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the hon. Member for Oldham, West have not been costed. The ones which have been costed amount to over £50 billion, which is completely unrealistic.

We know about income support and child benefit. The Conservative Government have deliberately targeted the people most in need, but if the Labour party had the opportunity, it could not do that. The hon. Gentleman knows what would happen. If there was uprating in line with inflation--the sort of thing which his former boss, Barbara Castle, did not want to happen--those most in need, the poorest families, would not get it. What have the Conservative Government done? We have introduced family credit. There has been a lot of pooh-poohing family credit, but hon. Members should not forget that it is paid into the purse of the mother, which is an important point.

Mr. Peter Bottomley : Does my hon. Friend agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), who said in 1983, when child benefit reached record levels, that that demonstrated the Tory commitment to the family? Is not the argument for raising child benefit that it is the equivalent of a child allowance, but is better paid in cash than in tax? It may not be the way to help those on income support, but it is the right way to help those with children.

Mr. Hayes : I have spent the last eight years agreeing with my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher). We have spent eight times more on family credit than was spent on family income supplement in 1979. The average family credit award is over £30 a week, which is three times more than the payment in 1979. What is the great Labour policy? What will Labour do about children most in need? We know ; it has been in the newspapers and it has even been said in the House. Labour will allow it to wither on the vine. Will the hon. Member for Oldham, West deny that? Have I misled the House in any way? Is that Labour policy? Will the hon. Gentleman allow it to wither on the vine? I shall happily give way if I am wrong. Am I right? It is not often that I am right ; I am very pleased to be right on this occasion.

Here we have some wonderful Labour policies, and we shall have some wonderful taxes. We are going to have a tax on jobs which will cost employers about £1.5 billion. We are going to have a minimum wage which will cost the health service £500 million and throw thousands out of work. No doubt the minimum wage will appease the trade union paymasters of the hon. Member for Oldham, West, but it will not be good for employment and it certainly will not be good for the finances of the health service.

Let us get back to the vanguard of socialism today in this country, the places where socialist policies are really happening, the Labour councils. I would fail in my duty to the House and to the country if I did not mention Lambeth, God bless it. If Lambeth did not exist, Conservative Central Office would have to invent it. What has Lambeth done? Lambeth, that greatly caring and socialist council with the same sort of policies as the hon. Member for Oldham, West wants, has voted to withdraw rail and the tube passes from children attending schools outside the borough. Considering that about 50 per cent. of Lambeth children go to secondary schools in other boroughs, that is pretty disgraceful.

Mr. Jimmy Wray (Glasgow, Provan) : Is the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) trying to defend this

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Government? Does he not read the statistics? Does he not know that 22,500 people have had their homes repossessed? Does he not know that 95,000 people in Britain today are more than nine months in arrears with their mortgages? Does he not know that in Scotland 16,000 people had their electricity cut off? This is the kind of thing that the hon. Member should be speaking about because his Government put us in this mess.

Mr. Hayes : I am grateful for the helpful intervention of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray) because I was going to tell the House that since 1988 we have spent an extra £400 million a year in real terms on low-income families. I was going to tell the House that basic tax allowances have been increased by 25 per cent. since 1979. People are doing an awful lot better, despite the economic difficulties, than ever they were. Of course I regret the enormous problems of the 45,000 or so people who have lost their homes, but we are talking about 98.3 per cent. of all families who are in no serious difficulty with their arrears, and it is the job of the Government to do what they can to help.

I cannot remember whether it was Iain MacLeod or Winston Churchill who said that Conservatism was about giving people the ladders of opportunity and providing the nets to catch them. This is a time when we need those nets and it is the duty of the Government--they have been doing it as well as possible, subject to resource constraints--to make sure that the holes in the net are not so large as to allow many people to slip through. That is what Conservatism is all about. Let me return to what I was saying about Lambeth council. I do not think that many Opposition Members went to hear about it.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : There are not many of them there.

Mr. Hayes : I agree with my hon. Friend.

Let us just go back to Lambeth council and what the chief executive said :

"Some of the local customers are so frustrated with the services they are provided with--but sometimes never receive--and with the corruptness of the administrative systems that they feel compelled to resort to threats and acts of intimidation against it".

