Welfare Assistance Schemes

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I will respond in the words of Matthew Reed, chief executive of the Children’s Society, who said of the announcement of the additional money:

“The big winners from this announcement will be the hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty who will now be given a better chance of a fair start in life”.

The Government have responded according to local authorities’ wishes, and that should be welcome.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, while I welcome the funding and have confidence in local authorities, the Minister must agree that this is a postcode lottery. It will depend on the attitude of the local authority and where you live. Can the Minister say what is going to be done to monitor this, and whether there will be any information as to how different local authorities use the funding?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As I said, local authorities—and I served on a local authority myself for 10 years—deal with their budgets in a responsible fashion. The Government are committed to ensuring that there is greater welfare provision at local level. Taking the example of the better care fund, in addition to the allocation originally made, there has been an additional 39% of voluntary top-ups, and we already have 146 plans in place. Local authorities are responsible and they are responding accordingly.