UK: Poverty

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My noble friend makes an important point. I should make it clear that I believe in the relative poverty measure, which is a way of measuring what happens over the medium-term period, although there have been some rather perverse impacts in the past couple of years in the current recession. What is really important is that we drive our attention to the underlying causes of poverty. That is what the current consultation is about. We will be reporting on how to tackle it in the spring/summer.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, the Minister has repeated an assertion that I have heard him make before. My experience, from talking to people in the clergy and social services, is that there has been a large increase in the use and availability of food banks. The Minister asserts that there has not. What is his evidence?

[Lord Freud]

Well, my Lords, I actually said the exact opposite. I said that there has been an increase in the use of food banks and that, indeed, there had been a large increase under the previous Government. We have since September 2011 been advising people of this local resource and other resources. We are transferring elements to the Social Fund so that local areas can create local welfare support for people who are in crisis. It is important that we have that kind of provision, either through local authorities or, indeed, through third-sector parties.