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9 Feb 2010 : Column 196WH—continued
It is important to go back to my earlier intervention to distinguish between those factors that are generic to London-she mentioned a number of them-and those
that are generic to the individual groups that suffer the worst child poverty. She mentioned the high housing costs in London as a whole. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) for raising the points that were made by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions in its earlier report on child poverty. The Committee extensively examined the subject and it was concerned about the effect on London and on particular groups in London. As my hon. Friend pointed out, time and again the lack of part-time jobs in London came out as an issue in the evidence sessions, as did the high cost of child care, to which we have already referred. When looking for solutions, it is important to understand the drivers for those individual groups. As we have already discussed, two of those groups are lone parents and ethnic minorities. On 17 June last year, the Select Committee revealed that over the past three years there have been no real improvements in child poverty levels among lone parents, which was a great disappointment to us all.
The hon. Lady will recall that the Child Poverty Bill largely passed the buck to local councils to deal with the problems of child poverty. On a number of occasions during its the passage, I expressed my unhappiness with the bureaucratic way in which it imposes duties on local government without freeing it up to take the action that is required. By and large, solutions to child poverty must relate to the specific circumstances of individual localities, and the problems that occur there.
Ms Abbott: As for putting duties on local authorities, I was a local councillor myself and I bow to no one in my admiration of them, but I am a little wary of Government placing duties on local authorities, whether in relation to child poverty or dangerous dogs, without providing the resources.
John Howell: One of the great joys of coming here is to find that one is surrounded by people who, like me, were former councillors and who can speak from the experience of dealing with such problems on the ground, which is a great benefit to our deliberations.
During the course of the evidence sessions in the Child Poverty Bill, we heard from a number of councillors and one council leader about the way in which councils-in this case it was Kent, which has some serious deprivation problems-have already set about tackling the problems by setting up a programme of working with other agencies. Two issues arise from that. First, is the hon. Lady, by implication, being critical of her local council because it has not tackled the problems that she illustrated in such a forceful way? Secondly, evidence came out from both Kent and Liverpool that one of the main inhibitors to joined-up working was the Department for Work and Pensions, particularly its unwillingness to play ball with local councils in schemes such as the Total Place experiments.
John Howell: I am questioning the hon. Lady about whether she is being critical, so I am happy to give way to her if she is going to say yes.
Ms Abbott: I want to set the record straight. The main issues that I have flagged up as contributing to child poverty in London are benefit levels, the way in which housing benefit works, transport costs and the shortage of low-paid jobs. Such matters are not within the power of local authorities to address. I would not dream of criticising my own local authority.
John Howell: I recommend that the hon. Lady read the evidence sessions of the Child Poverty Bill, particularly the remarks made by the local government representatives, who provided one of the finest evidence sessions that I have seen so far in this House. What came across was a wish, which is borne out by my own experience, to free up local authorities and give them the relevant power so that they can tackle the problems in a way that is relative to their own areas. For example, my county council has not signed up to the child poverty target, but it has signed up to a lot of other targets that contribute directly to eradicating child poverty and particularly to breaking the cycle of deprivation.
Jeremy Corbyn: I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says about the aspirations of his own county council; they are very welcome. However, does he not concede that one of the problems of freeing up local government too much is that we go down the road of councils such as Barnet, which are operating a sort of "Ryanair" policy in their delivery of services, or that we go down roads taken by other councils, which simply want to decimate all public services and deliver a very low or zero local council tax? Surely if we are in one country and we want to eliminate poverty in this country, that requires us to place obligations on all aspects of our services, be they health or local government services, in order to achieve that target?
John Howell: I do not recognise any councils as wanting to "decimate" public services. Also, I do not see voters in any such council putting up with that. Ultimately, the test will be at the ballot box for those councils and I believe that people are fundamentally responsible in the way that they deal with child poverty issues, once they have been pointed out to them and they become aware of them.
If one looks at my council, for example, what is applicable in Oxfordshire to tackle child poverty is certainly not the same as in an inner-London borough; the issues do not need to be tackled in the same way. Recognising that is one of the great strengths that we can bring to the diversity that we have in local government, helping us to ensure that we are tackling the issues that are important.
The hon. Lady has argued, and I agree with her, that there are specific issues for London. If that is the case, it is nonsensical to insist that a rural county council must impose a uniform solution to tackle problems that exist in London that may not exist in its own area.
Mr. Baron: I agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. However, is not the complexity of the benefits system another big part of the problem? I think that I am right in suggesting that, according to the Department for Work and Pensions, there is something like £10 billion of unclaimed means-tested benefits in the system. Also, there are great regional variations in the child tax credit. The complexity of the system does not help, either, which is a point that the hon. Lady made.
