Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Pat McFadden and Neil Duncan-Jordan

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust are campaigning for an essentials guarantee that would ensure that benefits cover the necessities for living. Does the Minister agree that the welfare state should be a universal safety net, not a trapdoor?

[Pat McFadden]

I very much agree that the welfare state should be there to help people to change their circumstances, not just to keep them in their circumstances. I am pleased to report that we have now put in place the crisis and resilience fund, which will help people in the most desperate circumstances, and we have guaranteed its funding for the next three years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Pat McFadden and Neil Duncan-Jordan

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

We have a very different approach to the issue of NEETs from the Conservative party. We are not going to sit and look at the graph rise year by year without offering young people hope and aspiration for the future. That is why we brought forward a package, with £800 million of backing, to offer training or work to the young unemployed, and ensure that they have options in life rather than a life on benefits.

[Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)]

I welcome the child poverty strategy published on Friday. Will the Secretary of State outline what more needs to be done to end child poverty for good?

[Pat McFadden]

It is estimated that the child poverty strategy we published on Friday will lift more than 500,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. Critically, most of the children in poverty are living in households where someone works, so setting up the working against the non-working is completely contrary to the facts on child poverty.