Women: Assistance in Pregnancy

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I thank my noble friend for reinforcing this important point. There will be a gap, probably of around nine months, before we can formally change the budgeting loans. We are making the very firm point—I made that firm point formally in the Chamber yesterday—that we are encouraging people to use the scheme to the utmost extent that they can and to apply it to slightly wider items than those around budgeting for the baby.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the Minister has confirmed again, as he did in the debate yesterday, that families will eventually be able to access budgeting loans. However, is he aware that just last week the Minister for Pensions announced a further tightening of the screw on the availability of crisis loans from the Social Fund on the basis that this would enable the trickle of budgeting loans to continue? Is this not making the very poor pay for the poor?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the trouble was that the crisis loans were being used in a non-crisis context to buy ordinary items of household expenditure, so we were in danger of running out of funding for the whole system because of the way it was being used. Our concern with controlling the crisis loan situation was to make sure that funding was left available for budgeting loans for exactly this kind of thing.