Is that really the sort of family policy that the Labour party will offer to the House and the country when eventually we go to the country at the general election?

We have been told that it is the wicked poll tax that is responsible for all these ills, but it is important that these facts come out :

"Even if the Labour party wins a general election no one ... can have any illusions that an incoming Labour government is the cavalry riding to the Council's rescue. It is more than clear that no additional resources would be available",

says Joan Twelves, the council leader.

Let us turn to Liverpool. God bless Liverpool. What does Councillor Keva Coombes say about Liverpool? About education--another great priority, just as a lot of things seem to be a priority for the Labour party just before an election--Mr. Coombes said that it was in a parlous state. He conceded that the Labour-run council was "the worst landlord in Liverpool, probably in the country".

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This is the case for socialism that people are getting in Liverpool, in Lambeth and in Harlow--

Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale) : What is the hon. Gentleman's majority?

Mr. Hayes : I have a healthy majority ; it goes up all the time when people hear what is on offer from Labour. We have been given a community charge by left-wing Harlow of £459, despite the fact that Essex county council is below the standard spending assessment of £49 million. Harlow could have reduced the community charge by £42. A competent authority would have kept the charge at £338, but Harlow has taken money from the reserve--this will bankrupt the town in the next two years-- of £118 per person ; and the people who will suffer in Harlow are the elderly, the disabled--those most at risk.

How is it, when one hears from Lambeth and these other overspending authorities, that it is not the women's units, the public relations or the local government units that suffer, but education and housing, the most politically sensitive areas? It is the most wicked and cynical manipulation of the frail and the infirm that I have ever seen. That is why I am happy to support my right hon. Friend and his Front-Bench team. I do not pretend that it is easy or that we have all the answers, but we are on the way to some of the solutions, and at least we have the courage to admit the limitations and to put forward the plans that my right hon. Friend has mentioned this evening.

8.56 pm

Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) : I am a bit diffident about straying into the party political flak that is flying all over the place. Listening to the insults that have been traded, one would be inclined to think that a general election was around the corner. I want to rise above all that if I can.

I agree with the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) in this respect at least ; these questions are not easy, and we must remember that there are intractable problems and that they are not all related to maintenance, income support and pensions. The problems which confront low-income families cover a range of public policy sectors that we ought to examine, and I should like to spend a moment or two discussing some of them.

I preface my remarks by saying that the Government should adopt a budget strategy to assist family hardship, and to that extent I support the thrust of the Labour motion. But the Secretary of State won on points by quite a large margin when it came to his questions about the second part of the motion, and if we decide to support the official Opposition in the Lobbies later I make it clear that it will be because of the intention behind the stated objects of the motion ; I think that the jury is still substantially out on the sums that Opposition Members have produced.

The Government have been in power for a long time and, as someone said recently, they have few alibis left. If they have not been able to use their time constructively to improve matters, particularly for families in hardship, they have no one to blame but themselves. We can quote statistics until we are blue in the face, but the evidence is that, since the Government have been in office, the poor have done relatively worse and the rich have done relatively better.

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It is all very well for the Secretary of State to be clever--I do not mean that pejoratively ; he was right to scrutinise the Opposition policies--but it is difficult for Opposition parties to produce policies, particularly financial plans in great detail, when the Government are sitting on top of all the information and statistics that they need. I would not go so far as to make some of the promises that have been made by the official Opposition, but it is right for the Opposition parties to state the targets that they intend to aim for over a reasonable time in the next Parliament. The Secretary of State was a bit unkind to prosecute his argument to the extent that he did. However, he put some valid questions, and no doubt when he gets a copy of the Budget proposals that the Liberal Democrats produced earlier today, he will be asking me some of the same questions.

Mr. Newton : It is not all that difficult to ask Governments parliamentary questions to elicit information ; quite a lot of them have been asked. What was interesting about the exchanges with the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) was that, when I made the point that the shadow Treasury document published today, apparently carefully costed, has costed a proposal which does nothing for the least well-off families, the hon. Gentleman was unable either to deny that or even to say that that was not the intention. He left the impression that it was.

Mr. Kirkwood : The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) can speak for himself. I listened with interest to the exchanges, and I shall study the report of the debate.

