Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Alistair Carmichael

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point, and one with which I have been grappling since I was appointed to this position. He will know that a number of programmes across the Government are aimed at strengthening families, not least the troubled families programme, which has seen an investment of something like £982 million. On new initiatives, he may have heard me mention in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) that we are investing—newly announced in the Budget last year—£39 million in a programme designed to reduce parental conflict. That has been done on the basis of looking for parenting programmes that will create more stability and therefore happier outcomes for families.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

T5. Thanks to the beast from the east, a lot more people now understand that how cold they feel has more to do with wind chill than with ambient temperature. Why do the Government not take wind chill into account when triggering cold weather payments?

[Kit Malthouse]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, triggering cold weather payments is done on the basis of absolute temperature: it has to fall below 0 °C for a length of time. I must confess that, as someone who is married to a Canadian, I know only too well the effects of wind chill and the significant difference it makes. If he will allow me, I will take away that issue and have a look at it.