Cost of Living: Low Income Families with Children

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Of course we agree. All young children should have a good start in life, even if their circumstances vary. I pick up on the point about lone-parent families that the noble Baroness raises. I have received a number of documents from Gingerbread, which is a real advocate for this and does a terrific job. One of the ways in which we can help is to make sure that people who should pay child maintenance actually pay it. I know there is a lot of criticism of the Child Maintenance Service, and I for one would not stand here and say it is perfect. But let me tell the noble Baroness that we are using enforcement powers, because that is one way we can get money to children who really need it.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, Loughborough University research shows that the temporary £20 uplift to universal credit helped reduce the number of children in poverty from 3.8 million to 3.6 million. That is a sizeable amount, without a shadow of a doubt. The report warns that the decision to end the uplift threatens to reverse this positive trend, and that in-work poverty has now become a major issue for many families. Does the Minister agree that the Government should be taking every possible step to reduce the scandal of child poverty, starting with restoring the uplift and raising social security by at least the rate of inflation, so that no child has to stare poverty in the face?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I think it was said by our previous Chancellor and many others that the Government cannot solve every problem. That does not mean that we reduce our efforts to do so. The £20 uplift was, at the risk of boring everybody, a temporary measure and has been stopped, but we will have the annual uprating of benefits and the Secretary of State will look at it in September this year.