Covid-19: People Living in Poverty

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is right to ask the questions that she has, but there are far deeper questions about this crisis. We will not see a quick recovery, but rather a lot of firms going bust and, unfortunately, a rising and probably quite high level of unemployment. This calls into question the philosophy of universal credit. I remember that George Osborne justified his toughness on welfare payments on the grounds that work was booming and people would benefit from the higher national living wage. Conditionality is justified only when there is a booming labour market, but we will not have that.

We should look at a full-scale comprehensive review, a new Beveridge, for our social welfare safety net. The Minister has an exemplary record of helping the vulnerable and young unemployed, but at this moment, we need to open up a much bigger debate.