The title of the debate before the House is “Defending Public Services”. Last week, I listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s speech following the Queen’s Speech and heard the phrase “life chances” repeatedly used in such a way as to suggest that meaningful and fundamental measures to militate against inequality were announced in the address. Indeed, a life chances strategy was set out.
The Government cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, we hear the incessant banging of the drum for austerity, and on the other we have rhetoric that is supposed to convince us that the appalling life chances of too many of our citizens and our children are being addressed. The Government seem content to see children living in poverty with all that that means. That is not consistent with a life chances strategy, or with a social justice agenda.
I have spoken before in the Chamber, as have so many others before me, about what poverty really costs. It costs families their hope and their motivation. It robs children of the confidence and the self-esteem that would enable them to reach their true potential. Poverty robs those subject to its vagaries of their physical and too often their mental health. Quite simply, it puts people into an early grave after a lifetime of suffering. Children in poverty are more likely to self-harm, and young men in poverty are twice as likely to commit suicide.
What is the response of the Government, who say they are committed to a life chances strategy? They slash support for disabled people and cut support for the working poor. What is required is a credible plan to look at the rising costs facing low-income families. It would be laughable if it were not so ridiculous and painful that we have a Government who seek to send parents to parenting classes but fail fundamentally to address the fact that far too many parents are finding it extremely difficult to put food on the table.
What this programme for government cannot hide, despite the strategies and platitudes set out last week, is that the watchword for this Government has been and
continues to be austerity. This austerity is defined by cuts to the public sector across the board, hitting, as it always will, the most disadvantaged, stripping workers of their rights and reducing the working poor to using food banks.
Our Prime Minister has told us:
“you can’t have true opportunity without true equality…I want us to end discrimination and finish the fight for real equality in our country today.”
If he is really serious about helping working families who are struggling hard, he must look again urgently at the impact of the austerity agenda on working and low-income families. We are heading for an even more confirmed position, where generations are glued to the bottom rung of the ladder of opportunity. This, of course, will be blamed on a lack of moral fibre or even poor parenting, but the real cause is a lack of opportunity to access employment, a decent income, proper childcare and suitable housing. We are all aware of the Government’s scrapping of legal commitments to tackle child poverty in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, a revision of legislation that introduced new measures of poverty that, bizarrely, did not include income. Measuring poverty is not enough—we know it exists. The cruel changes in support for families will put too many families under intolerable pressure. If the Government are serious about ending poverty and increasing the life chances of all children, the narrative that suggests a person will be living in poverty as a result of decisions made by that individual needs to change. Low income is not merely a symptom of poverty, but a direct cause of reduced life chances. Any life chances strategy has to recognise which factors militate against people’s life chances. If it does not do that, it is doomed to fail.
The four-year freeze on working-age benefits, including child tax credits, working tax credits and jobseeker’s allowance, will see families lose up to 12% from the real value of their benefits and tax credits by 2020. How does that improve the life chances of those living in poverty? How does that help the nearly 4 million people who experienced persistent poverty for two out of the past four years? It is a shocking state of affairs when most children living in poverty today in the UK have at least one parent in work. There needs to be some creative thinking about how to tackle the lack of reliable work that pays enough for families to make ends meet. Any new approach must complement, not replace, current efforts to measure and tackle child poverty. Measuring incomes and providing safety nets for the vulnerable and those in need should be our priority.
Absolute child poverty is projected to increase from 15.1% to 18.3% by 2021 as a result of planned tax and benefit reforms. Disabled lone parents with young carers are set to lose £58 a week as a result of the loss of the disability premium under universal credit, placing additional care burdens on young carers. If the much-heralded life chances strategy is to mean anything, it would benefit from being guided by the Scottish National party’s proposed social equality Bill, which would strengthen social security entitlements by restoring work allowances for low-income workers and single parents. It would actively pursue ways to break down barriers to employment for disabled people and address the gaps in support that have been created by slashing support for disabled people.
None of this is rocket science. All it needs is a recognition that poverty is a scourge we must eradicate and that all that is required is political will—political
choice. Warm words and talk of strategies will not lift families out of poverty and neither will empty rhetoric. Universal credit has failed: it has not incentivised work; it has punished those on low pay. Any system of welfare must be based on need, compassion and respect. Those principles should also guide any strategy that seeks to improve life chances for all. The Government should reflect on that today, if they are serious about tackling the corrosive and life-limiting effects of poverty.
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