Kirsty Blackman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to take part in the debate and I appreciate your chairing of it, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) on securing such an important debate. The subject has been one of my hobbyhorses for a significant number of years. In Aberdeen, we have seen a massive increase in the number of people who have no recourse to public funds. Despite the fact that Aberdeen is not a dispersal authority, a few years ago, third sector providers and those who provide licensed support found that they were struggling with new issues that we had not seen before. We started a volunteer group called the No Recourse North East Partnership, which is now run by the Grampian Regional Equality Council, whose purpose was to see what support could be provided to people who have no recourse to public funds. It looked at issues mentioned by the hon. Lady, including what local authority support is supposed to look like and the consistency of that support. I agree that there is still inconsistency in local authority support. Local authorities are often not being funded for the support that they provide. In some cases, they are terrified that they will upset somebody’s immigration status and the person or family will be deported because the local authority has provided them with some level of housing or financial support. The landscape is incredibly messy. It would be great if the Local Government Association and COSLA in Scotland could get together with the Government to agree what pathways should be in place. Local authorities have a responsibility to protect children and to ensure that they are not suffering from the extremes of poverty, for example by being homeless, but they are unsure exactly what action they can take when somebody has no recourse to public funds. If we had an agreed pathway, everybody would get a consistent level of support, but we would also need funding to flow from the Government for that to happen. Although I do not think it should be down to local authorities to have to fill that gap, such an agreement would be a step in the right direction. If it were up to me, I would get rid of no recourse to public funds entirely. I do not think it is a status that anybody should be faced with. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam said, none of us wants any child to be living in poverty. That is not the future and that is not why any of us is here in Parliament; we are here to make our constituents’ lives better. I do not see how having the status of no recourse to public funds, which ensures that children are growing up in poverty, is a good thing for anyone. As the hon. Lady said, it does not discourage people from coming here from other countries, and those children are not responsible for which country their parents were born in.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) and the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for bringing this debate before us today. I want to make a few comments. I agree with the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) that access to banking services is a major issue in rural constituencies, but it can also be an issue in urban constituencies. In parts of my constituency, which is wholly urban, some communities have been left without banks. Owing to the way public transport works and its unaffordability in some places, accessing banks can still be hard, even if people live in a community that is part of a city, so we need to make sure that we are looking at this issue as a whole in all the communities affected. Public transport can be a significant issue. Where capitalism fails, we need market intervention—that is what should happen. We need more market intervention to ensure that there is at least a minimum, if not a universal, banking service. A number of the banks that have closed in my constituency have said, “It’s okay, because people will be able to go to the post office.” However, the post office in Seaton has closed, and we have been fighting for years to get a new post office in the community, but nobody is willing to take it up. That community is left without either of those services, and people have to travel. In common with the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), a significant proportion of my constituents—at least a third—do not have access to a car, and getting around the city and to the bank can be pretty difficult for them. We have universal service obligations when it comes to broadband and to Royal Mail delivery, but we do not have them when it comes to post office services and banking services, yet cash is incredibly important. The right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) mentioned access to cash, but that is not the only reason we need banking services. There are some things that can only be done in a bank—whether that is businesses depositing the cash that they have taken, people taking cash out of a cash machine, or individuals signing forms to approve a loan or a mortgage. Some of those things can only be done physically in the bank, including things that people need to do only once a year. Someone living in Banff, Aberdeenshire, will have to spend an hour and a half to two hours on public transport to get into the city—a significant length of time. As the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) said earlier, we are charging people for that privilege. Even though it might be free to withdraw cash, the public transport that they need to take in order to get to a bank is not free. I urge the Government to look at the minimum services that people need in order to access cash and banking services that are close to them, and that they can access by whatever method of transport they happen to have. Could the Government please take action on this?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

  More

  There is a serious lack of answers here. Apparently there is going to be further clarity in the forthcoming defence industrial strategy, financial services strategy, defence diplomacy strategy, reserve personnel strategy, defence housing strategy and defence estate optimisation programme. The Secretary of State cannot even provide clarity on where the money is coming from. Will he provide some answers on what on earth the Government have spent the last year reviewing?

• 7 May 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister meet me to discuss the issues faced by women with no recourse to public funds who are fleeing domestic violence? As they may not be eligible for support with housing, they may struggle to find refuge places. I would appreciate a meeting to discuss this issue.

• 6 May 2025 · Poverty: Glasgow North East · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) on bringing forward this debate. I particularly liked her driving force, which is: did I make life in my community better? That should be the driving force of all MPs and I commend her for taking that stance. I want to say a couple of things about the social security safety net, and what is being provided to protect people from the worst of poverty to ensure that life expectancies are equalised. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in a level of privilege have the luxury of being able to make mistakes and cope with a few rough barriers in our way. We can cope with our washing machine breaking down and our child needing a new pair of shoes in the same month, whereas people who are living on the breadline do not have that level of privilege and luxury. If two of those things happen at once, through no fault of their own, then getting through that and working out whether to buy a washing machine or a pair of shoes for the child—when someone is struggling to make ends meet as it is—is the most difficult choice. If we can get to a position where people have the luxury of being able to make some choices, and are able to ensure that their children can thrive and not just survive, then we have done a good thing and made life better for our communities. There are issues with the social security safety net. The essentials guarantee has been put forward by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation among others. In order to pay for an essential basket of goods, someone needs about £120 a week. That includes the most basic food, ensuring an internet connection, heating and rent—it covers those basic things. The universal credit standard allowance is only £92. Most people agree that the essential basket is a reasonable level for the social security safety net to be at. It would be sensible to look at where we are with the universal credit standard allowance, and whether it does meet basic needs. That is before we talk about things such as the child poverty strategy, and the possibility of cancelling the two-child cap, which people are asking for across the board, as well as scrapping the total benefits cap. In Scotland we are doing what we can to mitigate some of that. We have managed to ensure that child poverty in Scotland is reducing rather than increasing, but it is much more stagnant than we would like it to be because we are having to mitigate some of these cuts. I echo the views of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East on disability payments; 55% of children in Scotland who live in poverty have a disabled family member. We do not know how the cuts to eligibility in the personal independence payment are going to interact with the Scottish benefits system. Will people have to do assessments for both adult disability payment and PIP in order to ensure their eligibility for the UC health element, or will the UK Government work out the UC health element on the basis of the ADP assessment? I am not clear on how that will work, or on how the welfare Bill that is hopefully coming in the near future will make it clear. For my constituents, and for those people in Glasgow North East, how those things will interact and what difference it will make to their lives is really key. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us clarity as soon as possible on the interaction between the welfare Bill and the Scottish Government systems on, for example, adult disability payment. I again commend the hon. Member for Glasgow North East on raising this really important issue. I understand why it is the most important issue in her constituency, and more power to her elbow for making life better for her constituents.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I appreciate that the Government have made changes around affordability, but they still do not assess either benefit clawbacks or the deductions on the basis of whether they are actually affordable for the people having to pay them back. Are the Government planning to put that in place at some point in future?