday’s Institute for Fiscal Studies report shows, the net effect of tax and social security changes will increase the proportion of children in relative poverty by eight percentage points, and those in
absolute poverty by three percentage points by 2020. That means that one in four—2.6 million—of our children will live in poverty. The implications for those children and their families, but also for the country, are stark.
Growing up in poverty limits children’s potential and development across a range of areas. Brain scans show how children’s brains develop differently when children are subjected to poverty. Poverty leads to poor health and life chances in adulthood, and that has knock-on effects for future generations. We already have the highest mortality of children under five in western Europe, and children from poor families are five times more likely to die than children from rich families. We all need to reflect on that; it should be a concern for us all.
Let me deal with amendments 8B, 8C, 9B and 9C. On Monday, the House of Lords voted overwhelmingly for Lord Low’s amendment calling for an assessment of the effects of the proposed measures to reduce social security support for people with disability, impairment or a serious health condition who had been found not fit for work and placed in the ESA WRAG group. In particular, the amendment called for an assessment of the impact on disabled people’s physical and mental health, their financial position—we know that disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people, and 80% of that is due to their disability—and their ability to return to work.
To refresh people’s memory, the Government propose to cut financial support from £102.15 to £73.10—nearly £30 a week or £1,500 a year—for new ESA WRAG claimants from 2010. However, that will also apply to existing WRAG claimants. In April, nearly half a million people who are currently on ESA WRAG will start to migrate to universal credit, and the Government intend to remove the limited capability for work component of the work element of universal credit. That means that everyone currently on ESA WRAG will ultimately be transferred to UC and have their support reduced by that £29.05 a week or £1,500 a year.