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Bournemouth is affected by overdevelopment of the very environment in which we work. We are building on back gardens and there is no sense of community. We do not create the type of environment that encourages three, five and 15-year olds to be able to expand or educate themselves. Football fields are being removed, as are other facilities that allow people to
expend their energies, so they go off and do other things that can be detrimental to society.
The Minister began by saying that social inclusion means encouraging people to make a contribution to life. So why are teenagers getting pregnant deliberately to get themselves a council house? Why are older people deliberately spending their money to make sure they have no savings when they retire? Why are prisoners reoffending because they have not been able to gain the skills they need to get a decent job when they come out?
To understand the causes of social exclusion is to recognise the gaps in joined-up government. Churchill talked about the net that should exist to catch such people; Polly Toynbee talked about the caravan of society. There is also the penguin model, of which hon. Members will be aware. When penguins huddle in the winter to keep themselves warm, there are always some on the outside. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows how things can collapse when something goes wrong. If one needs a house, that is the most important thing; one is not going to go for a drink with one’s friends. If there is no food on the table, one needs to get things in order.
I believe that it is difficult to prevent people from falling into the poverty trap, but we can make sure that their stay there is as short as possible. There is an awful lot that we need to do and, from a bipartisan point of view, there is much that can be achieved.
3.47 pm
Natascha Engel (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) and I am grateful to be taking part in this debate on social exclusion mainly because—I am going to break the sort of consensus we have seen in the House today—I would like to vent my spleen about the report on social justice produced by the Tory party. I have read the report and reports on the report. One journalist called it
“to hell in a handcart” ,
which I thought was much more appropriate than “Breakdown Britain.”
One of the depressing things that comes out of the report is the kind of messages the Conservative party is inadvertently sending to people affected by broken marriages, the area on which I will focus. One of the main problems with the report is that it restricts the definition of family to marriage. Any family breakdown is awful; I myself come from a broken home and it is no laughing matter.
Greg Clark: Could the hon. Lady give us a quote from the report where it defines family as being one and the same as marriage?
Natascha Engel: I will give several. If I do not do so by the end of my speech, the hon. Gentleman may intervene again, but I do not want to interrupt my flow. In an ideal world, it would be lovely to make sure that no child ever had to endure the breakdown of the parental relationship; nobody wants to be in that position. But it is unrealistic to say that that will never happen again and we must start from that position.
The reason I was so furious when the report was produced was the kind of message it sends to people such as my mother. Through no fault of her own, my mother was left alone with four children. She is English and my father is German. We had to move to England, but she had few qualifications and she ended up picking apples. The report refers to people such as my mother, and I will give a quote to the hon. Gentleman. It states:
“Children from broken homes are twice as likely to have behavioural problems, perform less well in school, become sexually active at a younger age, suffer depression and turn to drugs, smoking and heavy drinking”.
My mother had enough problems on her plate without having to know that all four of her children were going to be completely antisocial and dysfunctional members of society. Frankly, as I am standing here today, what does that quote say about Members of Parliament?
Greg Clark: That quote is no more than a statement of statistics that are in the public domain; it offers no prediction of what is likely to happen to an individual. Although it mentions broken homes, it refers to many types of relationship. I hope that all Members accept that, as the hon. Lady implied, where parents can stay together, that tends to be best; the report is no more than a restatement of that.
Natascha Engel: I absolutely take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point, but what I am saying—which I shall provide evidence to support—is that to equate family with marriage and to suggest that the breakdown of marriages is the reason we have social exclusion in our society is not only wrong but deeply offensive to people such as my mother.
I use my mother as an example—I hope that she does not mind—but there are also many other such people who feel as if they are constantly being beaten over the head with a pointy stick. The report underlines that—it goes even further in doing that. I suspect that that is unintentional; I suspect that the intentions behind the report were good, but its outcomes and the messages it gives are very bad indeed.
To follow on from the hon. Gentleman’s point, although such statistics are in the public domain, they are being used to make a point that I am unsure whether his party intends make. The report also states that statistics indicate:
“Marriages are far more likely to provide a stable environment for adults and children than cohabitation”.
Again, that is in the public domain.
It also states that people living together are 12 times more likely than married couples to break up before their child’s fifth birthday. That goes to the heart of what I am trying to say about the report’s messages.
Greg Clark: I am struggling to understand the hon. Lady’s point. Does she doubt the accuracy of that statistic, or does she feel that it is inappropriate to mention or debate such matters in analysing some of the causes of poverty?
