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Child Poverty in Scotland

It is an honour to respond to this debate. I thank all who took part; they made important contributions. I was to have had 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, then eight minutes for my speech. Now it turns out that I am allowed 16 minutes, and I shall try to do justice to and respond to some of the important points that have been made. Child poverty, the subject of this debate, goes right to the heart of why so many of us came into politics in the first place. It goes right to the heart of why my party came into existence more than 100 years ago and what the Labour Government, elected 11 years ago today, are all about. The struggle against child poverty has consumed generations of campaigners and given birth to countless movements, societies, trade unions and moral crusades. In my party, and in our country, the struggle has been led by titans—people such as John Wheatley, James Maxton, John Smith and, of course, Keir Hardie. The desire to eradicate the scourge of child poverty from the land has had no stronger champion than the Prime Minister, who has devoted his entire adult life, with energy and unwavering commitment, to ensuring that every person in this country benefits from the opportunities enjoyed for too long by only a few. In the past 11 years, that drive against poverty has been the constant theme of our politics. It is why we introduced tax credits to help the poorest paid, especially those with children. It is why we raised child benefit above and beyond inflation and why we introduced the first ever national minimum wage—in the teeth of opposition from those who claimed that it would cost 1 million jobs and from those who could not be bothered to get out of bed to vote for it. The drive against poverty is also why we set the extraordinarily ambitious target of halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020. That target is no idle boast or vague aspiration, but a commitment made during our long years as the Opposition, when we stood impotent as child poverty doubled in Scotland between the late 1970s and mid-1990s. The results of all that effort—the tax credits, the new deal, the minimum wage—are there for all to see. Ninety thousand children have been lifted out of poverty in Scotland, a greater rate of decline than in the UK as a whole. More people are in work today than at any time in our nation’s history. Families in the poorest fifth of the population are £4,500 a year better off. Behind every one of those statistics are real people, whose lives have been changed and aspirations raised. Families and communities now have the prospect that tomorrow can be better than yesterday and that years of decline and decay can be reversed. That is why so many of my hon. Friends who spoke this afternoon took the opportunity to remind the House of the progress that has been made; to be fair, Opposition hon. Members also acknowledged that. However, my hon. Friends did something more: they spoke of a genuine, passionate desire to go further, do more and make deeper inroads into the problems that still beset so many of our communities. I share that desire. Our achievements are real, and in some areas progress has been nothing short of remarkable, but much more needs to be done. Before I turn to some of the comments made today, I should like to thank those who have made a significant contribution to the debate, inside and outside the Chamber. First and foremost, our thanks go to the Chairman and members of the Scottish Affairs Committee for producing an excellent and thoughtful report. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar), the convenor and, ultimately, the author of the report. In part, today’s debate grew from a round-table discussion, convened by the Scotland Office, that brought together many organisations involved in the day-to-day reality of helping those still affected by poverty. Many of those organisations have taken a great deal of time and effort to draw up detailed briefing papers in order to inform our deliberations better. I would like to add my thanks to Barnado’s, the Church of Scotland, the Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice Scotland, NCH and Save the Children. I assure them that their contributions have been studied by the Scotland Office and the Department for Work and Pensions. We shall continue to work with those organisations towards our common goal of eradicating child poverty. The shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), said that he did not want to talk about the past. I wonder why. He did not make an apology for the fact that child poverty doubled when the Conservatives were in charge, although, in fairness, for much of that time he was in the Social Democratic party, so he does not bear personal responsibility. He spoke about the new Conservative approach of making poverty history. It stands in sharp contrast to their old approach, which was just making poverty. He launched his usual attacks on tax credits, then said he would keep them. He condemned clawbacks, but dodged the chance to set out his views on clawbacks. He attacked the definition of poverty as being 60 per cent. of median income, despite the fact that that is the acknowledged international standard, used around the world and certainly throughout the European Union. The organisations that I mentioned earlier said, in the submissions that they put to us, that we should be working to that standard. The hon. Gentleman did not mention the fact that in the document ““Making British Poverty History””, a new target emerged—not 60 per cent. of median income, but 40 per cent. That is now going to be the aspiration that the Conservative party will address. I think that I hear the sound of goalposts being moved. I think that I hear the sound of targets becoming aspirations. I think that I hear the sound of a Labour Government’s definition of poverty at 60 per cent. of median income being downgraded to 40 per cent. I think that I hear the sound of a return to the bad old days. The hon. Gentleman quoted Churchill—another famous convert from Liberalism to Toryism—who also said, ““you can rat, but you can’t re-rat.”” My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, spoke in detail about his Committee’s excellent report on poverty. He said that good progress has been made, and he welcomed the new consensus of all parties, which is welcome, if a little late. None the less, his Committee worked collegiately on the report, and it reached out to all parts of Scotland in making its final recommendations. We have responded to the report. We do not share all of its analysis or accept every one of the recommendations, but we acknowledge the tremendous contribution that the report has made in furthering this important debate. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and other members of the Select Committee because the problem of poverty, which has taken generations to build up, cannot be eradicated overnight, even with 11 years of progress. That is why we are aiming to meet the target in 2020. It is a tough target—an immensely challenging one—and as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) rightly said, external factors are now making that target even more challenging. I shall say a word about that in a moment. However, we are not resiling from it or backtracking. We want to hit those targets in 2010 and 2020, but we know that we will have to work, as the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions rightly said, with the Scottish Administration, non-governmental organisations, charities, faith groups and all of those working in Scotland to eradicate poverty, or we will not hit the target. We cannot do it on our own, and the Select Committee report highlights ways in which we can make definite progress. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) stressed the need for us to work together, and graciously acknowledged that much progress has been made. I am afraid, however, that he fell into the trap that often affects individuals who consider these problems. He piled up more and more spending commitments with no real ability to say how much anything would cost, or to say whether spending much more on administration, which was his solution, would divert money from those who need it in the fight against poverty. It is right that the Department for Work and Pensions has tough efficiency targets. Hon. Members from all parties know that sometimes local jobcentres are asked to make challenging efficiency savings. However, we are doing that so that the massive amount of extra money that goes towards the fight against child poverty gets through to the front line and those who need it most. The hon. Gentleman’s vision of a series of super first steps centres in every community, combining Jobcentre Plus and Revenue and Customs functions, was presented without any idea of how much it will cost, let alone how much the Liberal Democrats will pay for it.