Women: Assistance in Pregnancy

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have to look at a holistic system of support for people who are the most disadvantaged in this country. Having bits and pieces of things that do not work is the wrong way to go. This was an example of support that was directed at the wrong point in maternity. If you want to really help in terms of what women eat, it is better to do it in the first trimester, not in the last. The structure of what we are doing with the universal credit involves a system that puts in coherent support for the most disadvantaged right the way through and, by definition, will catch people at the beginning of pregnancy, not at the end.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, the Minister has admitted rushing through these regulations, totally against time conventions, in order to deprive new mothers of claiming after 11 April. Does he realise that this conjures up a picture of Tory and Liberal hard-faced men sitting around a table in Westminster plotting to deprive the poorest people of some financial aid? Is he proud of that?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am not proud of a previous Government who threw bits and pieces of money around like an out-of-control farmyard muckspreader. We are making coherent provision for the most disadvantaged in a way that you could not.