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Mr. Allen : I am happy to continue the dialogue with the Secretary of State. The Midland Montagu survey--not a party political survey and not one with which I would necessarily agree in every detail--says that the Secretary of State's proposals, as outlined today, would cost an additional £25 billion. Those are the words of an independent survey. Apparently, the whole Conservative package comes to an extra £35 billion.
Again, these are not statements which go on the hoardings. They are not party political propaganda. They are part of an independent survey. I give the Secretary of State the chance again, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) gave him the chance on four occasions, to answer the question directly--how will a new Conservative Government pay for it?
Mr. Newton : As I have already said, the point is a complete nonsense point. Our commitments are part of carefully costed plans published in the ordinary way. It does not alter the fact that the Opposition's promises would not reduce the commitments that have already been entered into and planned for. The Opposition would pile another £37 billion on top of them.
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That point brings me to the dog which astonishingly has not barked during the debate. It is the answer to the questions which everyone in the House and outside has asked in the light of the incredible confusion of recent weeks, when the whole package that Labour had said was carefully worked out and costed crashed into splinters on a dinner table in Luigi's in Covent Garden.It may be that this afternoon the hon. Member for Oldham, West has answered one of the questions--whether the priority pledges are still priority pledges. I think that it could be read into his remarks that they are. But there were only two priority pledges in everything that we have heard until now. There is another in the motion, and the hon. Gentleman referred to it in his speech. It is the restoration of the earnings link.
If that is a priority pledge, is it also for immediate implementation? If so, that is another substantial increase in the Labour party's "immediate bill"--to use its words--which it does not know how to meet. Is the hon. Member for Oldham, West going to answer these questions? They are the questions to which everyone wants to know the answer. Indeed, we need to know the answer to have any chance whatever of judging just what Opposition Members think they are saying. If the hon. Gentleman does not want to answer-- Mr. Meacher rose--
Mr. Meacher : The Secretary of State is getting very nervous in his fabrication of bogus questions. We have made it absolutely clear that the pensions link with earnings will be restored. [ Hon. Members :-- "When?"] Perhaps Conservative Members who want to know the exact date when all these changes will be made will answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) just asked. The Government propose to cut income tax by 5p, from 25p to 20p. At what rate will it be phased in? All in the first year? Or 1p a year? How will it be paid for? That is not in the Government's public expenditure plans.
Mr. Newton : The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that any reduction in income tax will be subject to all the usual considerations at a particular point in time and that no commitment has been made about specific timing.
Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde) rose --
Mr. Newton : No, I shall not give way, as this is important. We are faced with something quite different from any aim that the Government might have to reduce income tax further. As I understand it--the hon. Member for Oldham, West can tell me if I am wrong--we are confronting firm commitments, which have frequently been reiterated, to implement promises on child benefit and the retirement pension immediately. The hon. Gentleman does not dispute that.
In the motion, the hon. Member for Oldham, West has linked a third ingredient--the earnings link--which had never been put in those terms before. That implies that it should be seen in those terms. I can only read into what the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has just said the fact that restoration of the earnings link is not a priority for immediate implementation but what the hon.
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Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) would describe as a "desirable aim"--this year, next year, some time or never.Sir Peter Hordern (Horsham) : Could my right hon. Friend help me in my confusion? I thought that I heard the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) say that he felt that our social security programme was too expensive and that Midland Montagu had quoted a price of about £25 billion. Did my right hon. Friend gather from that that the Labour party was thinking of cutting our social security expenditure programme? If expenditure were to increase above that, how is the money to be found?
Would my right hon. Friend kindly help me, because I am increasingly confused by the fact that the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has said that the Labour party programme will include a link with earnings for retirement pensions. Government may have some control over inflation, but it is absolute pie in the sky for any party to say that a link could be attached to average earnings, over which there is no control.
Mr. Newton : My hon. Friend underlines the argument I was seeking to make in response to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North. Of course, the Government have clearly set out, in a variety of documents, their forward commitments on public expenditure. Nothing suggested by the Labour party would reduce those commitments, but it has put forward a wide range of proposals--including the proposal that my hon. Friend adverts to--which would increase those commitments by about £37 billion, and we do not yet know how that will be paid for. We do not even know how the so-called immediate priority commitments would be paid for.
