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My second theme in terms of reducing social exclusion through joined-up government is about the low wage economy and what needs to be done. I raise this as the MP for one of the most deprived constituencies in London. Low pay matters desperately in London, particularly when we look at figures that show how much it costs to live in London and how much less it costs to live outside London. The high cost of living in London is the nub of the problem facing Londoners struggling to get through each week on low
pay. In 2003-04, excluding pensioner households, half the people in this country in income-deprived households had somebody in employment in their home. In other words, among non-pensioner households, half the problem of poverty is now about poverty in work.
To give a sense of what living in London is about, the family budget unit compared the costs for Londoners and the residents of York of a low cost but acceptable standard of living. For London, they were calculated to be 31 per cent. higher than in York for a couple with two children with one parent working full-time and one working part-time. They were 35 per cent. higher for a working single parent and 28 per cent. higher for a single person. But the huge gulf between the costs faced by Londoners who cannot afford to buy and cannot get into social housing and the rest of the country lies in private rents. Privately rented two-bedroom flats subject to housing benefit claims in 2004-05 averaged £165 a week in London, £77 in the north-west and £92 in the south-west. The evidence is stark; it is hard to make work pay on low wages in London, particularly if you live in the private rented sector.
I am arguing for a living wage for London to be recognised as a core issue in addressing social exclusion and the associated big issues, right up to health inequality. I am also arguing that we need to address some of the underlying factors that make the problem of poverty pay such a difficult nut to crack, such as the continued existence of a deep poverty trap, as referred to earlier, and the shortage of housing that is affordable to those who want to work and who want and deserve better lives.
I cannot emphasise this strongly enough; if we want to tackle worklessness, child poverty and the early mortality rate of those living in poverty in the capital, we have to look at a living wage for London that is above the minimum wage currently on offer. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office to use her sharp elbows to get to the table on this one and to try to do some joined-up thinking about how we can make this a reality for the people of London.
I respect the recent decision to concentrate the efforts of the new social exclusion task force on the most deprived sectors of the population, where the inability to cope in society is replicated from generation to generation. However, I want to be reassured that the much wider agenda identified by the social exclusion unit’s report “Breaking the Cycle—Taking Stock of Progress and Priorities for the Future” will continue to be driven with determination and the intelligent, integrated overview that has characterised the social exclusion unit.
5.9 pm
Barbara Keeley (Worsley) (Lab):
I want to talk briefly about my constituency, which has wards that although only a couple of miles apart, highlight the type of difficulties inherent in tackling social exclusion. They are challenges on which I am determined that we should make better progress in future. The more
prosperous wards in Worsley have benefited from general increases in prosperity, while the other wards represent problems that seem intractable.
Incomes have risen nationally by between 2 and 3 per cent. each year. On average, the highest income level has risen to £46,000 a year in one Worsley ward. By contrast, the nearby ward of Little Hulton has an average income of only £21,000. Those two wards are only a few miles apart, but the difference between their average incomes is £25,000.
That stark discrepancy in income carries through into almost every other aspect that I have looked at. Unemployment in the more disadvantaged ward is 8.3 per cent., whereas it is 1 per cent. in the more advantaged ward. We can see that we have had record funding in health and education; that has produced wonderful improvements, such as in cancer mortality rates and deaths from heart disease. However, the more disadvantaged areas in Worsley have not seen those improvements; we see them in some places, but not in others.
The income inequality in my constituency is now reflected in a health gap. There is a seven-year gap in life expectancy between the two wards I have highlighted; one of them has a life expectancy of 73 years, whereas its more prosperous neighbour has a life expectancy of almost 80—much longer than the England average. Unsurprisingly, the ward with the lowest life expectancy also has the highest mortality rates. It has the highest mortality rates in Salford for heart disease and stroke, and a nearby ward has the highest mortality rates for cancer. In fact, 14 to 15 per cent. of people in those two wards, which are the most disadvantaged, say that they are not in good health, compared with an England average of 9 per cent.
