Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateChris Stephens
Main Page: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)Department Debates - View all Chris Stephens's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe are. It is unfortunate that the hon. Lady cannot engage with the wider point that I am making around the nature of means-tested benefits—for example, the many on unemployment and support allowance or universal credit who are also disabled and who will benefit from the approach we are taking.
This Government have taken decisive action to make work pay, giving 1.7 million families an extra £1,000 per year, on average, through changes to the universal credit taper, work allowances, and increasing the national living wage to £9.50 an hour. Some extra support is coming in through the packages we have already mentioned today. It is also important to make the House aware that we extend help to people already on universal credit who are working to see what we can do to help them to progress in work and to take up other opportunities, such as making sure that they know about things like childcare support.
So grants rather than loans are the solution after all. Evidence from Feeding Britain and Good Food Scotland shows, for example, that people who work in a supermarket cannot afford to shop there, with fridges being switched off and lightbulbs being removed at home, and more pawning, borrowing and reliance on credit. Now that the principle is that grants are preferable to loans, will the Secretary of State apply the same principle to universal credit advance payments, as argued for by the Work and Pensions Committee?