Prepared: 14:56 on 9 February 2010
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, will 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.
The biggest factor in child poverty in London is housing costs. In my area, which is fairly typical of inner London, about 40 per cent. of the population lives in social housing—property owned either by the council or by a housing association—on fixed and economic rents. About 30 per cent. of my constituents are owner-occupiers, which is a low proportion compared with the national average, and one that is declining fast. Again, that is typical of inner London; owner-occupation levels are declining fast because people cannot sell their property, so they move and rent it out privately.
The private rented sector is the fastest growing sector, and the rents charged there are unbelievable. I met a family recently who lived in an ex-council flat that had been bought under the right to buy some years ago. For a two-bedroom walk-up council flat on an estate, that family was paying £250 a week. That is not the highest amount; some pay far more than that. I have come across figures of £400 a week for ex-council property, which is high by any standard.
Who pays that rent? In the majority of cases, the housing benefits system pays it. We have got into the crazy situation of saying that there is a market rent and that the housing benefit system will support it. The market is therefore supported by the housing benefit system. I have made that point to successive Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions. I know that they understand the issues and that there are changes on the way, but I hope that we will be bold and go a lot further by bringing in rent controls for the private sector.
I hope that we will look hard at the enormous benefit trap that is implicit in this problem. Most local authorities in London place housing applicants not in council accommodation, but in the private sector, sometimes paying the deposit so that they take up the place. That means that if someone on housing benefit with a family wants to get a job, they must earn enough to pay for the private rent for the flat of £200 to £300 a week. A rent of £300 a week represents £15,000 a year. The Department for Work and Pensions has recognised that problem and has increased the length of time for in-work benefit and for the continuation of housing benefit.
Some 80 per cent. of people in my constituency have no chance of buying property within the constituency. Unless we rapidly invest much more in social housing, housing associations and local authorities in inner-city areas, we will be consigning an awful lot of children to a life of terrible overcrowding and the problems that flow from it, such as illness and underachievement in school.
Ms Abbott: On the contribution of housing issues to child poverty, does my hon. Friend agree that although our Government have a fantastic record on refurbishing old estates and bringing them up to modern standards, they have failed London with their over-reliance on the theory that councils should get out of the business of building new stock and that the market, above all, should be a provider? That was never going to be a practical option in London. I am glad that they have reversed some of that thinking, but it has created a problem.
Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend is right that that has been an enormous problem. This debate is not solely about housing, but that is a major factor in child poverty and child opportunity. I agree that the refurbishment of estates is brilliant and that the decent homes standard is welcome, but unless we get children out of overcrowded flats, their life chances and aspirations will be damaged severely.
We must imagine what it is like to be a young teenager of 13 or 14 in a two-bedroom flat with two other children of roughly the same age. What is it like for a girl to grow up sharing a room with her brothers? There is no space. They might feel embarrassed to bring friends home and they might not want to stay over with other friends because they cannot reciprocate. Those things might seem minor to us, but they are major for the children of that age group who have that lifestyle. We must invest all we can in building housing for the adults of tomorrow—the children of today.
My final point is about job opportunities and barriers to work and training. The levels of unemployment in inner London are high by London averages and are usually above the national average. That puzzles and concerns me. The southern part of my borough and the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) border the City of London. The City is a major employer. From the high-rise flats in our constituencies, we can see the gleaming office towers of the City of London. Do many of our children get jobs there? No. Do they travel there to work? No. Are they unemployed? Yes. Are they lacking job opportunities? Absolutely. There is a disconnect in London between opportunities for work and children living in the inner-London ring. I do not have all the solutions, but I know that the problem exists.
Ms Abbott: Some might argue that more young people in Hackney and Islington do not get jobs in the City because they do not have the requisite white-collar qualifications. An even bigger scandal is the relatively small number of children from Olympic boroughs who are apprentices, labourers, builders, plasterers and carpenters on the Olympic site. The Olympics provided an opportunity for our semi-skilled young people and those in manual trades to get jobs, but it appears to have been missed.
Jeremy Corbyn: Absolutely. Olympic building, as with any other building, ought to be an opportunity for training and development. Local colleges are not making sensible decisions. Carpentry, plastering and bricklaying courses have been closed down and yet people wonder why there is a shortage of carpenters, bricklayers and plasterers. It is not rocket science to recognise that if we do not invest in those skills at college level, it will result in skill shortages, underachievement and poverty.
Opportunities for work are important. It is important that the barriers that stop parents of young children from going to work are removed through Sure Start, children’s centres, a more benign benefit system and a less bureaucratic approach. It is important to ensure that the minimum wage means at least that, if not more in the case of London. We must provide educational opportunities to parents so that they can take up new courses and receive education, if they did not achieve in school.
The 1980s was a period of mass unemployment in this country, as much in central London as in the south Wales valleys, the north-east or the north-west. At the height of the 1980s depression, unemployment in my constituency was at about 20 per cent. That was as high as anywhere in the country, although it was probably even higher in Hackney and other parts of east London.
This crisis is an opportunity to redress the imbalance between the rich and poor in our society. We should defend and maintain public expenditure. It will do us no favours if we start cutting public expenditure, removing services and losing public sector jobs. The public sector is a major employer in the poorest parts of the country. Such an approach would risk another generation losing the possibility of work. As my hon. Friend explained, children who grow up in households in which neither parent works, or none of the grandparents have ever worked, do not aspire to go to work themselves. I therefore hope that we will maintain or increase public expenditure on socially valuable and useful work. We owe it to our children to eliminate poverty so that they can make the very best of this wonderful city of London.