Ill health on that scale leads to a heavier burden of caring. Nationally, about 10 per cent. of the population are carers, with about a fifth of those carers caring for 50 or more hours per week. In Boothstown ward—the more advantaged ward—there are numerically more carers, but the amount of caring that they have to do every week is less. In Little Hulton ward—the most disadvantaged—higher health inequalities lead to one third of carers caring for more than 50 hours per week. It is increasingly accepted that a heavy burden of caring has an impact on the health of the carer. Therefore, it is clear that caring needs in families in my most disadvantaged ward add further to health issues in the community, which are already severe.
There have been some dramatic improvements in education standards in Salford in recent years—they have improved by 20 per cent. However, we are still improving from a very low base. One school in my constituency has now improved to having 45 per cent. GCSE passes in the last year, but until merely a year ago it achieved only about a 20 per cent. pass rate. We celebrate its success in having made that improvement, but we should bear in mind that until recently eight out of 10 young people were leaving school without five good GCSE passes. Therefore, our low income problems will carry on, as that education difficulty will affect future employment and income potential.
We have debated this issue, and thinking back to it I reflect on the fact that such young people started school in 1990 or 1991, so they have not benefited from all the changes brought in from 1997 onwards. I also
believe that it was right to change policy to deal with schools in special measures more quickly; such measures will start to create improvements in our schools.
I do not have the time to speak about everything that I wanted to discuss, but it is important to touch on the cycle of deprivation—of that passing on from generation to generation—and on the importance of breaking into that. Teenage pregnancies are a significant factor in that. They happen through the generations—daughters of teenage mothers are more likely to become pregnant at such an age themselves.
A few years ago, Little Hulton ward had the highest teenage conception rate in western Europe, and it still has a conception rate of 60 per 1,000 females. Therefore, the steps that the social exclusion taskforce is taking on teenage pregnancy are welcome. What such wards need is the most robust approach that we can manage to tackle social exclusion and break into the cycles of deprivation.
The social exclusion action plan approach is the right one, particularly the first of the five key guiding principles—better identification and early intervention. That is vital. That support to front-line practitioners such as health visitors and community midwives will be essential.
Mention has been made of the important recent Lisa Harker report on tackling child poverty, and we await further developments with great interest. Some of the proposals in Lisa’s report will be vital in my constituency. Other initiatives, such as the health-led parenting support projects, will also be vital.
I want to say a little more about the issues affecting carers. The action plan makes it clear that there are groups of people whose needs are unique, complex and difficult to meet. The plan mentions children in care and adults leading chaotic lives, but carers often find that they are socially and financially excluded from society, and they merit special attention.
Carers UK has undertaken a number of surveys of carers, which show that financial exclusion is a problem for them. Six out 10 of the carers surveyed had given up work to provide care, so employment is not a solution for them in the short term because they are unable to take on a job. Four out of five of those surveyed said that they were financially worse off since becoming a carer, and there is concern that young carers will miss their chances of education, training and employment. When we look at the figures for young people who are not employed or engaged in education or training, we must understand that some of them are carers.
Statistics about young carers are hard to come by, and insufficient work is being done to identify them, but as many as 50,000 young people under the age of 18 nationwide are thought to provide care to another family member, usually a parent. A study of carers aged 16 to 25 found that half were living in lone-parent families, most of which were workless households. Fourteen per cent. of carers look after a disabled child or young adult, and many face years—or even a lifetime—of caring, as almost 500,000 children or young people in the UK have a disability or long-term illness.
National surveys of parents caring for disabled children show similar elements of financial exclusion. Naturally, such parents are less likely to work. Nine out of 10 of lone parents who are caring, and more than one third of couples who are caring, have no income other than benefits. One in three parents said that their disabled children had needs—for clothing, bedding, or other basic necessities—that could not be met.
More generally, carers can experience financial difficulties. I commend the Carers UK survey “Carers on the Breadline” to the House. It found that one in five carers often had to cut back on food spending, that one in three had difficulties paying household bills, and that two in three worried about finances to the extent that their health was affected.