From widely reported events involving the Leader of the Opposition, we understand that the critical ingredient--the removal of the upper earnings limit--is likely to be phased in. Will it be phased in? If so, how? Will those closer to the earnings limit--the less well-off--get the first bash, or will all those involved pay 5 per cent. in the first year, 7 per cent. in the second and reach 9 per cent. in the third? In that case, phasing in simply means that the same group of people will be clobbered not once but year in, year out, for as long as it takes to get the money.
Crucially, since we were told that the package was carefully costed and balanced, if revenue is to be phased in, will commitments be phased in too? Do they cease to be immediate priorities?
I sense that I shall get no further answers, and I conclude by saying that the hon. Gentleman's statistics do not add up and his financial calculations and policies do not stand up. Both the House and the country will rightly conclude that they should vote his motion down.
5.33 pm
Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead) : I do not intend to continue the conversation about statistics as the Secretary of State has largely conceded that argument. I merely put on record that his quotations from the report of the Select Committee on Social Security were highly selective, especially the crucial quotation about average living standards having increased. Under the Government's stewardship, the poorest people have received the smallest increase. I hope that before the end of the debate someone
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will have read the report for the Secretary of State and passed him a note so that his junior colleague can put that on record. I wish to mention some of my constituents who are now without hope because of the policies pursued by the Government. I do not say that everyone in Birkenhead is in that position, nor that some people have not managed to improve their lot during the Government's stewardship, but I wish to register the fact that destroying people's hope destroys something important for their status as citizens and I shall devote the four minutes of my contribution to that.I hope that if I introduce some of my constituents to the House and to the Secretary of State, the right hon. Gentleman will instruct the junior Minister to provide in his reply the message that he wishes me to take home to them.
Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland) : Vote Labour!
Mr. Field : Apart from the Whip's general comment, for the first group we want immediate hope rather than waiting until April or May. The first group comprises those who have left school and have no work and are not on a training course. The Government made a promise about the courses that would be available, but they have shifted on that. I refer not to the Department of Social Security but to the Department of Employment. There was a specific promise that people not at school and not in work would be guaranteed a training place. That has been relegated to a general promise, but my young constituents are not covered by a general promise--they are individuals, and a small army of them do not have the training places that they want and have great difficulty in drawing benefit. What message does the Secretary of State want me to take home to them?
The second group are those who have left school with no hope of finding work. As the unemployment figures rise, more people's heads are pushed below the sea of unemployment and remain below it for some considerable time. A group of people in Birkenhead, after leaving school and trying and failing to get work, are now bringing up families but have never known what it is like to work. What hope has the Secretary of State to offer them? They are not terribly interested in the figures that he is bandying across the Dispatch Box. They want the chance to work. What concrete hope does he hold out for them?
Thirdly, what hope does the Secretary of State hold out for the young mother who came to my surgery and matter of factly described the difference between sleeping on the floor of her parents-in-law's home, which is carpeted, and sleeping on her own floor with no carpet? What hope does he hold out for my constitutents who find themselves in that position? What hope does the Secretary of State hold out for other young constituents who, after years without work, have managed to find it? One constituent, because he had to get to work before public transport started running in the morning, had to buy a bicycle to get through the Mersey tunnel to work. Because he wanted to work, he snatched at that opportunity. The employer, knowing his power because many other young people wanted the job, played the field and sacked him. Now he has to meet the debt caused by the bicycle. He searched again for a job and found one in Chester. The employer,
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aware of his powerful position, would not pay in advance but told my constituent that he would have to exist in some way or other until the normal pay day came round. Given the rules that the Department operates, what hope does the right hon. Gentleman hold out for such young constituents who are struggling for work?The debate is about showing that, whereas some people are not at the bottom of the pile, many are just a few wage packets or salary cheques from being pushed to the bottom.
A constituent of mine, who worked at Cammell Laird, had a heart attack. The first correspondence that he received from the company after the heart attack was to tell him that he had been made redundant. He has two young sons ; one is working and the other is not. The working son earns a low wage and the other is on benefit and therefore should be making a contribution toward the costs of the household. As the Minister knows, the benefit for those in that son's age group is desperately low. But the son in work earns even less than the son on benefit and finds it even more difficult to make a contribution to the household.
That former worker at Laird's told me with great pride that the one great thing that he has done is to bring up a loving family. That is his great treasure, but he now realises that if he and his wife are to survive and get the extra help that they need, he will have to put his sons out. More help would then be available because the sons would not be considered as part of the household. That is the way the Government have been destroying hope over a long period.
