Diane Abbott
Main Page: Diane Abbott (Labour - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)Department Debates - View all Diane Abbott's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
Job centres have been given the freedom of the flexible support fund, so they have money to help to support some of these organisations. We now do a lot of work with debt counselling, and we use both local and national debt counsellors.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
London has some of the highest levels of child poverty in the country. Given that the Secretary of State’s welfare cuts will be particularly harsh for working Londoners because of our high housing costs, why is he not at least calling for the implementation of the London living wage?
Mr Duncan Smith
I have done. I insisted that all the contractors in my Department pay a London living wage and the Department for Work and Pensions pays a London living wage. We showed that we did not lose any jobs, that efficiency improved, and that people were happier and did a better job. I agree with the hon. Lady. I am determined that others should learn from that and recognise that we need to pay people a decent wage for the job that they do.