Benefit Reforms

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, let us look quickly at what we offered in the Budget. The Budget has made an enormous difference in the amount of money that we have put into the system following concerns. We announced a £4.5 billion cash boost to universal credit in the 2018 Budget; that was voted against by the party opposite. The reality is that we are doing a lot to reduce the number of children in workless households because we believe that that makes an enormous difference to the possibilities for children: we know that they are five times less likely to be in poverty where both parents work. Children need role models, and parents need dignity and a sense of self-worth to believe that they can achieve their potential and support their children. The principles of UC entirely support this truth.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept my evidence from shopping at a supermarket in a small town in South Gloucestershire, an area not noted for poverty? At the beginning of the school holidays last July there was a note at the Trussell Trust food bank to the effect that it wanted more donations, because there were 34 children—in a relatively prosperous town—who were no longer having school dinners and were in families that could not afford to give them a lunch? If I were sitting on that side of the House I would be ashamed.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am not ashamed. There are many and varied reasons why people use food banks and it is misleading to automatically link this to any single cause, as the party opposite chooses to do. Let me give noble Lords an example of the kind of support that we are giving children and families, in addition to free school meals and Healthy Start vouchers—