It is necessary to recognise that there have been substantial social changes. The hon. Members for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) and I attended an interesting Children's Society seminar which focused on the needs of children. I found it valuable, because it made me give a lot more thought to how a Liberal Democrat Government would try to focus on the needs of children.

Many different strands can be introduced and adduced in any policy that is brought to bear on the problem. As the hon. Member for Harlow said, it is difficult to decide how much the state should interfere in the private domestic domain of the family. There are difficult questions about how women, with their changing role, should be supported by child care policies and policies which make it easier for them to become an integral part of the new, largely service-oriented economy with part-time work and job sharing. All those matters are apposite in terms of giving real help to families suffering hardship.

We must also recognise that the family unit has changed substantially. That was brought home to me during discussions at the children's forum last week. There is now no such thing as the traditional family. There are step- families and single-parent families. In my constituency a high proportion of families consist of elderly people and ladies who have their own problems. The panoply of policy that the Government bring to bear on such questions must go with the grain of some of those changes.

One point that I made at the forum last week is that Governments find it difficult to co-ordinate policy, particularly in relation to children and families suffering

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hardship because of the disjointed approach that we adopt to try to tackle poverty within the family. That has been true of all Governments.

Poverty within the family embraces a series of things. For example, one of the most positive things that we could do to help some low-income families would be to increase the support that we give to conciliation services. Family breakdowns cost the state a lot of money, and if we put resources into giving families teetering on the brink of breakdown advice and conciliation, they may be saved. That might be the most positive way in which to help them. Local authorities, voluntary bodies and some specialist charities have an important role to play in that.

Those are all matters outwith the Secretary of State's responsibilities, but Governments must recognise that we need to go beyond social security levels and consider debt advice, the valuable work of citizens advice bureaux and counselling and family planning services. All those services have a bearing on how we can provide support, financial and otherwise, to families who are suffering hardship.

I do not think that one can consider hardship properly without taking into account long-term education policy. Sensible, planned provision for the under-fives would give future generations a better chance of gaining independence--the independence about which we hear so much from the Government--and exercising choice. I agree that opportunities should be provided, but many families are simply unable to take advantage of them. Education is a part of the problem. So is housing. Members of Parliament, at their constituency surgeries, hear about dampness, overcrowding, and so on. Then there is the question of health policy. People need dietary and other preventive health advice. They need advice about life styles. All of these things are the proper function of government. Families who suffer hardship must get proper educational support.

I know that there have been interdepartmental committees dealing with women's issues and with some children's issues. I support what has been done, so far as it goes. However, I hope that the Social Security Ministers will not confine their view to issues that are the responsibility of their own Department but will encourage a more interdepartmental approach. I know that they have their problems, but I hope that they will do what they can to ensure that low-income families get all the assistance that they need.

There is a real need for a proper partnership with the voluntary sector. I do not mean that charities should be used to provide a back-up for the social fund ; that would be inappropriate. However, some of the specialist charities in the voluntary sector have expert resources. Indeed, I have seen some very useful local authority initiatives also. In addition, some employers have very enlightened policies for child care and support for low -income families. The Government--particularly the Ministers in the Department of Social Security--should take a lead in the provision of a framework of support, in partnership with all the elements involved. I know that that will not be easy, but we should all be neglecting our duty if we were not to try a bit harder in that direction.

Prolonged poverty is inimical to family life. That, of course, is a statement of the obvious. We can argue about what constitutes relative poverty, and what constitutes absolute poverty. We can argue about whether the Government are doing enough. Opposition parties will always ask for more. However, some worrying trends are

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emerging. The next Government, from whatever party, will have difficulties if they do not face up to the lack of provision for low-income families, among other things. Child benefit and child care should be essential elements of the programme for the next five or 10 years.

I hope that, in the next general election campaign, there will be proper public discussion of the role of child benefit. This is a cross-party issue. The debate about it will be important, and I hope that it will be conducted in the open. As I said in a previous debate, I hope that manifestos will be explicit about what parties are seeking to achieve. Of course, parties can be criticised for trying to go too far. We need an open, proper debate so that the electorate may have some say.

