Child Poverty

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, one has to look at all the elements that are going in. They are the new national living wage, the changes to welfare in both universal credit and the tax credits system and, clearly, the changes to personal allowances, which are moving up under our manifesto commitment to £12,500. Under universal credit there are gainers, but the real impacts that we will see from these changes will be on a dynamic basis because they will encourage people to go into work, and into better-paid work.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, these Budget changes will actually make working families £40 a week poorer, with larger families even more so. It is a Budget for security but not for working families with children; a Budget for the family but not for working families with children; a route out of poverty but not for the working poor and their children. Will the Government accept that they have ensured that the face of poverty in this country will continue to be the face of a child?

[Lord Freud]

No.