Child Poverty: Benefit Cap
Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
Absolutely, my Lords. It is not only an area of my responsibility in the department but one of long-standing concern. A significant amount of money changes hands already but we are looking at each stage—how do we make the Child Maintenance Service operate ever better than it does at the moment? An awful lot of money changes hands, mostly relatively smoothly. There are challenges with some non-resident parents and some who simply do not wish to pay, so the Child Maintenance Service is constantly updating the range of powers it has to go after them.
We all take the same view: you may separate from your partner, but you do not separate from your children. We need to find ways to make sure that both parents contribute. We have a consultation out, which we are looking at. We are also reviewing the child maintenance calculation. We are committed to making sure that the service works well and that the principles are up to date, but no one gets away from the fact that you may leave your partner, but you do not leave your kids.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, to continue the Welsh theme, 30% of children in Wales are living in poverty, according to the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, so I stress to the Minister the urgency of reducing child poverty across the UK.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Lord and I are as one mind on this. Child poverty is too high across the UK. It went up significantly under the last Administration. We are determined to bring it down, and we will do so.
Welfare
Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman knows anyone from Pembrokeshire Mencap or has ever been to Pembrokeshire in his life. It is made up of a special group of people doing fantastic work, and I am very proud to have been their patron for the past 11 years, supporting them in all kinds of practical ways.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his recent appointment and say that it is good to see Welsh MPs on the march? I am pleased to see that under this Government just under 300,000 more disabled people are in employment. That is positive progress, but does he agree that there is more important work to be done in this area?
Stephen Crabb
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. He raises the issue at the heart of my statement today: we want to see society doing a much better job of supporting disabled people make that move into work. We had a manifesto commitment to halve the disabled employment gap that currently exists, but that will require lots of new ways of thinking and working across different sectors.