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wand would not restore the homes of those people who have been evicted today, return the furniture to homes with bailiffs on the doorsteps today or repair the lungs of children living in damp houses today. Anyway, the Chancellor will not wave a magic wand, but will continue to pursue the disastrous policies that have led to such an appalling increase in hardship.

Hardship affects every member of the family ; all are hit by it, but women and children bear the brunt. The lack of child care, to which the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) referred, means that women have less access to available jobs. That problem particularly affects single parents--76 per cent. of whom live in poverty, compared with 13 per cent. of two-parent families. Women form the vast majority of lone parents. Some 96 per cent. of single parents on income support are women and 71 per cent. of those on low wages are women.

Women's lives are very much shaped by their domestic

responsibilities. The vast amount of unpaid work that women have to do-- including child care, cleaning, shopping and managing the home--limits their opportunities to obtain paid work. During the past decade, the Government have done nothing to help them.

The Government are fond of pointing out at every opportunity the increase in part-time jobs, but they have done nothing to ensure that those jobs provide maternity rights, sick pay and holidays, or that part-time work is paid pro rata to full-time work. Because their pattern of paid work is so broken up by their caring

responsibilities--whether for children or elderly dependents--many women fail to pay enough national insurance contributions to qualify for a full pension, so when they become older and retire, they do not have enough to live on and have to resort to income support. Even within the family, the resources are not always fairly shared, although that is not necessarily the Government's fault. It is very often the woman in the family--the mother--who spends more of what might be considered the equal half of the family income on items such as food and clothing. That is why child benefit is, and is seen to be, so important to families. It is a disgrace that child benefit has been frozen for so long.

As the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) said, the Chancellor will at last be increasing child benefit not to £9.55 a week--which it should be for each child--but by a miserly £1 for the eldest child. Have Conservative Members any idea of how much that will help a family? The sum of £1 might just buy a large family loaf and some margarine, but not much more there will be no change out of a pound. That figure will not buy any socks or shoes, although it might buy three pints of milk--big deal. It is so insultingly low that it causes more stress. The Chancellor has made a mistake by not increasing child benefit to the requisite amount.

The hardship about which we have heard in the debate has been the lot of many families for more than a decade and over the lifetime of successive Governments, no positive policy to help such families has been developed. Tory politicians often talk about a sort of north-south divide. They say that there is more poverty in the north, rather as if families there should have become used to being poverty-stricken. They say that the "good old south of England" does well and that there is no need for a strategy to eliminate poverty and hardship there.

Now the recession has hit the south with a vengeance. Families in the south, stunned by steep mortgage interest

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rates, are losing their homes. They are getting into debt and losing their jobs as 100 firms a day are declared bankrupt. Two-earner families become one-earner or no-earner families. Those people were brought up under a Government who have no proper policies to deal with hardship and bring down inflation. Such families will join those who have been suffering for the past decade in realising that Britain must have a Labour Government who will begin to tackle the ills and evils of a decade of Tory policies. The general election campaign should start tomorrow.

9.51 pm

The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Nicholas Scott) : So far, the debate has been a one-sided match. I do not knowhether I shall be able to sustain that record. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security ate the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) alive. We have clearly won the argument. The Opposition chose this subject for debate, so it is somewhat surprising that the Opposition turnout has been so miserable. Their arguments have been equally weak.

I have great respect for the hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) and I think that we entered the House on the same date. She spoke seriously about the exploitation of children, and she will know that local authorities have considerable responsibilities for children who work. I took a careful note of her points, and will instigate some investigations into the extent of the practice reported in one of the popular Sunday newspapers. I take the matter seriously, and certainly do not dismiss it for a moment.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) also made a serious speech--about the need for services as well as benefits, the level of which dominated the debate. We are not speaking just about services by statutory bodies, such as local authorities or the Department in which I serve, but about those provided by the voluntary organisations that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Those are the citizens advice bureaux, Relate, which helps those in matrimonial difficulties, and other organisations which make a great contribution to enabling people to retain, and sometimes to improve, their quality of life.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about a matter that was first identified by the noble Lord Joseph--the danger of families in poverty entering a cycle of deprivation. Such families do not benefit from the education system and are ill served by many of the statutory bodies. In some way, we must break through to those families, and voluntary agencies can play a great part in that. Although my Department has no grant-giving power, the Department of Health spends a considerable amount of money, through its section 64 grants, on the voluntary bodies. This plays an important part in supporting such organisations and helping those who benefit from them.

Mr. Graham : Is the Minister aware that, in Scotland, many of the voluntary organisations that deal with the problems of poverty have seen their funding eradicated because of local government finance cuts, so much so that they are no longer able to carry out the valuable work that they have done for years to ensure that people get the benefits due to them?