I am very worried about the resourcing of community care. Up to now, I have been referring especially to children, but community care will be essential to elderly people. If proper provision is not made, there will be major problems. I am very worried about some health board trends. I am not against savings, but the health board in my area is trying to make savings that will simply result in geriatric care being offloaded in a fairly wholesale way to the private residential and voluntary sectors of nursing homes. I have nothing against mixed provision of residential care, but it is quite wrong for health boards suddenly to decide that it is no longer their responsibility to provide geriatric care. I hope that Ministers are aware of that. It will have a vast implication for the Department of Social Security budget.

I know, as well as anyone knows, that the Secretary of State has to go to the Treasury and fight his corner for money. If that trend in my constituency begins to emerge across the whole United Kingdom, the Secretary of State will have an increasingly difficult job in containing that demand-led aspect of the budget. He will have to make cuts in other areas, and that will not be in anybody's interests. I hope that he will urgently consider that. If it is happening in a relatively stable, out-of- the-way place like my constituency, goodness knows what the extent of the problem would be in urban areas.

I hope that the Secretary of State will reconsider the changes in the 1986 Act that led to a cut in provision for 16 and 17-year-olds. I accept that the Government of the day must be careful not to tempt youngsters away from families and towards streets paved with gold in London. However, the experience and the evidence show that 16 and 17-year-olds who are genuinely within a stressful family relationship leave home and go into destitution and, even worse, prostitution. I hope that that aspect of the 1986 reforms will be urgently reviewed. The figures for homelessness and repossessions have been mentioned, and they pose an increasing worry. I am concerned about the number of people in Scotland who suffer deductions from their income support because, for example, they are in arrears with their community charge, are making social fund repayments, or are directly receiving fuel. The Government must be careful to ensure that they do not assume that everybody has the maximum income support available. In November 1990, 17,500 people in Scotland were in poll tax arrears and were not in receipt of full income support.

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I am concerned about the 5,000 people sleeping rough. The Government have shown welcome signs of trying to reduce the number, but I am still worried. I am sure that my concern is not unique. I hope that the Secretary of State recognises that Governments, of whichever party, must take into account the changing complexion of the family. As a policy-making institution, the Government should try to work with the grain of that and not moralise or impose rather spurious and out- of-date judgments. We need a better, more co-ordinated approach to all aspects of family policy.

I have tried to advance one or two ideas about ways in which I think matters could be improved. To achieve a concerted and co-ordinated approach, we need more resources. I hope that the issue will be tested seriously at the next general election. I believe that people throughout the country would be prepared to pay a reasonable amount more if they felt that that would result in a fairer and better collective provision for low- income families.

9.13 pm

Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) : The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) said that he would try to lift the tone of the debate. Indeed, the speeches of Opposition Members have improved as we have gone along. The opening speech by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) was pathetic, yet he has had enormous experience both in office and on the Opposition Front Bench. The hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham) made a heavyweight speech, and he referred to unemployment on the Clyde. Perhaps the Opposition should promote him to the Front Bench ; they obviously need a speaker with his power of oratory. I agree with many of the points made by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire and especially with his comment about wanting a more co-ordinated approach to family policy and lifestyle advice.

A survey published today showed that 10 per cent. of 16 to 19-year-old girls are sexually active and do not use contraceptives. That is the beginning of later problems, because if teenage pregnancies result, they either end in the tragedy of an abortion or in an unplanned pregnancy leading to an unplanned child, which will too often result in family poverty. Therefore, the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire was right to mention the issue. I stress to my right hon. Friend the Minister the need for the Government to monitor what is happening. Figures show that there are as many as 1 million unplanned pregnancies--one in three pregnancies--every year in this country. We must monitor that and find out to what extent Government policy can help to reduce the number because no one wants that level.

Mr. Peter Bottomley : I hope that people following this debate will not take that figure as correct. The number of live births is about 600,000 or 700,000 and there are about 150,000 abortions and there are also spontaneous miscarriages. Therefore, I think that there must be something slightly wrong with my right hon. Friend's assumption.

Mr. Thurnham : I am grateful to my hon. Friend ; he was right to correct me. According to the figures that I have

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seen, 1 million women are at risk of unplanned pregnancy, and there are about 300,000 unplanned pregnancies during a year, half of which end in abortion--about 150,000 or 160,000 each year. Therefore, 150, 000 or 160,000 children would be born, suggesting that at least one in five children born is the result of an unplanned pregnancy. No one wants that state of affairs.

