Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mims Davies and Jonathan Ashworth

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister has just said that the DWP did not assess the reasons for which people are using food banks. Perhaps she will go back to her private office after this and ask her officials to look into whether people are using them because the Government cut universal credit by £20 a week, and cut it in real terms last year. Perhaps she could ask her officials whether it is because the DWP is taking deductions from universal credit payments every week. Perhaps she could ask the DWP if it is because earnings are worth less than they were in 2007. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether it is because the Government have raised the taxes on working people. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether it is because the Government crashed the economy and sent mortgages and rents through the roof. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether more people are using food banks because that is the price of 13 years of economic failure.

[Mims Davies]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman of Labour’s 10p tax rate, and the fact that we have doubled tax-free allowances? [Interruption.] Food banks are important. They are independent charitable organisations where people in local communities can support each other. [Interruption.] This is a great example of the generosity of spirit in our communities. [Interruption.] If this mattered to the hon. Gentleman, perhaps he would listen to my response rather than chuntering from the Front Bench.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we take the issue of food security very seriously. That is why we added the internationally used food security questions to the “Family Resources Survey: financial year 2019 to 2020”. The new statistics on usage will help the Government to understand more about the characteristics of the people who are most in need, and we will continue to do what we pledged to do and are proving to do in supporting the most vulnerable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mims Davies and Jonathan Ashworth

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

DWP already has a range of provisions in place to upskill jobseekers to take on key roles such as HGV drivers, including through the sector-based work academy programme, which give claimants the skills and qualifications that they need directly to take up local driver roles.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, may I associate myself with your remarks and thanks directed at Her Majesty the Queen?

I read in the newspapers at the weekend that the Secretary of State is considering resigning over the Prime Minister’s rule breaking and partying. Before she heads for the exit door, given that 550,000 children are destitute, half a million children do not have a suitable bed to sleep in and she has cut universal credit by £1,000, why is she pushing through real-terms cuts to support that mean 10 million households will lose £290? How many more children will be in poverty as a result?