Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Department for Work and Pensions

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts
Monday 7th October 2019

(5 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Will Quince Portrait Will Quince
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This is probably a question for the Department for Education, but we are supporting more than 1 million children with free school meals, investing up to £26 million in school breakfast clubs and providing approximately 2.3 million four to six-year-olds with a portion of fresh fruit or vegetables each day at school. Through the Healthy Start programme, hundreds of thousands of low-income families benefit from vouchers that can be redeemed against fruit, vegetables, milk and infant formula.

Stephen Timms Portrait Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
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Child poverty is being driven up by the five-week delay during which people have to wait before they receive universal credit. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that what Ministers refer to as an advance is in fact a loan that has to be repaid by claimants, and will he commit to scrapping the five-week delay?