I agree with the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire that we should start by considering that aspect of family life in this debate.

I find Labour's policies amazing. I have already quoted the conclusion of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that child benefit is not efficient. However, I see that early-day motion 582, which has attracted 160 signatures from the Opposition Benches, states : "child benefit is the most efficient form of financial support for families with children".

I do not understand how one can come to that conclusion when, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his opening speech, that does not help families with the lowest incomes. The Opposition were unable to answer that argument and were unable to say how they could help such families. That is why the Opposition are beginning to climb down from saying that they will more than make good the value of child benefit. More recently, they said that they would "at least" make it good and more recently still that they will simply make it good. They realise that child benefit is not getting anywhere. What most disappoints me about the Opposition is the fact that they do not seem able to support family credit. The Government have boosted family credit, enormously--there has been an eightfold increase in the amount of money spent on it. Yet the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) has said, as we have already heard, that Labour would let family credit wither on the vine and would introduce a national minimum wage instead. Barbara Castle has already been quoted as the Minister who froze child benefit in 1975. As Secretary of State for Employment, she said that she would not introduce a national minimum wage because of its effect on regional unemployment. Why is the Labour party advocating policies that it would not implement when it was in power?

It grieves me that the Opposition should turn their backs on family credit, when that is exactly the sort of policy that leads to targeted benefits. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said that child benefit is not the most sensible way to distribute extra money. In that case, the most sensible way must be family credit. Will my hon. Friend consider the conclusions in the National Audit Office's study on family credit distribution? Family credit is not fully taken up. It is an excellent scheme, yet figures published in the study a few weeks ago showed that, by caseload, only 50 per cent. of it was taken up and, by expenditure, only 65 per cent. Therefore, there must be a considerable number of families who can still benefit from family credit and we should do our utmost to get them to take up that benefit.

That is the correct policy and the right way to help. One should encourage people to earn the most from their jobs that they can, and supplement their income where necessary to meet their family requirements. That is what should be done, rather than spread universal benefits around. We would much prefer to target benefits and reduce income tax, to make the economy stronger and to increase take-home pay.

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That does not mean that the wealthiest would make the smallest contribution. The top 10 per cent. of taxpayers contribute 42 per cent. of total tax now, compared with 35 per cent. 10 years ago. Conservative Governments have increased the proportion of tax paid by the wealthy, and reduced that payable by everyone else from the exorbitant levels that existed under Labour.

The Opposition have not made it clear how they would fund their commitments. Where is the £1.5 billion more that they propose putting into child benefit to come from? If it is to be generated by increased taxes, who is to pay them? I have not yet seen the shadow Budget that was published today, but judging from the remarks of my right hon. Friend, it does not add up. Does it make it clear what tax levels would be under Labour, and whether there will be a return to the horrendous levels that operated under Labour?

I would like the family credit scheme to be considerably expanded. If additional funds are available, perhaps that is the area to which they should be applied. The National Audit Office made three recommendations. The first was that the Department should improve the nature and extent of the advice given to income support claimants about family credit. The system works better than it did, but there is scope for further improvement.

The NAO's second recommendation was that the advice and information given to ethnic minorities about income support and family credit should be reviewed. I know from my constituency experience that there is high unemployment among ethnic minorities, and that they tend to have larger families. On both counts, they are in need of more guidance on how to benefit from family credit.

The National Audit Office's third recommendation was that the reason why families move into and out of entitlement to income support and family credit should be examined, to establish whether there is scope to improve the effectiveness of the schemes' work incentives. That apart, family credit is an enormous improvement on family income support. The Government are paying out much more, and that money is reaching many more families than before. In overall terms, the scheme is a success, but I should like to see it implemented more fully. The Government's policies deserve the support of us all in the Lobby tonight.

