Category Archives: Families and children

Government set to plunge over a million children into poverty by the end of this decade

Research by the IFS showing more than one million children are expected to be living in poverty by 2020.

The IFS’ verdict is clear – by both internationally recognised measures, this Government is set to plunge over a million children into poverty by the end of this decade, undoing all the good work of the last Labour government.

Children are paying the price for a flatlining economy, falling living standards and soaring unemployment. Yet instead of giving working families a hand ministers have slapped them in the face by slashing their tax credits whilst handing a massive tax cut to the richest people in the country.

 

£830 drop in real wages in the last 12 months – new figures reveal.

New figures in this week’s Labour Market Statistics reveal Working people are £830 worse off than this time last year..

Average wages were flat on the year in February 2013 – the lowest growth since April 2009 – while RPI inflation was 3.2% in February 2013. This means people are £16 a week poorer than they were last February.

Wage growth excluding bonuses is now at its lowest level since records began in 2001.

“This government’s economic plan has simply failed. There’s nowhere near enough work to go round so peoples’ pay packets are being sledge-hammered.

“Wages are sinking like a stone while prices are spiralling up. Working people are now taking home £830 less than this time last year. Yet instead of lending a hand, Ministers are whacking tax credits and child benefit yet giving millionaires a whopping tax cut.
 
“The time has come for George Osborne to admit he’s got it wrong, listen to the advice from the IMF, and give us a plan to kickstart growth”.

 

 

Launching the campaign agains the unfairness of David Cameron’s bedroom tax

I will be launching a major Labour campaign to highlight the unfairness of David Cameron’s Bedroom Tax, in Hull on Monday 4 March.

The launch will be the first in a series of events ahead of the introduction of the bedroom tax in April – at exactly the same time as the Government are giving 13,000 millionaires a tax cut worth £100,000 a year on average.

David Cameron’s April tax plan is simply not fair. From next month, 13,000 millionaires are getting a tax cut worth £100,000 a year on average while over 600,000 armed forces families, disabled people and foster carers have to find £728 a year to pay a new bedroom tax.

Yet the plan is such a shambles that someone who’s been to prison on a short sentence won’t have to pay. How unfair is that? Millionaires and prisoners are looked after but vulnerable people, carers and armed forces families get hit.

Labour plan relentless pressure on this out of touch government until Ministers see sense, admit this policy is totally unfair and think again.”

 

Background:

What: Liam Byrne to launch Labour’s Bedroom Tax Campaign

When: 1330, Monday March 4

Where: 11 Exton Close, Bransholme, Hull, HU7 4EP

If you are interested in attending please confirm with the Labour Press Office, email Neil_Fleming@labour.org.uk

 

Hull City Council has 4,700 tenants that will be affected by the policy, but only 73 one and two bedroom properties available to let.

Liam Byrne will meet Mr and Mrs Pattison, one of the 420,000 households across the country home to a disabled person hit by the bedroom tax along with local Labour Councillors.

Byrne will be visiting Alexander & Susan Pattison who will be hit by the bedroom tax. Susan lives with her husband, Alexander, in a 2 bedroom Council property. Her husband suffers from Addison’s disease and she is his full-time carer. Due to his disability, she has slept in the spare bedroom for 11 years of the 18 years they have lived in the property. The property has been adapted, they have a stairlift and the Council are reassessing at the moment whether the bathroom needs further adaptations.

 

Ends

 For more information, please contact the Labour Party press office on 020 7783 1393.

 

A quarter of the people affected by Cameron’s Bedroom Tax are single mums and single dads

A quarter of the people affected by David Cameron’s Bedroom Tax are single mums and single dads .

 Figures buried in the detail of the Government’s Bedroom Tax Impact Assessment show a quarter of the people affected by David Cameron’s Bedroom Tax are single mums and single dads.

It is now clear that of the £480 million it raises, £100 million comes from the pockets of some of the poorest single mums and single dads in Britain, struggling to raise kids on their own.

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said:

“David Cameron promised to stand up for the family raisers but his Bedroom Tax is a £100million tax bombshell for single mums and dads whilst 13,000 millionaires get a £3 billion tax cut. These aren’t tough choices – they’re the wrong choices.

“The bedroom tax has now been utterly exposed as a chaotic disaster, but it’s not too late for the Prime Minister to do the decent thing, admit he has got this wrong and think again.”

Ends

 Editor’s notes:

 1. Buried in the detail of the Government’s Bedroom Tax Impact Assessment are figures which show that out of the 660,000 people affected, 150,000 (23 per cent) are lone parents under 60.

The average amount taken from them per week is £13, which amounts to £676 a year. Overall, this means a £100 million tax bombshell on some of Britain’s poorest lone parents.

(Source: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/social-sector-housing-under-occupation-wr2011-ia.pdf)

For more information, please contact the Labour Party press office on 020 7783 1393.