The next election will not be fought on the finer points of the Select Committee report or what consultants say will be the costs of the next programmes : it will be fought, I hope, on the fact that the Labour party appreciates what the difficulties are and is determined in the next Parliament to give back hope to those people at the bottom of society who have had their hope destroyed by the Conservative Government.
5.41 pm
Mr. Simon Burns (Chelmsford) : It is always a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I have been lucky enough to do so on a number of occasions in social security debates. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow the comments that he so movingly made about his constituents.
I think that it was Abraham Lincoln who said 140 years ago : "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time."
In the past few months, and certainly in the past three weeks, the Labour party has been trying to defy that norm and to fool all the people all of the time. The hon. Members for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) and for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) have been trawling up and down the country trying to outbid each other in the promises and commitments that they have made to special interest groups in the sole desire to win votes for the Labour party at the next general election.
Mr. Allen : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Burns : I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman yet. Will he please sit down?
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Mr. Allen rose--Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Let us get on.
Mr. Burns : The House will find that the hon. Gentleman will speak to disabled groups and promise them more money immediately. Mr. Allen rose --
Mr. Burns : I shall give way when I finish the point.
The hon. Members for Nottingham, North and for Oldham, West have visited groups of young mothers, the elderly, pregnant mothers, young people, and the long-term unemployed and promised them all more money. What is happening is a cruel deception. Those hon. Members are speaking to audiences and telling them what they think those people want to hear in the hope that they will vote for the Labour party when polling day comes. I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North now.
Mr. Allen : No, thank you ; I have changed my mind.
Mr. Burns : I am grateful to have silenced the hon. Gentleman. That does not happen often.
What groups have not been singled out by the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of British politics in their grubby pursuit of votes for the Labour party? It is like a magic roundabout--and when the roundabout comes full circle they are not lost for time, but start again outbidding each other with further promises to all those special interest groups to try to secure their votes.
We have a further problem, although it does not seem to matter to the hon. Member for Oldham, West, when it comes to what has become known in British political history as "Beckett's law". The Labour party is spreading pledges of spending money like confetti, but Beckett's law states that only child benefit and pensions will be the priority. However, we learned last night in the debate on the autumn statement that a third priority is to be added to Beckett's law, relating to industrial policy.
The shadow Department of Social Security team has pledged £15 billion of spending commitments. That is no more than a cynical attempt to win votes. The Opposition are building up hopes and expectations, but if we were ever unfortunate enough to have a Labour Government, those aspirations would be cruelly destroyed by the reality of office because the Labour party has no ability to honour so many of the pledges that it has made.
For party political reasons, the Labour party refuses to recognise what has been done by the Government to help the genuinely less well off, the disabled, the unemployed, the elderly and the sick. In the past 12 years, a great deal has been done. It ill befits any politician to criticise the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As a junior Minister, and as a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for social security, he has fought his corner decisively to ensure that more money is made available by the mandarins at the Treasury to help the less well off in our society. No one listening to the doom and gloom of the hon. Member for Oldham, West would fully appreciate the exact size of our social security budget. From April this year, the social security budget will be more than £70 billion per year. Those hon. Members who do not appreciate the sheer size of that budget should bear in mind that it is equivalent to £1.35 billion per week, £192
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million per day or £8 million for every hour of every day of every week of the year. That is all being spent to provide for the less well off in society. It is a pity that the Opposition do not have the decency and integrity to acknowledge that fact and to mention it once or twice.One would think that there was not a penny in the social security budget if one listened to the hon. Members for Nottingham, North and for Oldham, West day after day in the Chamber and in the country. They complain about and cry down every Government addition to the social security budget. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his speech, and as I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Oldham, West, they fail to do justice to the fact that pensions have increased in real terms and money for the sick and the disabled has increased in the past 12 years. I honestly believe that a little more credit should be given for the money that has gone in particular to the sick and disabled to help them in their times of crisis and to make their lives better. In 1988, eight out of 10 pensioners had extra income from savings, compared with six out of 10 under the previous Labour Government, and 73 per cent. have additional occupational pensions compared with 52 per cent. in 1979. We have heard no mention of family credit, which helps a record 356, 000 families--four times as many as those helped under the old family income supplement in 1979.
