Child Poverty

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take to (1) implement their pledge to work to eliminate child poverty, and (2) meet the 2020 statutory targets set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

In line with our manifesto commitment to work to eliminate child poverty, we will bring forward legislation to remove the existing measures and targets in the Child Poverty Act, as well as the other duties and provisions. The legislation will introduce a statutory duty to report on measures of worklessness and educational attainment. These new measures will drive real change and make the biggest difference to the lives of poor children now and in the future.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain how government accountability for the elimination of child poverty will not be seriously weakened when the targets are abolished, the measures of child poverty as such are effectively abandoned and child poverty is removed from the title and presumably remit of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission—all at a time when punitive cuts in financial support for low-income families with children, in work as well as out of work, will blight their children’s life chances and childhoods?

[Lord Freud]

The HBAI measure will clearly still be published and is a useful measure to track what is actually happening. It is, however, a very poor measure as a statutory target because it is simply not forecastable. I come back to the point about the so-called cuts for those in work. After today’s Budget, by 2017-18, eight out of 10 working households will be better off as a result of the combination of personal allowances, the new national living wage, which will rise to £9, and the welfare changes. That is 17.7 million households better off.

Housing: Under-occupancy Charge

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The current year figure is running at £125 million, which is very high and up substantially—by more than £100 million—on the figures that we were looking at in 2010. I obviously cannot make any commitment at this stage on its future levels—that will go into a spending review—but clearly this has been an important way of making sure that this policy goes in without the kind of impacts that some people were concerned about.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, research published in the Journal of Public Health points to a disquieting amount of financial hardship as a result of the bedroom tax, as well as compromised diets, an impact on physical and mental health, and the disruption of important social networks. The Minister seems to think that downsizing is something simple. We are asking people to downsize from their homes, not just from housing, and we are disrupting their lives and networks. Will the Minister think again on this and take into account that, as my noble friend and many members of his own party have said, this is a cruel mistake?

[Lord Freud]

I am not sure that noble Lords can have it both ways. Either there is not very much downsizing or there is too much disruption of networks. I do not think that both can be argued at the same time.