Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Maynard and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The biggest pressure on family budgets was the fact that far too many people lost their jobs as a result of the crash in the economy, in which GDP fell by 7.2%. Since then, we have reformed welfare. It is difficult when people are out of work, but we are doing huge amounts to get them back into work. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State has said, more people are in work, more women are in work and more young people are beginning to get into work, so we are getting more people into a position to look after themselves.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Financial resilience for families in my constituency can be a real challenge. One of the biggest impacts on the family budget can be the loss of a loved one. Does the Secretary of State think it is now time to consider whether social fund funeral payments should be index linked to inflation to ensure that they keep pace with the cost of funerals?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am certainly prepared to discuss the matter with my hon. Friend if he wants to come and see me about it. I keep that area of the social fund under review, as he knows. We localised about £200 million of the social fund to councils so that they could deal with the problems people face directly. We also kept the remaining money, so a total of about £1 billion goes out to all sorts of things, such as funeral payments, support for loans and support for people in hardship. This is a big push by the present Government to help people ahead of payday lenders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Maynard and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is true that voluntary sector organisations tend to deal with the whole person, rather than, like Government Departments and even sometimes local authorities, considering specific issues while forgetting that many of them knock on to each other. Such organisations have an important role to play. We should not ignore the fact that local authorities and Government Departments have to get their act together and make sure that when dealing with families with multiple problems, they talk to each other—always, there is a tendency for them not to do so. The good authorities hub up all the services around the family, which is at the centre, so Health, Work and Pensions, Education and all the Departments involved start to co-ordinate their activity, rather than spend all that money and get nowhere.

[Paul Maynard]

One of my wards, Claremont, is, according to the latest DCLG statistics, the fifth most deprived ward in the country, and I see daily the hurdles that families have to overcome to deal with some of the entrenched problems they face. I realise that no single agency can solve them, nor indeed can any single Government Department. Will the Secretary of State explain what he is doing with other Departments to ensure that all troubled families get a whole-of-Government approach, rather than a series of unconnected initiative-itises?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. That is why the Prime Minister asked specifically that Louise Casey operate and head up a unit, reporting to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which is looking at the 120,000 worst affected, most difficult families. The idea, as I said earlier, is that, working with her, local authorities nominate the families. She wants them to hub up services to make sure that the pooled amount of money they get is spent on life-changing actions, not the tokenistic box-ticking that too often takes place.