Those figures are disturbing. When hon. Members talk in the House about carers, they display great sympathy for their cause, but we must do more to identify carers’ needs and problems, and then work harder to address them. Although there are many carers in our communities, the ones with the heaviest burden of caring are most likely to experience financial and social exclusion, and that should help us to focus on their needs.
In Worsley constituency, between 6,000 and 7,000 adults provide unpaid care and, as I mentioned earlier, many of the carers in the most disadvantaged wards provide care for 50 hours a week or more. That means that, in that area, the group on whom we should focus consists of about 1,200 adults, and perhaps a maximum of 100 young people.
The first and most important step in helping carers is to identify them. After that, we need to keep in contact with them so that we can provide additional help and support. Last year, I introduced my private Member Bill—the Identification and Support of Carers (Primary Health Care) Bill—to provide a step forward. Although it fell, I hope to bring it back, as it would require professionals such as GPs or their staff to identify adult carers, while teachers or college staff would do the same for young carers. In a practice serving, say, 2,000 people, it would not be too arduous for a GP to identify the 200 patients who were carers, or the 40 of that number who were providing care at the most burdensome level. We will have opportunities in the coming months to look at this issue again. We tabled an amendment to the Education Bill that had to do with identifying young carers, but we ran out of time and the amendment was not considered.
Finally, the Welsh Assembly has a Minister who acts as the carer’s champion. The Cabinet Office has the important role of co-ordinating the Government’s policy on certain matters, so I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office to consider whether it could achieve more by acting as the carer’s champion in respect of the matters that I have set out in my speech. That would help to mitigate the financial exclusion that the carers in our community suffer, and provide a way forward.
5.19 pm
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab):
I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate, and I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the
Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley), who gave a typically thoughtful and caring speech.
Before I was elected to this House, I worked in the voluntary sector. I want to focus on the respective roles of the voluntary and public sectors in tackling social exclusion. Of course, social solidarity and social justice are central to the Labour party’s tradition, our vision for the future and our mission. Our approach is significantly different from that of the Tories. Throughout the Tory years, they were obsessed with opportunities for opting out, but we are trying to build a society where everyone can join in. This is about more than tackling poverty, although I believe that resources are at the heart of the issue.
A social justice approach to tackling social exclusion means two things. It means building a culture and mainstream institutions in which everyone is accepted, where the notion that your face does not fit becomes irrelevant. That is why our equalities agenda is also significant to the work on social exclusion. It means creating mainstream institutions that do not allow people to slip through the net, which is why the work that the Department for Education and Skills is doing on children in care is important. Personalised public services are important, because everyone is different. In my view, mainstream culture should not be all about celebrity. I do not want to live in a world in which a woman’s status depends on being able to buy a handbag costing £350. I am sure that most other hon. Members, at least on the Labour Benches, agree with that. When we acknowledge and recognise the value of community activities that are not media-driven but are controlled locally by people, we are taking an inclusive approach, which is why in County Durham the Durham miners’ big meeting is so popular. It is a totally community-led festival.
Another aspect of tackling social exclusion is helping and supporting those who suffer from it. That is what this debate has focused on more. I do not need to repeat the manifestations of social exclusion—we have heard many excellent examples in the course of the afternoon—but one of the things that concerns me is that we should neither be alarmist nor engage in unnecessarily negative labelling. When we do that, we make it more, not less difficult to tackle the problems.
I simply do not recognise the picture presented by Tory Members. My constituency is in County Durham. It is the second poorest county in the country. We have several wards in the poorest 10 per cent. The people whom I meet who suffer from social exclusion often display significant human virtues. For example, people turn up to the surgery with mental health problems, which may be undiagnosed or unacknowledged. Of course their behaviour may be alarming sometimes to their neighbours, but essentially they are very vulnerable people.