9.22 pm

Miss Joan Lestor (Eccles) : I will focus on a narrow aspect of family poverty, and one that the Government always ignore. It is a pity that, when efforts are made to identify areas of poverty, the Government constantly skirt round the disadvantaged and point only to groups that have enjoyed some improvements under their schemes. Last week, the Low Pay Unit and Birmingham education authority released a report that highlights the exploitation of thousands of children who are working illegally, and The People presented disclosures by Danny Buckland, who managed to infiltrate a Norfolk factory with a photographer, to present pictorially a report on the exploitation of children in 1991, under a Conservative Government. The Government have been in power for nearly 12 years. To many of us, it seems much longer. Some of the children highlighted in the Low Pay Unit report were not even born when the Conservatives took office. According

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to the Low Pay Unit and Birmingham education authority, the reason for that exploitation is family poverty.

I do not have time to describe the report in detail, but I hope that Ministers have read it. It shows that, in the areas that suffer the highest unemployment, greatest poverty, and worst low pay, more and more children are becoming the family breadwinners. That point has been raised before, but the Government have not dealt with the problem of long-term truancy among children or the fact that many children are working in appalling conditions. The legislation that protected those children, such as it was, has been done away with. The Government constantly refuse to implement the Employment of Children Act 1973. The Under-Secretary of State for Social Security said that if there was any evidence that it should be implemented, she would consider it. The evidence is before her, but the Government have done nothing.

There are 4 million secondary school-aged children in Britain today and 2 million of them work. According to the survey, three out of four of those children are employed illegally. They are at risk of economic exploitation. They also face physical risks and colossal educational disadvantage.

According to the survey, 43 per cent. of the children had some kind of job excluding baby sitting, running errands and walking the dog. Many of them had more than one job. One 11-year-old had five jobs : a paper round, helping with a milk round, working in a clothes shop, helping with furniture removals and working in a take away restaurant. He earned 50p an hour for 10 hours work. That is the position after almost 12 years of Conservative Government. That is the poverty that our children are experiencing.

One third of the children's jobs involve shop work, cleaning and factory work and they accounted for more than the number of paper rounds. The law states that no child under 13 should work. One quarter of the working children referred to in the survey were 10, 11 or 12 years old. The law also states that children should not work for more than two hours on a school day and not before 7 am or after 7 pm in the case of 13-year-olds. Many of the children work far longer hours than that. Many of them perform adult jobs for less pay. The average pay is £1.80 an hour.

One 12-year-old worked in a sweet shop for 18 hours a week and was paid 44p an hour. The adult minimum wage is £2.20 an hour. The survey found that one third of the children were involved in accidents at work, including cuts, burns, assaults and broken bones. Three 15-year-olds received serious injuries in agriculture ; six 15-year-olds in manufacturing industries ; seven 15-year-olds in the service industries ; and two 15-year-olds in unclassified jobs. In addition, a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old were involved in major accidents in other forms of agriculture. In comparison with that saga of accidents involving youngsters, many of whom were working illegally, the number of court cases and convictions is pitiful. That is one of the biggest indictments of the Government. We have heard reports of children working as the sole carer of a dependant relative. There are reports of children sleeping in our streets. Hundreds of our

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children are in bed-and-breakfast accommodation and hundreds more are on at-risk registers, but they do not have social workers attached to them.

There is also now a growing saga of children who are employed illegally, many of whom are trying to top up an inadequate family income, or working as the sole contributor and breadwinner in a family that has experienced years of long-term unemployment affecting the mother, father and the other children. That is what is happening in our society today, as revealed in the survey which interviewed nearly 2,000 children between 10 and 16 split evenly between boys and girls.

I am glad that Conservative Members have not laughed at my speech. This will have been only the second speech at which they have not laughed, although I am sure that one of them will do so before long. I have made a serious indictment of a Government who claim to care about children and about people, but who allow our children to work illegally and deny to those who work with some semblance of legality any protection in terms of the legislation that they took from the statute book.

9.29 pm

Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West) : Earlier my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was kind enough to allow me to intervene, when I talked about the track record of Barbara Castle, who introduced child benefit. I am sure that she meant what she said most sincerely. I quote her freely, because I do not have her exact words in front of me. She made the point that the key advantage of the introduction of child benefit was that it would benefit poorer families. Her exact words were that poorer families would receive a greater proportion of the money.