We have heard little today from the Opposition about the substantial extra help given to pensioners over 75 and to those below that age who are disabled. Apart from their hollow spending promises, Labour's only answer is a minimum wage. Imagine the fatuous reality of implementing that proposal in this country. A minimum wage would do more to put people out of work than any help it was designed to give. Experience in France and the United States shows that a minimum wage is a con. It would be a con on the British people, for while it sounds simplistically attractive in principle, in practice it would cause more misery by causing more job losses.
Labour also proposes the introduction of a pickpocket tax that would have made Fagin proud to be associated with it. It would mean more money being taken from the people-- [Interruption.] I refer, of course, to the proposal to abolish the ceiling on national insurance contributions. Many more people would be hit by that than Labour Members dare to mention. That has become obvious in the past two weeks in the shambles and infighting among members of the shadow Cabinet, who fear that Labour has been rumbled in terms of its tax and national insurance plans.
The Opposition motion is a sham and should be seen as such. The country at large should accept that dogs bark, cats miaow, and Labour taxes and spends.
5.51 pm
Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) : I hope that the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) will forgive me if I do not adopt his approach to the debate. I would prefer--if I had to choose--the approach of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I hope that we shall take the opportunity of the public discussions that will take place in the period leading up to the general election to try as best we can--I appreciate the party political pressures--to transform the debate to enable ordinary people to understand what is going on. When we come to the fine detail of issues, it is easy to lose
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people, especially when we refer to large sums of money. For example, £35 billion does not mean a lot to people in Hawick high street. We forget that in the heat of political jousting. I make no complaint about that, because I shall be doing my fair share of dishing it out when the time comes. Let us bear that in mind as we near the election.There are two ways of considering social security provision and the system as a whole. The Conservatives are more in favour--I put it no higher than that--of a low tax, low benefit system. They have been moving over the years in the direction of the American system-- [Interruption.] I think I see the Minister of State dissenting from that view. I do not say that our system is anything like as freewheeling and inadequate as the American, but that is the direction in which we have been going. If there had to be a choice between two systems, it is fair to say that the continuing trend that we have experienced under Conservative rule in the last 12 years has been to make provision, but to try to constrain the benefits system while maintaining a low-tax economy.
The alternative system--this is common ground, certainly bearing in mind the remarks of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher)--represents a trend in the opposite direction. We on the Opposition Benches would be prepared to carry a higher burden of taxation and to redeploy or redistribute the money in as sensible a way as possible. While there may be substantial differences between my party and Labour about how that money would be redeployed, I have basically described the divide between the two sides of the House. In other words, the electorate have a clear choice. I am happy to go to the voters on the basic principle that they have a straight alternative between the Government position and the proposals of the Opposition parties. That is almost as far as one need go to enable people to make a sensible choice.
Even so, important subsidiary arguments can be brought to bear. The Government must defend their record. Like the hon. Member for Chelmsford, I dissent from the official Opposition view that everything that the Government have done has been a disaster. The Minister of State can take credit, along with the Secretary of State, who has fought his corner well-- the Treasury has been the problem in many respects--for many of the changes for the good affecting the disabled.
The Government must defend their record in terms of the amount that the social security budget consumes because of the level of unemployment in Britain. In other words, part of the social security argument must be about the way in which the Conservatives have managed the economy. Indeed, if they continue to make the sort of mess that they have been making-- particularly recalling the 1987-88 period, when they made substantial blunders as a result of deregulating the economy, with the explosion of credit and so on--we shall find ourselves in an even worse situation.
I fear that high levels of unemployment will be with us for much longer than we would like to see. If that turns out to be the case, our plans for long-term social security planning will have to be revised, even if the Conservatives are returned to power. After all, £35 billion will not go far in the next five to 10 years if chronically high levels of unemployment persist. So we must decide which side of the
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argument we are on. Do we want a transatlantic model of social security provision, or more of a European, collective scheme of the type that my hon. Friends and I favour?We can have a meaningful debate about the way in which benefits are deployed. Having served on the Standing Committee which considered the Social Security Act 1986, certain areas of provision are causing me concern. I accept that recent increases in provision for the over-75s have helped, but the present generation of pensioners do not receive a basic level of support as a result of the changes that were made in the 1986 Act. Some of the changes resulting from that legislation have been welcome, but major problems must be addressed because of the structure that was created by that Act.
The provision made for those in the 16-to-17 and, generally, the under-25 age groups must be reconsidered, because there have been some unforeseen consequences of that legislation. Some of those changes are being seen in the streets now. I feel sure that that was not the Government's intention, and that they are as concerned as anyone else to remedy matters. Whatever the complexion of the next Government, they will have to deal with those issues.
