Poverty in the United Kingdom

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, the great thing about the universal credit system is that it is being built in-house at the Department for Work and Pensions. It is more agile, and constant changes and improvements can be made, based on what we are learning from our work coaches and caseworkers. We have made hundreds of changes to the system already. We are talking to 80 stakeholders who will work—not just talk— with us to co-design the system for managed migration. We will spend seven months with those 80 stakeholders before we even begin to manage-migrate people on to universal credit. We know that the outcomes for these people will be better and will empower their lives.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

There is so much in this report that one could ask about, but on page 17 it gives a devastating indictment of government policy:

“In-work poverty is increasingly common and almost 60% of those in poverty … are in families where someone works”.


But that is not the worst of it. It continues:

“There are 2.8 million people living in poverty in families where all adults in the household work”.


How can this be and what are the Government going to do about it?

[Baroness Buscombe]

Let me give the noble Lord an example: a couple with three children have to work only 24 hours per week between them—say, 12 hours each—to be in receipt of benefits equivalent to a salary of £35,000 per year plus housing support. Does the noble Lord think that is unfair?