Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Brown Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

There is an extra £600 million of support going to the most vulnerable. I really do want to encourage the Opposition to withdraw their early-day motion, because if they succeed in praying against this, they are hitting the most vulnerable people, and I am sure that is not something that they wish to be remembered for.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

10. What assessment she has made of the implications for her Department’s policies of the spending round 2019.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

12. What assessment she has made of the implications for her Department’s policies of the spending round 2019.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

The Department’s resource budget will increase by 1.9% ahead of inflation for the first time since 2011, enabling us to provide excellent customer service, help people move into and progress in work, and provide financial security through timely benefit payments. As part of this, the DWP has been allocated £106 million to support vulnerable people and help to tackle private rented sector housing affordability through additional funding for discretionary housing payments.

[Alan Brown]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has highlighted that, with more social housing and lower housing costs, Scotland’s poverty figures are lower than the rest of the UK. The reality is that the biggest poverty factor is still Tory austerity. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that recent announcements will only mitigate a quarter of the cuts implemented since 2010. It is clear from the Secretary of State’s answer that a 1.9% increase is not enough. If austerity is really ending, when will the other three quarters of the cuts that have been implemented be reversed?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government have lifted 400,000 people out of absolute poverty since 2010 and that income inequality has fallen. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to go back to the Scottish Government and see what more they are doing to increase the number of higher paid jobs, because we all know that the best way out of poverty is to work.