Natascha Engel:
Absolutely not. If the hon. Gentleman listens and does not interrupt so often, he might understand what I am trying to say. The statistics and the so-called evidence given in the report are used
to give out messages that are wrong. That is all I am saying; I do not dispute the figures, but I am saying that the messages are wrong.
Helen Goodman: Is my hon. Friend aware that Denmark has the highest proportion of single mothers in Europe and the lowest level of child poverty? Does that not suggest that all the other structures in society are far more significant than family breakdown?
Natascha Engel: Absolutely; that was exactly the point I was trying to make. A scaremongering message is given out by statistics such as that couples living together are 12 times more likely than married couples to break up before their fifth anniversary. That also suggests that for a couple living together it is only a matter of time before the woman is a single mother—and if she is a lone mother already, then God help her because she is totally beyond the pale. That is the kind of message being given out.
Mr. Ellwood: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Natascha Engel: No, because a number of Members want to speak and my speech is already running far later than I wanted it to.
Families are complex. They are far more complex than the “Peter and Jane” Ladybird book version of families that the Conservative party is trying to paint in the report described as
“to hell in a handcart”.
It is early January so all Members have just come out of the famous, festive, family-cohesion season of Christmas. I am sure that we have all enjoyed spending time with our extended families—obviously, I have enjoyed all my extended family! That goes to show that relationships are always difficult; they are never easy. We should not promote marriage as some kind of perfect family model to which we should all aspire. That is unrealistic and dangerously over-romantic, as it further excludes people who cannot reach that level of perfection. That is very wrong, because the people least likely to be able to aspire to that perfect model of the family are those who are poorest. The richer people are, the more likely they are to be married. That is not because they are better at relationships, but simply because marriage is easier for richer people.
The social justice commission report says a lot about the Conservative party, which clearly understands richer people better than it does poorer people.
Greg Clark: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Natascha Engel: No, as I want the hon. Gentleman to hear another quotation from the report. It states:
“In modern times, poverty has been a difficult issue for the Conservative party to deal with”.
I do not think that we need go much further than that.
Greg Clark: Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?
Natascha Engel: No, as I have given way a number of times already. I have only a little more to say and, unlike most of us, the hon. Gentleman has the privilege of summing up at the end.
“failure to form a durable bond between mother and father often leads to welfare dependency.”
That is one of my favourite quotations, as it implies that a failure to marry condemns a person to a life on benefits. The Opposition are so far removed from normal, real life that they have not grasped that it is not an inability to marry that condemns people to poverty.
The report also claims that marriage is the answer to social exclusion. If that is so, will the Opposition propose a system of arranged marriages when they publish their policy suggestions in June—or will they make divorce illegal? Both options are natural consequences of what is contained in the report, although of course I totally understand that neither will be adopted.
The social exclusion unit has done, and is continuing to do, work on poverty and poverty reduction, on teenage pregnancy, on runaways, on education, employment and training, on children in care, and on neighbourhood renewal. I suggest that the Opposition look at that work—and that they change the name of their report from “Breakdown Britain” to “FCUK”.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that that is just about allowable.
3.57 pm
Hywel Williams (Caernarfon) (PC): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). No contention that people are deprived because they are depraved—or that they are depraved because they are deprived—can be supported, although that is what comes across in the contributions from some hon. Members.
I want to start on a positive note. I welcome some of the steps that this Government have taken over the years, especially the introduction of the minimum wage and of tax credits. Both those innovations have been very useful in my constituency and throughout rural Wales, and elsewhere. I shall qualify that praise somewhat when I speak briefly about the current dislocation of the tax credits system, but I accept that this Government have taken very positive steps in respect of social exclusion.
The same is true of the Welsh Assembly Government, whose community first schemes target resources on 100 identified deprived communities. The schemes have been very effective. I should declare an interest, in that my daughter runs one in Aberystwyth, but I know from direct experience how valuable they have been.
In my remarks, I shall concentrate on social exclusion and rurality, in Wales and elsewhere, but my view of social exclusion may be somewhat broader than that of other hon. Members who have contributed to this afternoon’s debate. It is not specifically the 2.5 per cent. at the most deprived end that I want to talk about. I take a broader view, as did the Welsh Affairs Committee some six years ago in its report on social exclusion. That allowed them to take evidence from all kinds of community projects throughout Wales and a wide section of society.