John Howell: I agree with both my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady; I would love to see a less complex benefits system. However, I would also love to see a greater take-up of the benefits that exist. Again, during an evidence session for the Work and Pensions Committee in June 2009, it became apparent that there was very little in the way of firm targets established by the DWP to increase the rate of take-up of benefits to the maximum level that it could realistically be.
I want to finish with a plea, really. We are still waiting to see a lot of the guidance about what will be imposed on local councils. If we are genuinely to have a light touch, as Ministers promised in the Committee considering the Child Poverty Bill, we need to see that light touch and we need to free up the councils to show it themselves.
Ultimate accountability for child poverty lies with the electorate in those areas and if one looks at the response from organisations such as London Councils and individuals such as the chairman of London Councils, who has welcomed the focus on child poverty in the Child Poverty Bill, one can see that many councils are just aching to take their responsibility for child poverty seriously.
Before I sit down, Mr. Martlew, I should just say that I will be unable to stay to the end of this debate, as I have to be in Committee a little later. I hope that you will accept my apology for that.
10.4 am
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who is my parliamentary neighbour, on securing the debate, on the way in which she presented her case, and on her work to promote the cause of anti-poverty in London and, particularly, the cause of education, especially regarding educational achievement for young black boys. She has done really well in promoting those causes, and she has done a great job representing people in Hackney in desperate need. I also think that her son has had a wonderful and colourful childhood, as not many children get to vote in the Division Lobby at the age of three weeks-there is nothing like bringing up young politicians.
The problems of child poverty in London are obviously very serious. As I said, my hon. Friend and I have neighbouring constituencies, and while we share areas of great poverty, we also share areas of great diversity and excitement. One should not characterise London life as being entirely of grinding poverty-it is not. There is a huge degree of poverty in London, but there is also a degree of vibrancy, which is something that I value very highly and enjoy in my own community.
Andrew Selous (South-West Bedfordshire) (Con): I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman's important point about the poor educational performance of certain members of the black population. He is absolutely right to make that point, but does he also recognise that recent figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families showed that white working-class boys were performing even less well, and would he agree that that is a section of the population that we must not lose sight of either?
Jeremy Corbyn:
Absolutely. I do not disagree at all with what the hon. Gentleman says about that issue-indeed, I will come on to it in a moment. The point that
I was making was in the context of the excellent work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington in trying to ensure that the aspirations of young people are met and that those young people are inspired to try to achieve. I will discuss that issue further in a moment, but we should be more than a little careful about promoting endless competition among primary schools and secondary schools through league tables, because that often has a depressive effect on people of whom we should be more supportive.
I want to cite some truly horrendous figures on child poverty. First, there are the figures on the numbers and proportion of children falling below thresholds of low-income material deprivation. The three-year average in London, for the period from 2004 to 2007, was 22 per cent. For the period from 2005 to 2008, it went down to 21 per cent. That represents a slight decline from 400,000 to 300,000. Nevertheless, those 300,000 children-I repeat that they are children-in London living in a degree of poverty is the equivalent of the population of a major city in other parts of the country, or indeed in other parts of the world, living in poverty. Those are truly horrendous figures.
If one looks at the regional poverty tables, before and after housing costs are considered, the figures are extremely significant. The poverty by region statistics, taken as a three-year average from 2005 to 2008, show the percentage of the population below 60 per cent. of median household income for each region. In inner London, the overall figure is 18 per cent. For families with children, the figure is 27 per cent., which means that there were 200,000 people in that particular group. However, if we move down that table and look at the after-housing costs figures, the proportion for inner London becomes 44 per cent., which means that there are 300,000 people in that group.
I am trying to highlight the point that because housing costs in London are so much higher-extraordinarily so-than those in the rest of the country, they are a major factor in both child poverty and poverty in general in London. I will discuss that issue further later in my contribution.
Children growing up in London have the opportunity to see, do and experience just about everything. There are more theatres, cinemas and creative industries-all those types of things-in London than anywhere. The city offers the possibilities for an extremely vibrant childhood. However, there are also enormous barriers to accessing those types of things. I find it very sad when I come across children, including teenagers, in my constituency who have never been on an underground train or outside their own area because they feel insecure, because they do not have enough money to go and enjoy themselves anywhere, or because they just feel that, somehow or other, such opportunities are "not for them". Even in a metropolitan and vibrant city such as London, one finds these amazing contrasts, which I still find quite shocking. It behoves us all to recognise that we must be as supportive as possible of what children do. We must also support schools as much as possible and not be over-prescriptive; I agree with the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) about that to some extent.