I am concerned about the way in which the social fund changes have been made. I have constituents with what I consider to be bona fide claims which the social fund cannot meet, and the next Administration, whatever their complexion, will have to deal with those. I have not seen the Secretary of State lose many arguments in exchanges across the Floor of the House, but he lost substantially when he took on the hon. Member for Birkenhead after having foolishly quoted selectively from the Select Committee report.
While I am willing to hear the Government's answer, it seems incontrovertible that the bottom one fifth, particularly pensioners, have lost in the total income increase of 31 per cent. between 1979 and 1987. That poorest fifth receives a 19 per cent. increase. If that is allowed to continue year in, year out, the next Government will have to deal with it one way or another. It may be expensive, and they may have to be ingenious in how they target the money. I do not care how it is done, but something must be done in the medium to long term to cope with the problem.
We have spent precious little time debating the levels of benefit. We must look much more carefully at how the demographic structure is changing. The "Social Trends" report published recently makes an important contribution to that. It has become difficult to describe family structure, which has become a meaningless concept, because there is such a diverse and wide range of combinations, and it is becoming ever more complicated. That may be good or bad--I make no judgment--but, in trying to deal with income problems from the social security bunker, we can easily forget that some of the overlapping changes in the population's social structure have a severe and dramatic impact.
I am particularly concerned about the impact of long-term unemployment on the hope in people's hearts, to which the hon. Member for Birkenhead referred. The social security system may not be adequate to deal with that, and the voluntary sector may have a role to play. I do not suggest that the voluntary sector in terms of charity should replace the money provided, but it could play a greater role.
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Finally, I am very worried about rural poverty. My constituency is a rural area and it looks idyllic, as Ministers who have visited it will confirm. Of my 103,000 constituents, 5,000 pensioners and 6,000 non-pensioners are on income support. If dependants' families are counted, some 17,000 people are dependent on income support in the borders and south-east Scotland. The poor are getting poorer, and rural poverty is beginning to be an issue for the first time since I came to the House in 1983. I hope that the Government will do something about that.If the Minister of State wants to do something immediately, will he talk to the Benefits Agency about the relocation of the cold weather payment temperature station? I have just checked the figures, and I have found that the Eskdalemuir station has been triggered 11 times in the past six years. The newly selected Boulmer station, which serves a large chunk of my constituency since the recent changes, has been triggered only once in that period. The system may have been unfair before, but it is now extremely unfair. I shall take the Minister to Eskdalemuir and Boulmer if he would like to come. He had better bring his kilt and his thermal underwear, because the point will be made to him graphically. If some of those points were made to the DSS, a better system could be introduced.
6.3 pm
Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West) : I rise to oppose the Opposition motion and to support the Prime Minister's amendment because real freedom is economic, and the freedom to earn and spend one's own money as one wishes, untrammelled by state control, is the truest freedom of all.
When I consider how the Government have managed to increase the economic freedom of the British people, I see a good track record. That is why, despite my lifetime's work for those in need in the United Kingdom and overseas, in common with the work of so many colleagues in the House, I do not believe that the Opposition's vision of the United Kingdom is realistic. Indeed, were the Opposition to reach the status of Government for which they fight so hard, growth in the United Kingdom would be badly hindered because we would have lost our product champion. The Conservative party can champion the United Kingdom, but the Opposition cannot do so because their vision of this country growing ever poorer is ever further from reality.
Since 1979, the net disposable income of the average family has risen by 37 per cent.--a truly massive increase. I am sorry that there is a recession, but it is, after all, world wide and not unique to Britain. Despite the recession, Britain has achieved 800,000 new jobs since 1979. In addition, 3 million new firms have been created, which is nearly a two thirds increase in the number of businesses. Despite the depressing figures pumped out by the Opposition on firms going bankrupt and companies going into liquidation, in the past 12 months for which figures are available there were only 30,000
insolvencies--just 3 per cent. of the total number of firms in the United Kingdom.