I do not understand how the right hon. Lady, who is now in the other place, could possibly have had that idea. Surely it is clear to hon. Members, regardless of which side of the House they are on, that the great weakness of universal benefits is that they spread the butter thinly--they give exactly the same to everybody irrespective of income, ability to pay, and, even worse, need.

Earlier today, Her Majesty's Opposition attacked the community charge and supported other measures, but they support universality as a concept embedded in their deepest commitment, particularly to child benefit.

I am more than keenly interested in the welfare of children. I was fortunate to spend a dozen years working as a full-time senior staff member of the Save the Children Fund. Fortunately, in my position as a Conservative Back-Bencher, I have sufficient time to be able to devote my spare hours to furthering the welfare of children in the United Kingdom in a variety of ways and through a number of voluntary organisations--46 at the latest count. I know that the Government's perception of need for children is the better one, given that family credit now supplements child benefit. I shall paint the picture in a slightly different way so that Her Majesty's Opposition can understand my perspective in this matter.

Child benefit goes to every child--or rather, through every mother, it is given for the benefit of every child in the United Kingdom. I make that point perhaps a little critically, because many mothers do not use child benefit for their children. Many cases have been identified and written up. Letters are written to women's magazines from

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families on quite modest incomes, saying that they do not use child benefit for their children. I refer to magazines such as Woman's Own and Woman's Realm-- the ordinary, common or garden women's magazines that many millions of women read every week. I have seen letters from someone who feels embarrassed at having child benefit when she does not use it for her children.

There are 6.8 million families with children in the United Kingdom, and that makes 12.2 million children. All of them receive child benefit at £7.25 per child per week. However, among those 12.2 million children, 3 million are in greatest need. That is the bottom group--a quarter of all children in the United Kingdom. It is interesting that that quarter comes from 1.5 million of the totality of 6.8 million families. In a word, a quarter of the children belong to a sixth of the families. Quite naturally, we see that families in receipt of family credit are the poorest and also have the largest families. That is why I so heartily supported the recent uplift in child benefit of £1 for the eldest child. The larger families will need that money to invest in children' s clothing at the beginning of their family life.

I have seen the benefit of family credit, as opposed to the uplift of child benefit nationally through the universality of everyone having the same, in my constituency where many families are on lower incomes. Farm workers have never been well paid--I wish they had. Many farmers do not have a large income, and other groups also receive family credit. I have seen that family credit gives real value to those families. It allows them to budget and to plan. It gives them sufficient funds to enable them to stand on their own feet and to start to involve themselves in the wider world.

That is why, although I welcome any help that is given to children, I especially support the targeting--that modern word--of families who are in real need. I welcome the Government's commitment to the poorest children in the land by continuing to uplift family credit. 9.35 pm

Mrs. Sylvia Heal (Mid-Staffordshire) : The Government came to power on the promise of prosperity for everyone. People expected to have more money in their pockets, a home of their own, a secure job, and better prospects for their children in schools and universities. But the reality for many has been a treacherous breach of the hopes and plans that the British people had invested in the Government for the 1980s and on the basis of which they were voted into power. Since 1979, the poor have become poorer. About one fifth of the population have been made worse off during the past decade. Not for them the benefit of a trickle-down effect from the growing prosperity of the few. We have heard that it is Conservative policy for that party to project itself as the party of the family. Quite apart from the economic and political consequences of the Government's policies, we must consider the more personal effects that relate to nearly every family in the land and what has really happened to many families in the time that the Government have been in office. Grandparents now receive a state pension that is no longer linked to average earnings or increased prices, so they are worse off. According to Age Concern, more than one third of retired people are living on or below the poverty line. Many are constantly worried about heating

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their homes, paying their bills and having enough to feed themselves. They are often faced with deciding whether they can afford to buy a relative or friend a birthday card or whether they should spend that money on a loaf of bread or half a dozen eggs. Many people in their 70s and 80s find it impossible to survive on their basic pension and have to work part-time to supplement it. The jobs on which many pensioners rely to boost their weekly income are often the first to go when the recession bites. I refer to the pensioners who may have a part-time cleaning job in a shop or office.

Fathers who were once in secure jobs have found themselves unemployed. Many are facing unemployment for the first time. If they have a skill or professional training, they did not expect that unemployment would happen to them. Unemployment brings humiliation and loss of confidence, as well as financial problems, which in turn can mean stress and tension within a marriage and within the family unit.

