Clause 8
Child Poverty Bill
9:00 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work and Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
That is an interesting debate. I remember Robin Cook criticising the predecessors of the tax credits introduced by the Conservative Government to subsidise poverty pay. I think that those were the words he used at the time. Of course, the policy of the previous Conservative Government has been continued and taken further by this Government, but the hon. Lady makes an absolutely fair point: a balance must be struck between the contribution of the state and businesses.
A significant feature of the evidence sessions at the start of our proceedings was that when local authority leaders were pressed on what it would take to eradicate child poverty they first mentioned getting more jobs and businesses going. On 20 October, Paul Carter talked about the need to bring more “wealth and prosperity” into his area of Kent. Richard Kemp, speaking on behalf of Liverpool on 20 October said,
“The thing that will still take more people out of poverty in my city is more and better-quality employment”.
He talked about the 4,500 jobs that were created in Liverpool last year, but made the fair point that not all of them had gone to the group that we are discussing.
Lastly, but certainly not least, Colin Green, speaking from his experience of Coventry said first, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire, that
“the most important things in this area are those that Richard pointed to, about creating a dynamic local economy.” ——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 62-63, Q136-139.]
That is the perspective of the council leaders who will have an important job on the ground in working with the Government to eradicate child poverty in their areas.
There are further interesting perspectives. Just as Tip O’Neill said that all politics is local, I would say that poverty is very much a peculiarly and distinctively local phenomenon in many parts of the country. The Department has produced some shocking figures on—to introduce a bit of jargon early in the morning—the lower-layer super-output areas. Those figures look at sub-ward levels of economic inactivity. In the Falinge and Central area of Rochdale, 76 per cent. of the working-age population claims out-of-work benefits, and in a further 60 areas across the country, many of them close to the constituencies of some members of the Committee, more than half of the working-age population is not in work. I sometimes refer to those areas as job deserts. We will have to address that distinctive problem to make real progress towards reaching the targets by 2020.