All news releases are issued on a check against delivery basis and any portion of the speech not actually delivered should be regarded as private and confidential.

 

“It is utterly disgraceful for this government to snatch money from foster families for the crime of giving a home to a child in need”

Liam Byrne said,

 “It is utterly disgraceful for this government to snatch money from foster families for the crime of giving a home to a child in need.

 “David Cameron is treating foster kids like invisible children – he should be ashamed.

 “The Bedroom Tax is now in total disarray. Ministers must now admit they have got this horribly wrong and think again – before it’s too late.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/foster-families-pay-bedroom-tax-1728212

 

 

 

My letter to Labour Party members on 200,000 more children in poverty

Today David Cameron and Nick Clegg will order their MPs in the House of Commons to vote for an unfair attack on the tax credits and working benefits which millions of people rely on to get by. 

The Tories are voting for a ‘Strivers’ Tax’ which will see seven million working households punished – and 200,000 children will be pushed into poverty as a result.  Yet at the same time David Cameron is choosing to give a tax cut to millionaires – worth on average over £107,000 to 8,000 people.

Labour won’t stand for this – we’re voting against.  Add your voice to ours and tell this Government they’re getting it badly wrong.

David Cameron and George Osborne want people to believe this is an attack on ‘shirkers’ – but the reality is the opposite.  More than two-thirds of the households affected by the cuts are working households. Together with other cuts for parents one million children will now be pushed into poverty. 

And despite promises to protect people with disabilities – the vote today will result in a real terms benefits cut for people with severe disabilities and health conditions.  

We’ve challenged the Government to do the fair thing: to vote to scrap the ‘strivers’ tax’; stand up for disabled people who face a real terms cut in support; remove the ‘mummy tax’ which will cut maternity pay; and forget their unfair millionaire’s tax cut.

We need a One Nation Government which will stand up for Britain’s strivers, not a Government which is more interested in exploiting the problems we face rather solving them. That’s what Labour MPs are voting for today.

Add your voice here, and let David Cameron’s Government know they’re on the wrong side.

Thank you.

Liam Byrne

 

Strivers Tax pushes 200,000 children into poverty

Cuts to tax credits and benefits will push 200,000 children into poverty, Ministers admit

200,000 children will be pushed into poverty as a result of David Cameron and George Osborne’s real terms cuts to tax credits and other working-age benefits, according to official government figures.

In an answer to a parliamentary question, work and pensions minister has Esther McVey admits that the Tory-led Government has estimated that “the uprating measures in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 will result in around an extra 200,000 children being deemed by this measure to be in relative income poverty compared to uprating benefits by CPI”.

Ministers are trying to push through the measures with just one day of debate for the committee stage and third reading of the Welfare benefits Uprating Bill in the House of Commons next Monday.

Ed Balls MP, Labour’s shadow chancellor, said:

“The true character of this Conservative-led government has now been exposed. While they give the richest two per cent of earners a £3 billion tax cut, 200,000 children will be pushed into poverty and millions of working families made worse off.

“Ministers have spent weeks refusing to admit what the impact of their policies would be on child poverty and now we know why. Children are paying the price for David Cameron and George Osborne’s economic failure and the political games they have decided to play.

“We need action to kickstart the economy and help people into work with a compulsory jobs guarantee, not this unfair and divisive attack on working families and children.”

Liam Byrne, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, said:

“We already knew the Strivers’ Tax will hit millions of hardworking families but now we know that 200,000 children will pay the price for the mess David Cameron and George Osborne have made of our economy, whilst 8,000 millionaires get a tax cut.

“George Osborne is playing politics with his Strivers’ Tax Bill because he desperately needs a distraction from his own failure. But the Chancellor’s pathetic little games have real consequences for millions of families struggling to make ends meet.

“10 years of Tory Party detoxification has been destroyed because the Chancellor needed a new year dividing line and Britain’s poorest children are paying the price. The nasty party is well and truly back.”

The government argues it is “misleading” to consider the impacts of uprating tax credits and benefits in isolation and claims that it is “investing in tackling the root causes of child poverty through making work pay”.  However, changes to tax credits that came into force in April last year mean that thousands of parents in part-time employment are now better off on benefits than in work.

The parliamentary answer also claims that “looking at relative income in isolation is not a helpful measure to track progress towards our target of eradicating child poverty.”  But in Opposition, David Cameron, and the current Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, repeatedly argued that relative poverty was important and that the Conservative Party would measure and act on it.

