Household Support Fund Debate
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Richard Burgon
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Household Support Fund
Richard Burgon Excerpts(9 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) on securing this extremely important debate.
We have to look at who is in most need with regard to the household support fund. These people are so desperate. What are they after? They are after food. It is 2024, and we have people pleading—begging—for food. The people in receipt of the support are people who are on the breadline, as other speakers have explained. It is a lifeline—it is a lifesaver. Why on earth the Government are considering not continuing the fund, or have possibly already made the decision not to continue it after the next month or so, is beyond me.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend, like me, seeing more and more people coming to his constituency advice sessions who are in desperate need, pushed into penury and really struggling to make ends meet? What they need now is certainty that the Government will say, “Do you know what? Yes, we’ll extend the household support fund and we’ll do it now.”
Ian Lavery
I totally agree. These people are after food; they are after soap powder; they are after sanitary products. Potentially, they are after heat, warmth and light. This is 2024, for goodness’ sake! We all understand it; we all have people in our constituency surgeries who are suffering greatly as a consequence of this.
As politicians, we all have decent lives and we are all very comfortable, but we see constituents who are in desperate need of help. They are not after luxuries; they just want to keep themselves clean and feed their kids. That is what the household support fund is for.
I place on the record my massive thanks to Northumberland Communities Together. It is led by Julie Leddy, who is getting into the community and has been able to speak to people. The people who need support the most are the hardest to reach. Julie and her team have been absolutely fantastic.
The household support fund needs to be funded adequately and needs to be renewed on a multi-year basis. We need to encourage non-digital applications. Most of all, we need to ensure that the fund continues in the best interests of the people who, sadly, we all see in our constituency offices on a regular basis, who have got absolutely nothing.