I visit all the primary schools in my constituency as often as I can and spend a lot of time talking to support workers, teachers, school meals workers and others. I
am constantly struck by how limited the requirements on a school are-the school must get the children in, educate them, follow the curriculum and so on-yet what incredible efforts teaching assistants, teachers and support staff make to support children in other ways. Teachers have queued for three or four hours to come to my advice bureau just to go through a problem faced by one particular family. They are not paid or thanked for doing such things; they do them because they believe in what they do and want to support children. We should pay tribute to the teachers who decide to teach in difficult inner-city environments in order to do their best to inspire children. We should be more supportive of such teachers and recognise their contribution to the lives of many of our young people.
Andrew Selous: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has made that point. I also pay tribute to the teachers in my constituency-it is perhaps a slightly more prosperous area-who often engage in similar social work with disadvantaged families. They stay late on Friday nights, perhaps even trying to find a bed for a child whose family has had a row. Does he agree that that is an aspect of the work of teachers of which the Department for Children, Schools and Families is not sufficiently aware?
Jeremy Corbyn: I hope that the Department is aware of it, but the problem is how to recognise and reward it. Teachers' salary levels and housing difficulties are issues. I know that salaries have risen considerably, but we need to retain, and encourage the recruitment of, the best teachers in our inner-city schools. Over the past 10 years, I have certainly seen improvements in schools in my constituency, which now have much more money and equipment and more teachers. Head teachers no longer ring me up in tears because the roof of their school is leaking and they have no money to fix it-that kind of problem does not happen any more. Things have improved, but we have a long way to go on supporting schools and teachers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington raised the issue of poverty in lone-parent families in particular, as well as in families where one or both parents work for low wages. I have visited all the children's centres in my constituency-we have seven-and they are doing well. It is interesting to spend time in a children's centre and see how they work. The children are brought to the centre at various times in the morning, as a wraparound service is provided, and the parents are offered all kinds of support: from visits from Jobcentre Plus staff, to careers advice, to language and other classes. In other words, parents have a place not only where their children are well looked after, educated at a pre-school level and supported, but where their own aspirations can be improved. That is important. The opening of children's centres and their success for so many of our children is one of the great achievements of the past decade.
My hon. Friend and others discussed the nutritional health of our children, obesity and related issues. Obesity is not necessarily a product of overeating; it is a product of bad food and advice. When children are allowed to snack on rubbish and eat over-watered hamburgers at
all hours of the day and night-and when that is combined with a lack of activity-obesity and related problems will follow.
It is easy for columnists and others to keep going on about the burden on schools caused by the health police and healthy eating requirements, but healthy eating is crucial for small children. They need good-quality food, fruit and all the rest of it. The generation currently at school, who cannot bring in sugary sweets or inappropriate food but must have access to fruit and other good things, will grow up understanding much more than their parents about the importance of healthy eating. We should joke less about healthy eating in our schools and give it, and the principles behind it, more serious support.
That leads me to free school meals and access to them. I personally believe in a non-means-tested approach to social support and the benefit system, and I am proud to say that Islington council, on a split vote at last year's budget meeting, agreed to the minority Labour group's proposal to introduce free school meals for all primary school children in my borough, starting this year. I welcome that absolutely. Unfortunately, the council executive decided to interpret "free school meals for all primary school children" as free school meals for all primary school children in six schools-I hasten to add that there are more than six schools in the borough. The provision will be extended to all schools starting next term.
Will the Minister give us her views on the progress made by Islington council and ensure that there are no excessively bureaucratic funding hurdles? The children who would have been eligible for free school meals must still be identified in order to stack up the funding, so unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles have appeared on the horizon.
I would also be grateful if the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen), who will speak for the Liberal Democrats, let me know why the Liberal Democrat council has said that if it wins a majority in the council elections on 6 May, it will abolish free school meals for all children across the borough. I have no idea of the thinking behind that, as it seems to be at variance with much else that it has said. I am sure, however, that he will be able to explain it.
Another group experiencing unbelievable poverty in London is the children of asylum seekers-those who have arrived in this country and made an application for asylum. If the application is rejected initially, they may go through the appellant stage, which can last for years. I get letters from the Home Office telling me that my constituents in legacy cases can expect to wait another three years for a reply to their application. The children of such families receive an education, health care and minimal public support, as is right, but the parents often receive absolutely nothing.
A generation of children-the number is large in not just London, but throughout the country-is growing up in the most unbelievable poverty with parents who have no rights to work, to receive benefits, or to do anything but try to survive on their children's minimal benefits or what support friends or family can give them. We are not doing anybody any favours by allowing those children to grow up in such poverty and insecurity when the statistics tell us that, in the long term, most of them will end up staying in this country anyway. We are creating wholly unnecessary misery and poverty.
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