Many women work part-time outside the home so that they can combine employment and family responsibilities. Many women who have been employed in banking or by the building societies, both of which are large employers of women, have been made redundant. Women who work in teaching, the service sector or as helps in the schools meals service are facing reduced hours or job losses as a result of the recession or they have been the victims of cuts, which are due in large measure to the poll tax.

Young people searching for jobs are often sidetracked into the so-called training schemes which are often no more than a parody of the real thing. They receive little more than subsistence rates as a training allowance. Teenagers who have to leave home--not from choice, but because there is no work locally--may obtain work but they then have to pay a high price for accommodation, and their poll tax. They may join the many young people who are sleeping in cardboard city, begging on our streets, or turning to prostitution. Unemployment and changes in the benefit rules are the factors which contribute to that.

A further consequence of the recession and its impact on families is the increase in the workload of citizens advice bureaux. Advice on money problems is now the main and growing work of CABs in my constituency. In one of those offices, bankruptcy-related inquiries during January and February were as many as two or three a week. Many of them were from people who were made redundant and who had put what capital they had into a small business. They now face further problems. When the sign says, "Everything must go", it means just that--it means the family business and the family income.

The people who seek advice at CABs often have multiple debt problems, not because they have overcommitted themselves but because of a change in circumstances. In many cases, that change of circumstances is unemployment. That in turn leads to mortgage problems. Again, mortgage problems arise either from unemployment or from a reduction in working hours.

In some families, both husband and wife have lost their jobs and the impact on the family is devastating. As a result of the state of the economy, many unemployed people, having tried to find work and written perhaps 50 or 100 letters, are giving up hope. Many families face the grim struggle to pay the mortgage, rent, poll tax and increased prices for the now privatised water, gas and electricity, as well as the weekly food bill. New clothes, meals out and entertainment are luxuries that many

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families cannot afford. I have spoken to families who say not only that they cannot afford new clothes but that they can no longer afford to buy clothes from the charity shops ; they are reduced to going to jumble sales.

Community furniture projects have great demand for their furniture because people cannot obtain the additional money that they want from the social fund to replace items of furniture. The magic spell of prosperity has been broken at last. Few people still believe that we can become a nation of rich and happy shareholders. If we were to apply the same testing to the Government's policy on the family as they are imposing on children in schools, there is no doubt what the teacher's comment would be : "Failed. Could do better."

The family as a single, cohesive factor in contemporary Britain has been subjected to unprecedented pressures which in turn have created more social discord than we have had in any period since the 1930s.

9.42 pm

Ms. Jo Richardson (Barking) : In the few minutes left for the Front- Bench replies, I wish to make a few references first to the speeches which have been made in the debate. The speeches of my hon. Friends reflected their anxieties about the bitter plight of families on low incomes living in their constituencies. The anger expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham) and the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal) contrasted starkly with the levity of the speech of the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), who seemed to think that it was all a great joke. The moving speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor), which brought a new dimension to the debate, will be worth reading.

The spread of poverty has become absolutely relentless and its growth is a savage indictment of the Government. Far from creating new jobs, they have presided over a tripling of unemployment and a shift in the nature of employment towards temporary, casual and part-time work which is low-paid. Far from widening real opportunities for lasting home ownership, the Government have encouraged families to buy their homes. Those families were then forced by the Government's high interest rates policy into arrears and into losing their homes. It is a crazy situation.

In 1989, 83,682 mortgage payers were taken to court. That was a bad enough figure, but in 1990, more than 136,000 faced court action for mortgage areas. The biggest increases in the past year have been in the midlands, the south-east and the south-west--unusual spots for that to happen. At the same time, local authority home building has been at a standstill, and homelessness and housing waiting lists have been at an all-time high. Privately rented property is far too expensive for most families whose homes have been repossessed. There is no doubt that the current recession will lead to even further increases in the number of families in poverty, yet the Government show no sign of tackling the recession and, to judge by their amendment tonight, they have no conception of the misery that their policies are causing.

Even if the Chancellor could wave a magic wand to pull the country out of recession overnight, he would not and could not undo the damage now being wrought. A magic

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