To take a completely different example, we should build on the initiatives that local people take in developing their communities, whether it be negotiating with British Rail to reserve carriages for pigeons to be sent to the south of England so that they can take part in racing, or organising community festivals. Those are the kind of enterprising attitudes that we should build on.
The Government’s record in tackling social exclusion is excellent. The new plan “Reaching Out: An Action Plan on Social Exclusion” produced by the Cabinet Office and the review on children and young people, which was published only this week by the Treasury and the Department for Education and Skills, show that we are continuing to build on the excellent work that has been done up to now.
One thing that has become evident in the debate is that many people have complex and different needs. The public services have traditionally had difficulty in dealing with that. There has been a tendency to send people from pillar to post and for the public sector to operate in silos, with people feeling that their professionalism will be challenged if they have to tackle more than one problem. Professionals dealing with people suffering from social exclusion have tended to see the problem, not the person.
One of the great strengths of the voluntary sector in tackling social exclusion is that it is good at joined-upness. An example is the Dene valley community transport project in my constituency. Everybody told me, “You have to see it; it’s fantastic. They run five buses”, so I went along. When I arrived, I found that it was not just five buses; there was a breakfast club, a pensioners luncheon club, takeaways, deliveries, a computer course, an advice centre and signposting to other public services. That project is typical of how the voluntary sector picks up the problems and deals with them. Working with the public services, the voluntary sector can provide an effective gateway to the more highly skilled and qualified professionals who may be needed in some instances.
I want to take the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Edward Miliband), on a trip down memory lane and remind him of a visit we made to a Children’s Society project in Salford in 1999. It was an excellent project whose participative approach was essential to its success. There was a play scheme, benefits advice, a food co-op and a second-hand furniture shop. All the activities had been chosen by the local community. Voluntary sector workers provided the skills to enable as many local people as possible in that isolated community to participate in decision making.
We need to ensure that we give the voluntary sector a good framework, so that both it and the public services can each do the bits of the job that they are good at. We have to acknowledge that there is a tension in respect of the voluntary sector. When we are wearing our taxpayer hat, we ask how money is spent and what the outputs are, but as local citizens we want more flexibility to decide what goes on in our area. Unless we acknowledge that fact, we shall not set up structures that resolve tensions in the way that funds are channelled to local projects.
I emphasise the fact that it is the Labour Government who have set up the compact for the voluntary sector. They have committed to three-year funding, early decision making and covering overhead costs. I am proud to be on the Labour Benches and to support the work being done in the Cabinet Office at present.
5.28 pm
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con): By the time we reach this stage of the debate, everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone has said it, so here goes.
It has been a lively and sometimes rumbustious debate, but throughout, with one or two exceptions, we have reflected and established consensus: on both sides of the House all Members feel strongly about social exclusion. We feel that it matters, and that it is not remotely acceptable that people should become detached from the mainstream of society and left to languish or, still worse, fall farther behind.
There are many ways to define or depict social exclusion. I make no apology for borrowing from Polly Toynbee the now famous image of the caravan progressing through the desert. She is right: if the people at the back of the caravan are detached, it could be said that society is splitting up. It is important that we ensure that that does not happen. We have different means of combating that. That is perhaps the only thing that I end up agreeing with Polly Toynbee about. I gather that she is a bit grumpy that I have even borrowed the image that she used. Nevertheless, we on this side of the House are passionately concerned to make sure that those at the back are kept in touch with those in the mainstream and make the progress that those in the mainstream are able to make. As society becomes more prosperous, we should all move forward together.
Many speakers in today’s debate have drawn attention to the Government’s record on reducing child poverty. From the Opposition Front Bench, we have welcomed that. We recognise and applaud it. However, most of the progress has been made in the group described in the action plan published by the Minister as covering wide social exclusion. That is defined mostly in financial terms, particularly in relation to relative low income at the 60 per cent. of median income level that we have been hearing about. That progress is to be welcomed. It is clearly appropriate that people who are on those levels of income should find that their lives are made easier. We know from numerous studies that tax credits have done most of the heavy lifting in achieving that progress.
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