Food Banks

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

I think it is fair to say that I answered that question to some degree in a previous answer. We are working hard with schools and injecting significant funds to ensure that children are properly fed, if not at home then by breakfast clubs, and through the school holidays. There is much more that we have been doing to ensure that families are not worse off; indeed, we have the most generous benefits for families of all the G7 countries. We recognise that there is more we can do but I have to keep saying: remember, we have made significant changes and increases in people’s income through increasing work allowances and so on. However, some of this will not yet have come through to be felt on the ground. We are still rolling out some of the big changes to universal credit.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Has my noble friend visited the Trussell Trust? Its HQ is in my home town of Salisbury, which is now recovering from its difficulties. The Trust first alerted me to the phasing problem that families have with the introduction of universal credit. Are the measures she described actually beginning to solve the problem it identified? I found it extremely interesting and poignant.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I can reassure my noble friend that one of the reasons we have been making so many iterative changes to universal credit is that we have been concerned about the delay in people receiving income quickly and fairly. I re-emphasise that we are still waiting for some of the benefits of that to filter through to the work on the ground and benefit people who need the support. Our department is working very closely with the Trussell Trust—some of my officials are having a meeting with it today—because we believe it is very important that we work together.