Oral Answers to Questions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.

[Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

No, I am afraid that I cannot agree with that at all. I have just gone through the various figures pointing to the decline in the level of absolute poverty, including 400,000 fewer children in absolute poverty since the hon. Lady’s party was last in Government. The cost of living payments, the increase in the level of benefits, and the £3.5 billion that the Chancellor has made available to help people back into work are helping to drive poverty figures in the right direction.

[Fleur Anderson]

The Minister’s responses are disappointing. If the Government do not recognise the problem of child poverty in this country, how will they fix it? One million children experienced destitution in the UK last year. Organisations such as Chantelle’s Community Kitchen, Little Village and Wandsworth Foodbank in my constituency work tirelessly to fill in the gaps, but they say that there is increasing hardship and they are worried about the winter ahead. What impact does the Minister think that crashing the economy and unleashing a cost of living crisis have had on child poverty?

[Mel Stride]

The common theme in all the questions that we have had on this substantive question is a lack of memory as to what happened under the previous Labour Government. Under that Government, we had 1 million more workless households and 680,000 more children in those workless households.