Supporting Disadvantaged Families Debate

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Department: Department for Work and Pensions

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Barry Sheerman Excerpts
Monday 9th November 2020

(3 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Thérèse Coffey Portrait Dr Coffey
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The universal credit that is given out every month to benefit recipients is a grant. The advances are simply an early payment of that grant, and then the total amount is spread over the year. I have been asked about the report a few times; as I have said to the Select Committee previously, we have ongoing discussions with the Treasury about aspects of welfare support and those discussions are continuing.

Barry Sheerman Portrait Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
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I know the Secretary of State to be a very pleasant colleague and woman, but I have to tell her that I have never seen such poverty in our land in all my 40 years in Parliament. What she has announced today is too little, too late. She talks about working across Government—I remember how they got rid of Sure Start and children’s centres. Early years provision, which so many working families depend on, is in deep financial trouble. When is she going to do something across Government to tackle the family poverty that stalks this land right now?

Thérèse Coffey Portrait Dr Coffey
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The hon. Gentleman is a long-standing Member of the House, and I am conscious that he will be seeing things exacerbated in his constituency by the issues that we face in tackling coronavirus. It is a great sadness that so many people have lost their work or are on reduced hours, and that is why we put in the extra injection of more than £9 billion of welfare support, to help people through this time.

In terms of helping young children, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), has just reminded me that we have the most generous support for pre-school children ever undertaken by a Government. We continue to want to ensure that every child reaches their potential. While I am conscious of how proud the Labour party was of Sure Start, the key difference is that we wanted to ensure that the interventions we undertook were exceptionally targeted, so that every child was able to fulfil their potential. I am confident that the measures in place will continue to accelerate that, because that is the right thing to do.