Covid-19: Low-income Families

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point well. I assure her that we are considering all evaluations—the Trussell Trust, Joseph Rowntree and Action for Children, as well as Understanding Society, the Covid-19 survey and the opinions and lifestyle survey by the Office for National Statistics. I am sure this question will come up many times today, so I say that the £20 UC increase was put in for one year only. As my colleague the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the other place said, dialogue is continuing with HMT on this, and the Prime Minister confirmed yesterday that it is under constant review.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, in 2010 the UK poverty rate stood at 15%; it now stands at 26%—an increase of more than 1.1 percentage points a year. An additional 670,000 people are expected to be classed as destitute by the end of 2020. I want to press the Minister a bit more on the detail on the supplementary question from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. The Minister talked about what has been done. It does not seem to be working. Can we have some explanation of what the Government will do in the future?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I can again confirm to the noble Lord that all welfare issues are under constant review and, as sorry as I am, I cannot say more than that at this time.