We should think of social exclusion as a dynamic process of shutting people out partially or fully from economic, social and political systems and, crucially in Wales, from language and cultural relationships. The process is ongoing. Social exclusion is not something that one is born with or that cannot be addressed. Clearly, social exclusion is being addressed effectively by some projects.
Social exclusion is a process of being detached. It is not a monolithic process. It is not all or nothing or tied to certain types of behaviour or levels of income, although low income—below 40 per cent. of the average perhaps—is clearly tied to social exclusion. As the Minister noted, there is a good deal of migration between society in general and the groups who are subject to the most social exclusion. It is not a set group of people who are subject to it.
In Wales—I take these figures from the Wales rural observatory at the university of Aberystwyth—a quarter of rural households have someone who has difficulty finding local employment whereas a third of low-income rural households have. That is a measure of social exclusion. It is clearly associated not with a small number of people but with a broad swathe of people on low incomes.
Fifty-nine per cent. of rural households have access to a computer; 34 per cent of low-income families have access. Looking at some more subjective tests of social exclusion, when people were asked whether they felt isolated, 19 per cent. of people in general said yes and 25 per cent. of people on low income did so. There is clearly a link between low income and certain forms of social exclusion.
This is not an academic point. It has a great bearing on the formation and application of policy and the targeting of resources. It is important that we are clear that social exclusion extends beyond the bottom percentages of the population. Poverty and social exclusion in rural areas are widespread. I had a look at some of the statistics for older people. They are the most obviously excluded group in rural areas. Some two thirds of the rural poor are over 55. Some of that is to do with the fact that older people are not working and are on low pensions, but it is significant that poverty and social exclusion are in some ways confined to that particular group.
Interestingly, in rural areas poor families tend to be employed rather than unemployed. Unemployment does not go hand in hand with social exclusion in the same way as it does in urban or inner-city areas. That is particularly significant when one looks at the way in which the tax credits system works in rural areas. Tax credits are a very important component of income throughout rural areas. If we have problems with the tax credits system, as we have at present, it tends to hit rural areas particularly hard.
Rural and urban areas are similar in terms of consumption, employment, income and savings, but it is significant for the application of policy that social relationships are often better in rural communities. Some people have an idealised view of rural communities, so it may seem like stating the obvious to say that things are better there, but the point is borne
out by objective research undertaken at Aberystwyth university and by my former colleague, Dr. Delyth Morris, at the university of Bangor. The research found that more people in rural areas tended to know each other. If they were born in the area, and in Wales, if they spoke Welsh, they had better social networks.
There are some lessons to be learned from those findings. The hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) mentioned the difficulties experienced by people from black and ethnic minority communities in accessing employment and various other services. We could usefully address language issues in the rest of the UK in the same way as we have in Wales.
Housing is immensely problematic in rural areas, as the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Matthew Taylor) agreed earlier. One should not assume that socially excluded people do not own their homes; two thirds of lower income households in rural areas are owner-occupiers, and they experience particular problems, not only with paying their mortgages but also with repairs and insurance. If we are to target help for socially excluded people, we must remember that in rural areas a number of them could be paying a mortgage, or even be outright owners of their homes, perhaps due to an inheritance.
In an intervention during the Minister’s opening remarks, I referred to in-work poverty and the importance of tax credits in sustaining incomes in rural areas. I am happy to reiterate my welcome for the tax credit system, which has been a wonderful lifeline for many people. However, there can be problems and difficulties in rural areas, as I said earlier.
A proportion of households in Gwynedd, my area, and the valleys—often regarded as an urban area in Wales—have annual incomes of less than £10,000: 21.7 per cent. in Gwynedd and 21.3 per cent. in the valleys, so there are more low income households in my area than in the most deprived areas of Wales. The valleys area is certainly the most deprived according to many measures, but on the measure of low income my area and a great swathe of rural Wales have as many problems. Because of that a large amount of my casework is sorting out overpayments, underpayments and the general mess associated with the tax credit system.
Areas surrounding my constituency have a similar benefit profile to the valleys in terms of income-based jobseeker’s allowance. I am trying to explode the myth that rural areas are idyllic and different from deprived inner-city areas or, in Wales, deprived valleys and heads of the valleys areas. It is important to bear that in mind.
Mr. Goodwill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in urban areas when people’s benefits are messed up, they often have to have recourse to door-to-door credit salesmen, but in rural areas they cannot even take out expensive credit as a way of making ends meet on a short-term basis?
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