The authoritative low income statistics produced by the Select Committee on Social Security in May 1991 and commissioned by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies show that real disposable incomes grew by more than 30 per cent. between 1979 and 1988, with increases in
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real income at all levels of the income scale. I mentioned earlier that the net disposable income of the average family had risen by 37 per cent. Although averages are difficult to grasp when one is feeling the pinch, which is an uncomfortable position to be in, real disposable incomes in the United Kingdom as a whole rose by nearly a third. Indeed, households at the very bottom income decile saw their incomes rise by 9.5 per cent. during that period. Less well-off families with children also saw large increases.The incomes of non-pensioner couples in the bottom half of the income bracket with children rose by 19 per cent. in real terms, and even the poorest fifth of full-time workers were 21 per cent. better off in 1988 than in 1981. According to the Select Committee report, the number of people on less than half the average income in 1979--when that is held constant in real terms--fell from 3.7 million to 2.5 million. Those who were pensioners in the bottom half of the income decile fell from 29 per cent. to 23 per cent., with a consequent fall also in the number of pensioners.
Statisticians know how difficult it is to make meaningful comparisons. The Library managed to give me an index showing wages and salaries in 48 major cities. On this basis, London is 24th in terms of gross salary and 22nd in terms of net salary. That means that people here get a higher net salary than people in Stockholm or in Paris. On top of that, believe it or not, house prices in the United Kingdom are relatively cheap, especially in comparison with Germany, one of our largest and most influential competitors. Far from being able to support the Opposition motion, I put it to the House that this country and western Europe have had a long and perhaps unique period of growth over the past 12 years. The Opposition cannot pretend that that is due to their policies. It is due to good, solid, Conservative free market policies. I know that the Labour party says that it is no longer socialist, despite its continued return to centralism. But if socialist policies were able to achieve those much higher levels of income for the human race, why is it that the World bank and the International Monetary Fund, with their new condition-alities for helping the poorer countries of the world to improve their incomes, do not follow socialist policies? The new conditionalities that govern the lending proposals of the World bank and the IMF, the lending proposals that have helped poorer countries get upstairs in terms of income and share western European and British prosperity, are free market conditionalities. They are the free market with a heart--in other words, the true Conservative philosophy.
That is why I suggest that the Labour party is misleading the public grotesquely, sadly, disgracefully, abominably. I do not think that the public are willing to be misled. I honour the Labour party for trying to be the modern Robin Hood, but its facade of a modern Robin Hood will not work. I give one small example : despite the Labour party's social security promises to raise child benefit and payments to pensioners, an Opposition spokesman has already managed to account for nearly half that spending wish -list, £15 billion out of £35 billion, by talking about other commitments which are supposedly equally high priorities.
The truth is that the Labour party will not mislead the public sufficiently to be elected, because the public are too hard-headed. The country has grown wealthier and happier under our management and will continue to thrive.
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6.13 pmMs. Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar) : I must say to the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) that "Social Trends", published yesterday, shows that the incomes of the top 5 per cent. of the population have increased, whereas the incomes of the bottom 5 per cent. have fallen. That is the answer to many of her points. I represent one of the poorest constituencies in the country, a constituency in Tower Hamlets. I can cite, from experience at my surgery, hundreds of cases of poverty and people living in hardship that would wring the hearts of even Conservative Members. I shall deal with statistics that draw together different sections of the population and show what is happening and how poverty is increasing. I shall mostly use official Government statistics on households with below average incomes.
The Government have tried repeatedly to change the definition of poverty. They accept that, if a person is dying of starvation, he or she is living in poverty. But they will not accept what most people believe, that if one cannot keep up with the community in which one is living, if one cannot send one's children properly clothed and shod to school and give them enough money to take part in extra-curricular activities, if one cannot give them a decent meal and some presents at Christmas--in other words, keep within the society on a decent level--one is poor and living in poverty. The attempt to redefine poverty has gone on for a long time. In May 1989, the right hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Moore), the then Secretary of State for Social Security, made a speech under the heading, "The end of the line for poverty", in which he had the cheek to claim that poverty no longer existed in Britain. Other Conservative Members have also tried to make that point. The storm that that speech provoked proved to be the end of the line for the right hon. Gentleman. He should have known better, because he told me at one time that he grew up in the east end of London. But he did not know better--he had forgotten what poverty was.
The Government continually try to fiddle figures. Unfortunately, despite their attempt to appear to abolish poverty, it has continued to increase. They try to abolish the word from their official reports instead of trying to abolish poverty itself.