ENDS

Editor’s notes

1.        In a response to a Parliamentary Question published today, DWP Minister Esther McVey admits that “we estimate that the uprating measures in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 will result in around an extra 200,000 children being deemed by this measure to be in relative income poverty compared to uprating benefits by CPI”. (Hansard, 15 January 2013, Column 715W-716W, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130115/text/130115w0003.htm#13011576000093)

2.        The Government has previously admitted that some families with children could be £728 per year better off out of work as a result of losing their working tax credits following new rules which came into force in April 2012. (Hansard, 29 February 2012,  Column 395W396W, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120229/text/120229w0004.htm#12022982001826

3.        David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith used to say that relative poverty was important, and that the Conservative Party would measure and act on it.

“I believe that poverty is an economic waste and a moral disgrace. In the past, we used to think of poverty only in absolute terms – meaning straightforward material deprivation. That’s not enough. We need to think of poverty in relative terms – the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted. So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty.”
David Cameron, Scarman Lecture, 24 November 2006, http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2006/11/David_Cameron_Tackling_poverty_is_a_social_responsibility.aspx

“So poverty is relative – and those who pretend otherwise are wrong.”
David Cameron, Scarman Lecture, 24 November 2006, http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2006/11/David_Cameron_Tackling_poverty_is_a_social_responsibility.aspx

“The easiest way I think to define it is that relative poverty is that if some people don’t have what others take for granted and I think it is important not just to say poverty is destitution and there’s a safety net, but as a society grows richer, we want everyone to grow richer and I think relative poverty is important.”
David Cameron, BBC Breakfast, 24 November 2006

“I think the best way to define it is as the figures do, that if you have less than 60% of the average household income you are relatively poor, and I think that is the right measure and I think it’s right to look at relative poverty and that’s what a Conservative government would do. But what I think is really important is what our research has found in doing this policy work is if you look at people with 40% of household income, people who really are in you know, deep poverty, that the amount of people in deep poverty has actually gone up. It’s a staggering fact that in the last 10 years Labour have done…tried so hard and spent so much money on this issue and yet deep poverty in Britain has got worse. There are 750,000 more people with less than 40% of household income and they’re stuck in poverty for just as long and it seems to me that is a really important fact that we have to digest and act on and make sure we reduce poverty in this country.”
David Cameron, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, 24 November 2006

“In modern times, poverty has been a difficult issue for the Conservative Party to deal with. However, as this Report makes clear, it is too important an issue to be left to the Labour Party. All forms of poverty – absolute and relative – must be dealt with. Unless all parts of society are connected, then we risk social dislocation and exclusion for millions of people.”
Iain Duncan Smith, foreword to Conservative Party Social Justice Policy Group report “Economic Dependency”, December 2006, p. 3, http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/client/downloads/BB_worklessness.pdf

 

Government can’t hide the fact they’re giving a £40,000 tax cut to millionaires yet wiping out a decade of progress tackling child poverty in one parliament

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, responding to news that the Government are launching a consultation on measuring child poverty, said:

 

“It doesn’t matter what camouflage they wear, the Government can’t hide the fact they’re giving a £40,000 tax cut to millionaires yet wiping out a decade of progress tackling child poverty in just one parliament.

 

“If Ministers move an inch from the Child Poverty Act they supported in opposition, we will know they are about to abandon the fight against child poverty whilst giving an enormous tax cut to the richest in society.”

 

 

Iain Duncan Smith is destroying Beveridge not renewing Beveridge

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, responding to reports in the Telegraph on Iain Duncan Smith’s speech tomorrow, said:

“Iain Duncan Smith is destroying Beveridge not renewing Beveridge.

“For all the tough talk the truth is it’s working people who are seeing their help axed. Never before have working people paid so much in and got so little back. Yet this Government sees fit to give £40,000 to 8,000 millionaires in tax cuts, yet is cutting tax credits so hard that thousands are now better off on benefits.

“We were promised a welfare revolution and all we’ve got is welfare chaos – chaos that working people are being forced to pay for.”

Ends

Note:

The Telegraph article ‘Benefits encourage problem families, says Iain Duncan Smith’ can be found here.

 

We will not tolerate this government playing fast and loose with peoples’ tax credits and child benefits – and nor will the British public

Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne commenting on the BBC’s report into warnings over the changes to the benefits system,  said,

“Britain was promised a welfare revolution and what we’ve got is welfare chaos.

“Universal Credit is over-due and over budget and now everyone from the Chancellor to charities, the CBI to local councils is warning this is a car-crash about to happen.

“We’ve been warning of this for months and we’re summoning Iain Duncan Smith to the Commons for a full scale debate. We’ll be demanding he publishes the secret business case he’s trying to hide so we can start getting a grip on how to get this vital project back on the rails.

“We will not tolerate this government playing fast and loose with peoples’ tax credits and child benefits – and nor will the British public.”

Ends

Notes to Editors:

Labour is calling an opposition day debate on Universal Credit on Tuesday September 11

Labour has now appealed to the Information Commissioner to secure release of the Universal Credit Business Case after IDS blocked Labour’s FOI request