Welfare: Cost of Family Breakdown

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, it is vital that people get into work where they can. That is the only way to solve poverty in the long term. We have managed to get more families into work—under this Government, 300,000 more have gone into work. I should also point out that fewer families with children are in poverty under this Government. That figure has gone down by 100,000 since we came in.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, in answering my noble friend Lady Sherlock, the noble Lord was unequivocal that the Government do not have targets on sanctions. Will he, therefore, instruct government offices which have charts on their walls, such as my noble friend Lady Sherlock described in asking her question, to take them down?

[Lord Freud]

If it is established that there are charts of that nature, I will instruct them to be taken down.