In 1989, the Government's own manicured figures showed that the number of people at or below supplementary benefit level had grown by more than 50 per cent. Their response was merely to abolish the low-income family statistical series and replace it with the households below average income series, which they hoped would disguise the trend of increasing poverty. Unfortunately, the trend was so stark that no amount of statistical manipulation could make it vanish.
The Government's statistics show that the number of people in families earning below 50 per cent. of average income did not just double between 1979 and 1988, but increased by more than two and a half times from 4,930,000 to 11,750,000. The figure of 10 million has been quoted, but the Government's statistics show that it was 11,750, 000. Those statistics have been confirmed by independent researchers, such as the Breadline British team, who carry out scientific studies of poverty and deprivation in Britain today. The figures also show that more than 11 million people live in direst poverty--that
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means that 20 per cent. of the population and more than 25 per cent. of our children live on or below the breadline. That is a dreadful picture, but it is true.Margaret Thatcher repeatedly claimed--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order.
Ms. Gordon : I am sorry. The previous Prime Minister-- [Interruption.] --repeatedly claimed that everyone had become better off under the Conservatives. What a terrible slip : I am sure that hon. Gentlemen are very worried that I used the name instead of the constituency, but I doubt that the unemployed will worry unduly. The Government's statistics state that in 1979 there were 1 million unemployed people in Britain, but in 1988 there were more than 2.5 million unemployed people living in poverty. I believe that there are many more than 2.5 million unemployed people living in poverty, but let us take that figure, which is awful enough. The families of these unemployed people have not done better under the Conservatives. Then there are the pensioners. In 1979, there were just over 1 million pensioners living in poverty. By 1988, there were more than 3.5 million. Those people have not done better under the Conservatives. In 1979, there were just over 1 million low-paid full- time workers living in poverty. In 1988 the number had risen to 2.5 million. Low-paid workers have not done better under the Conservatives either. In 1979, there were 500,000 single parents living in poverty. In 1988, there were 1.5 million.
Miss Emma Nicholson : Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms. Gordon : No, I will not. The Minister refused to give way to me twice. I have only a short time and I will not give way. I want to finish drawing this picture.
By 1988, 1.5 million single parents, three quarters of all single-parent families, lived in poverty. They have not done better under the Conservatives.
The last group I want to mention was dealt with at length by the Minister-- the sick and the disabled. The increases in benefits for the sick and the disabled have not been sufficient to shield even them from the overall effects of Government policies. Yesterday's "Social Trends" showed that, whereas the top 5 per cent. of the population spent 12.4 per cent. of their income on indirect taxation, indirect taxation took up 24 per cent. of the income of those in the bottom 5 per cent., which includes the sick and disabled. That is just one example. By 1988, three quarters of a million sick and disabled people were living on low incomes. Clearly, they are not better off under the Conservatives.
The increase in poverty has taken a terrible toll. Its effects can be seen by everyone in the number of youngsters begging in the streets. I remember going to Paris with my school the year before the war, when I was 15, and seeing beggars outside Notre Dame. I was shocked because it was the first time that I had ever seen beggars. One did not see beggars even during the depression but now one can see them everywhere on our streets. While we sit in the warm and dry, thousands of old people sit huddled over one-bar fires in cold, damp houses. Those are the terrible effects of poverty.
Poverty has also had an effect on health. Look at the statistics. For 150 years, the death rate for young males between the ages of one and 44 had been falling--the only interruption in that decline being the slaughter of young
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men during two world wars. Now doctors save more and more lives but, since 1985, the death rate for males in that age group has started to increase. The Government have managed to achieve what previously only the German armies achieved. Why are young men dying? [ Hon. Members :-- "Oh, come on."] Okay. Of the richer countries in the world, only Britain and America, which pursues the same voodoo economics as we do, have an increasing death rate among young males. The Registrar- General's report and the report of the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys--the House will admit that that is not a biased Labour report-- stated that the main causes of the decline were poor diet and suicide. In the past 12 years, the suicide rate of young men has risen dramatically--by 50 per cent.The desperation caused by poverty is increasing and making more and more young men suicidal, but it is women who are bearing the brunt of that increasing poverty. They have to absorb and handle the whole family's emotional turmoil, trauma and despair caused by unemployment. They also make up the majority in all the disadvantaged groups whom I have mentioned. They are the majority of pensioners and, therefore, of the sick and disabled. They are the majority of low-paid part-time workers. They are the majority of single parents. They are also the widows of those who have died prematurely. Women are certainly not better off under the Conservatives.
6.22 pm
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