I rise to speak to new clause 7, on equality impact analyses. The Government’s efforts to date on equality impact assessments overall have been woeful. There should not be a need for me to speak to any detail of the new clause. We cannot talk about sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, poverty and regional inequality properly without talking about the economy, because we know that structural inequality and discrimination hold many of our communities back. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) said, we have a right to know exactly who benefits from the Government’s policy agenda, but their continued refusal to publish proper impact assessments for their Bills speaks for itself.
I want to emphasise how the Government and the Bill are deepening already existing inequalities. For all the talk of levelling up, the Government’s policies amount to a sharp widening of all types of inequality, which are already among the widest in western Europe.
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The first and most obvious example, because it is the one that the Government make the boldest claims about, relates to geographical disparities and inequalities. The latest
annual data from the ONS shows that the average household income in Kensington and Chelsea was over £63,000 a year. In Sunderland, however, it was just £16,000, and it was almost as bad in other parts of the north. I repeat that that is for entire households, not individuals. What is the Government’s response? Their response is to cut HS2; increase national insurance, which will catch the lowest paid in places such as Sunderland but leave the wealthiest residents of the royal borough unscathed; and level up spending on schools, so that pupils in the leafiest boroughs get more and inner-city pupils are even more deprived.
Ministers seem unaware that there are huge disparities within regions. It is not all rosy in the big cities either, especially in London. The average household income in Lambeth, where my constituency is, is £29,000. In Tower Hamlets it is even lower. Both figures are a tiny fraction of local house prices and there is nothing in any Government agenda for them.
Ministers also seem unaware that there is a huge increase in the exploitation of young people. A recent report from the Resolution Foundation found that one third of all those aged 24 or under returning to work in this phase of the pandemic were doing so in insecure, lower paid or zero-hours work. What is the Government’s response? It is to cut universal credit eligibility to just four weeks and to force them to take jobs where pay is lower. For good measure, they have also frozen the repayment threshold of student loans, so they will find that even a minimal pay rise is eaten into by interest payments.
Contrary to the Prime Minister’s repeated claims in this House, it is not the case that more people are now in work than prior to the pandemic. I would ask that the Prime Minister be called to correct the record, but I fear that there would never be any business done if that became the norm. According to the ONS, there were in fact 526,000 fewer people in work in November 2021 than there were in November 2019, before the pandemic began.
Specifically on women, the ONS reports that, after years of steady decline, the gender pay gap rose once more in 2021, to 7.9% for full-time employees. The Bill and the entirety of Government policy do nothing to address that. Like the employment total, it is not even certain that Ministers are aware of it. Some 3 million women are in low-paid work, compared with 1.9 million men.
LGBT communities have seen a stark rise in homelessness. Homelessness has risen overall by 165% since the Conservative party came to power. The Albert Kennedy Trust reports that 24% of young homeless people or young people at risk of homelessness are from the LGBTQ community. In the disabled community, over 40% of people with learning disabilities lost care and support over the past decade as a result of social care cuts, and the charity Scope reports that over 27% of working-age disabled people are living in poverty.
Finally, I want to discuss briefly the issues facing the black, Asian and minority ethnic community. In 2019 the UN reported that austerity had worsened racial inequality, but this is a Government who deny the very existence of institutional racism when the evidence is all around us. TUC comparisons of median pay show that there is an ethnicity pay gap of 10.13%. Those are only the figures we actually have, because ethnicity pay gap
reporting is woeful and shameful. It is much, much worse than for the gender pay gap. However, we must note that during the pandemic the Government, because equality is just an add-on for them, suspended gender pay gap reporting. I would also make the point that more than half of all the UK’s black children live in poverty. That means that Government policy, in the form of high energy prices, higher national insurance or freezing income tax thresholds, disproportionately hits ethnic minority communities and people in work much harder.
The Government are not using their powers, including fiscal powers, to alleviate those inequalities; they are actually exacerbating them. It is a shameful record. The Government would do well to remember that equality is not expendable. It is not an add-on. It is not an extra. It is actually our law. If they are so certain that they are delivering for everybody in this country, I call on them to accept my new clause to show they are actually delivering for people right across the country. The fact remains that inequalities are out of control and they are doing absolutely nothing to stop that.