Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I agree that it is vital to ensure that people can overcome the barriers to work, including mental health problems and addiction. We are already investing in the skills and capability of the work coaches, but we have also trained 1,800 universal credit work coaches in how to support claimants with specific mental health issues.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

13. What assessment she has made of the effect of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 on levels of poverty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)]

Impact assessments of policies in the Act were published in 2015. Evidence shows that work is the best route out of poverty. The welfare reforms are designed to incentivise people to make the choice to move into work and to give them the tools and assistance to progress.

[Patrick Grady]

Does the Minister agree with his colleagues in Westminster Hall last week who were still trying to blame the financial crash of 10 years ago in making it a justification for these reforms? Will he finally admit that the reforms are in fact an ideological smash and grab on the poorest in society by a Government obsessed with rolling back the size of the state?

[Kit Malthouse]

One of the really disappointing things about the debate on welfare and benefit reform in this place has been the persistent defence of the old benefits system, which was effectively a fraud perpetrated on the poor designed to trap them into being so. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the fact that in the three years to 2016-17 the number of children living in poverty in Scotland was down by 24% compared with the three years to 2009-10, with relative poverty down in the same period too.