Local Welfare Assistance

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, it is important to say that the national welfare system provides robust safeguards. These include: short-term benefit advances or universal credit advances for people in urgent financial need; Social Fund budgeting loans or universal credit budgeting advances to help with one-off and unforeseen expenses; and hardship payments for people who are sanctioned. But by abolishing the Social Fund crisis loans, which themselves had huge problems, we have now empowered local authorities to develop and deliver new provision to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people in their local communities.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister think that it is irresponsible to delegate powers to local authorities and at the same time savage their budgets so that they cannot meet those responsibilities?

[Baroness Buscombe]

No, my Lords. The Government believe that councils are best placed to decide how to support local welfare needs. Local authorities in England will receive more than £200 billion to deliver those and other community services between this year and 2019-20, and will have the certainty to plan ahead through our four-year funding settlement.