Household Support Fund

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the Church and other faith organisations, which do such important work with children, families and their communities. I commend them for that. The question of holiday hunger, and indeed of children and food, will clearly be considered by the child poverty strategy and the task force when it gets together. We will set up a child poverty unit in the Cabinet Office that will work with the task force. We have already begun talking to stakeholders of different kinds, asking for experiences and getting expertise from inside and outside government to look at the best ways we can make this better. But we are also making some specific starts. For example, we are committed to making sure we have breakfast clubs in every single primary school. That is a simple measure that helps with the cost of living for families and helps children to start the school day able to concentrate because they have had something to eat. So I fully accept the importance of ensuring children have food and of being consistent; that will be part of what we look at.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, it will be music to the local government sector’s ears that the Government are looking at multiyear funding. I ask them also to consider ending the begging-bowl regime, where councils have to bid every year against each other for funding. As we have heard in this House just in the last two days, funding is ending in September and ending in March. We need to move away from that to give much more financial sustainability to local government.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, certainly in this Parliament, we will provide councils with more stability and certainty through multiyear funding settlements. The aim is to ensure that councils can plan their finances for the future properly. But we will also work with local leaders to try to end competitive bidding for pots of money, and to reform things such as the local audit system to ensure value for money for the taxpayer. I know that my colleagues in MHCLG are very interested in working together with local government to find a better way of funding local councils.