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Mr. Scott : Most of the local authorities controlled by the Labour party put supporting fancy left-wing ideas ahead of the priorities about which I have been talking.

I shall try to reply to the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Oldham, West made the worst speech that I have ever heard him make. He has visited--we have been glad to enable him to do so--many of our local social security offices, and has gained some understanding of the efforts that we put in to delivering a better service to those who need our help. He will know that, on 1 April, the new benefits agency will come into effect. It will be able to work within a set of clear, unambiguous, published and measurable targets to deliver a better service to those who need our help. I hope that he will avail himself of the opportunity to visit those offices. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman could restrain his predilection for sedentary interventions, it would be more helpful. I hope that he understands that we are determined to deliver a better service.

Labour Members have talked an awful lot of nonsense. The hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal) delivered herself of the most foolhardy statement of the debate when she said that, because the retirement pension had not been increased in line with earnings, pensioners were worse off. There is no question of that. Under this Government, the standard of living of pensioners has gone up by 31 per cent.--twice as fast as the rate of increase in the standard of living of the popualtion as a whole. That has been due to the increase in savings, the spread of occupational pensions and the maturing of the state earnings-related pension scheme. Anybody who looks around the country will see with his own eyes that the pensioners' standard of living has gone up by substantially more than it did under the Labour Government, whatever that Government did to the basic retirement pension. We are determined to ensure, by a combination of policies, that that rate of increase continues. The hon. Member for Oldham, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) mentioned family credit and its importance in supporting the living standards of families. The take-up of family credit has steadily increased. It now reaches twice as many families as family income supplement did, and we have a case load of 325,000 people on family credit. We are anxious to increase the take-up as much as possible. I am sure that, whatever quibbles the hon. Member for Oldham, West has, he will support us in trying to ensure that the benefit goes to as many families as possible. He will have noticed, as he spends some time in front of the television set, the television advertisements that we are showing at the moment. He will know that there is a special insert in our child benefit books reminding people that they may be entitled to family credit. As we are talking about the living standards of families, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that, by introducing family credit, we have made a substantial contribution to the living standards of those entitled to it. He dared to mention unemployment traps and poverty traps. Our reforms in 1988 made a substantial contribution to removing the excessively high deduction rates which occurred under the previous system. We are contributing, and will continue to contribute, to the living standards of families. Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question :--

The House divided : Ayes 196, Noes 304.

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Division No. 96] [10 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

Alton, David

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Barron, Kevin

Beckett, Margaret

Bell, Stuart

Bellotti, David

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

Benton, Joseph

Bermingham, Gerald

Blunkett, David

Boateng, Paul

Boyes, Roland

Bradley, Keith

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Caborn, Richard

Callaghan, Jim

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Cartwright, John

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Clelland, David

Cohen, Harry

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Cousins, Jim

Cox, Tom

Crowther, Stan

Cryer, Bob

Cummings, John

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Cunningham, Dr John

Dalyell, Tam

Darling, Alistair

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)

Dewar, Donald

Dixon, Don

Dobson, Frank

Doran, Frank

Duffy, A. E. P.

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Eastham, Ken

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Fearn, Ronald

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

Fisher, Mark

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Foster, Derek

Foulkes, George

Fraser, John

Fyfe, Maria

Galloway, George

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

George, Bruce

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Golding, Mrs Llin

Gordon, Mildred

Gould, Bryan

Graham, Thomas

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Grocott, Bruce

Hardy, Peter

Harman, Ms Harriet

Haynes, Frank

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Henderson, Doug

Hinchliffe, David

Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Home Robertson, John

Hood, Jimmy

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Howells, Geraint

Hoyle, Doug

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Illsley, Eric

Ingram, Adam

Janner, Greville

Johnston, Sir Russell

Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Mo n)

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Kirkwood, Archy

Lamond, James

Leadbitter, Ted

Leighton, Ron

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Lewis, Terry

Livingstone, Ken

Livsey, Richard

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Loyden, Eddie

McAllion, John

McAvoy, Thomas

McCartney, Ian

McFall, John

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

McKelvey, William

McLeish, Henry

McMaster, Gordon

McNamara, Kevin

Madden, Max

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Martlew, Eric

Maxton, John

Meacher, Michael

Meale, Alan

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Morgan, Rhodri

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Mowlam, Marjorie

Mullin, Chris

Murphy, Paul

Nellist, Dave

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

O'Brien, William

O'Hara, Edward

O'Neill, Martin

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Paisley, Rev Ian

Parry, Robert

Patchett, Terry

Pike, Peter L.

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Primarolo, Dawn

Quin, Ms Joyce

Radice, Giles

Randall, Stuart

Redmond, Martin

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