Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Chris Evans

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

In “A Christmas Carol”, published 180 years ago, Charles Dickens wrote of a world where children lacked shelter, clothing, heating and food. They were represented by a boy called Ignorance and a girl called Want. Dickens died in 1870 and we live in the sixth-largest economy in the world, so why, in 2022, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, did 1 million children experience the type of destitution he chronicled long ago? We have heard the Minister quote figures and programmes, and launch attacks on previous Governments, but simply, as a human, would he not agree that just one child living in destitution is one child too many?

[Mel Stride]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that one child in destitution is one too many. One person in poverty is one too many. One person who is unemployed and badly wants a job to support their family is one too many. The question we have to ask is how best to go about improving those situations. I say it is through encouraging people into work and through those cost of living transfer payments for those targeted through universal credit, which his party originally opposed, so that we can help those who are most vulnerable and most in need.