Furniture Poverty

Mims Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for securing this debate and for his thoughtful speech that I learned many things from. We also had contributions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), as ever, and from the new hon. Members for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) and for Northampton South (Mike Reader), who made an interesting point about home design. I agree with the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), about charity. The challenge is that “Hello, I’m from the Government and I’m here to help” is not always the right approach, but there has certainly been much to consider in this flooring debate.

I thank the new hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for sharing the impact on him. I lost my home when my dad was made disabled, and I certainly did not have people round, due to his disability. We may have different approaches in this House to fixing things, but many of our experiences are similar. I thank him for sharing that, because these things are never easy to do.

The outgoing Conservative Government, certainly when I was in the Department for Work and Pensions, found furniture poverty to be a hidden issue. I will welcome hearing from the Minister, because we have often debated together and it is a pleasure to be in the Chamber with her. I believe that we had a strong record of understanding in this area in the DWP—I recognise some of the officials in the Chamber this afternoon—but the challenge is always about how to approach such matters.

Despite our delivering the fastest-growing economy in the G7—the economy was mentioned—the challenges around the pandemic and the war in Ukraine meant that supporting the most vulnerable was often a crucial challenge in the last few years. Benefits were rightly uprated with inflation, however: the state pension was uprated by 10.1% in 2023 and again by 8.5% this year. I was also proud to work on the £94 billion cost of living support, which I am sure the Minister will mention, and I was the Minister who delivered the key cost of living payments to 8.3 million people in 2023. That was no mean feat for the Department for Work and Pensions. I also signed into law the regulations to provide 6 million people with extra cost disability benefits—an additional £150 for disabled people.

The report by End Furniture Poverty is stark, showing that 55% of adults in fuel poverty have a disability and therefore need those extra payments. In fact, I have seen for myself some of the furniture poverty support that we provided as a Government, particularly in Wolverhampton. It was clear that fuel poverty is as much about materials and fabrics as it is about beds. I thank End Furniture Poverty for its report, and I appreciate that this is an issue that the Department is seeking to understand.

I also appreciate that the Minister and the Labour party have a somewhat complicated relationship with universal credit, but we know that universal credit works in getting support to those people who need it; it particularly worked during the pandemic. The move from a paper-based process was a key change that we certainly leaned on during the pandemic.

When I was a Minister, we were able to allocate £900 million from the dormant assets scheme to projects across the UK to alleviate wider poverty and to support the charity sector. I know that many local authorities understand the challenges and needs of their communities best, which is why I absolutely support the extension of the household support scheme. When I was a Minister, we really worked on flexibility in guidance for local councils. Whether it was about buying an air fryer, supporting people with energy bills, or buying a washer and a dryer, it was absolutely possible. In the first tranche of funding, £3.8 million and £4.8 million were awarded to my own local authorities in East Sussex and West Sussex respectively.

As I say, I have seen that funding in action in Wolverhampton. I have also seen the support that has needed to be given in libraries through the Citizens Advice services in East Grinstead and Uckfield in my constituency. I am glad that we are close to this need on the ground. I applaud the Government for supporting this, and I hope that alongside the uplift to the local housing allowance on which we were able to deliver, the Minister can persuade the Treasury that this is important work to continue with.

The Government’s decisions in the Budget will certainly add to the challenges. It is frankly shocking, as I think the Minister would agree, that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has concluded that the average family will be £770 worse off in real terms by October 2029 than they are today because of the Budget. Our constituents need to know where the £300 of energy savings will materialise from.

There were also the shameful changes to pensioner payments for 10 million pensioners. It is really important that the Government respond to the Social Security Advisory Committee about the potential poverty impact. I ask the Minister to explain how furniture poverty will be affected. We have heard about the choice between heating and eating, which is certainly something that I worked to alleviate.

I would also love to hear from the Minister on the point about disabled people, including on the future of the cross-Government work of the disability champions, which I understand has been somewhat sidelined. Their work meant that each Department had a particular focus when it came to disability and poverty.

Taking all this together with the impact of the Budget of broken promises, and looking to the future, I hope that the Government will ensure pensioners can keep warm this weekend, and that they will continue to work with local authorities and the Treasury to help people who find themselves affected by furniture poverty. Some very practical ways of alleviating the issue have been mentioned today. The Opposition will work with the Government and with all Members to ensure that we support any changes that are possible, but I say to Government Members that when they troop through the Lobbies this evening to vote on the Budget, I hope they will remember this debate.