Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman asks a fair question about why these have all been taken in parallel. I think that it is to give certainty and direction to the country and to employers, particularly when it comes to the operation of the furlough scheme. As I have said before, this is really the time for those employers to get their workers ready again to go back into work, ideally sooner than before the end of September. Thinking about the temporary £20 uplift that was applied to universal credit, I think it is also fair to say that that is not the only way that we have supported people on benefits in the last year. There are also things such as the increase in the local housing allowance rate, which is on a permanent setting in cash terms. Those are the sort of other measures that we have taken, including to help some people on low incomes with the cost of living.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con) [V]]

Can my right hon. Friend tell the House what steps she is taking to improve the Child Maintenance Service and, in particular, to ensure that children of separated parents get all the money to which they are entitled?

[Dr Coffey]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of the Child Maintenance Service in what we are trying to do to make sure that children have income coming ideally from both parents during their upbringing and to give them support. My noble Friend Baroness Stedman-Scot is actively working on ways to potentially improve aspects of the running of the Child Maintenance Service, which I am sure is something that the whole House will want her to continue to do.