Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The important point to make to my hon. Friend is that the Work and Health programme is just one part of a wider package of initiatives that we are taking forward to close the disability employment gap and to provide better support for people with long-term health conditions. I shall not repeat what I said in response to earlier questions, but the Green Paper that we are publishing later this year will outline the full range of reform options that we are interested in taking forward.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

7. What assessment his Department has made of the effect of recent changes to benefits on the number of children living in poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

We know that work is the best route out of poverty. The number of people in work is at a record high and the number of children living in a household where no one works has fallen by 450,000 since 2010.

[Shabana Mahmood]

My constituency has the third highest level of child poverty in the country, and 13,600 families currently receive tax credits, leaving them vulnerable to the Government’s cuts to universal credit. In his aborted bid for the Tory leadership, the Secretary of State said that he had a

“strong grasp of…the social and economic divisions in our country”.

If that is true, does he agree that cuts to universal credit will only compound the social and economic divisions in our country? Will he now commit to reversing those changes so that our children do not have to pay the price of his Government’s political choices?