Cost of Living: Low Income Families with Children

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what financial support they have provided specifically for low income families with children to help with the increased cost of living.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

My Lords, our £37 billion cost of living package is particularly focused on low-income households. Children living in families receiving qualifying means-tested benefits will receive the cost of living payment of £650 in two instalments. Households with a domestic electricity bill will receive the £400 energy bill rebate. We require at least a third of the current £421 million household support fund in England to be spent on supporting households with children. That fund will continue with a further £421 million from October, for which guidance will be announced in due course. The devolved Administrations have received separate funding through the Barnett consequentials.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, children, especially those in larger or lone-parent families, are at disproportionate risk of poverty. This has been made worse by a decade of social security cuts. Children in poverty are among those hardest hit by the cost of living crisis. Ministers stress that the latest help with the crisis targets those who most need it, yet, as the Children’s Commissioner lamented last week, children were overlooked—and not for the first time. What will the Government now do to ensure there is specific support —not discretionary support through local authorities but specific, as of right, national support for children—as the cost of living crisis worsens this autumn?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The Government’s position is that we have made money available throughout the cost of living crisis. We are doing extra things for children, such as free school meals and all the other holiday support payments. As it stands at the moment, I am not able to say if we will be doing anything further. As we have always promised, we keep everything under review and respond where we can.