Household Support Fund

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) on securing it. He will recall the situation that we were faced with in the middle of covid, when covid was continuing for longer than we had initially expected. Recognising the challenges that families and pensioners were facing, it was right that we took that action then. I give credit to the Prime Minister, who was then the Chancellor, for working with me and my Department to establish the household support fund. It was with great pride that I formally announced the fund on 30 September 2021.

The right hon. Gentleman was right to raise local welfare assistance. Indeed, it was the Department for Work and Pensions that handed money to councils—it was not ringfenced, but the Department took a localist approach. That funding was kept in as part of the baseline grant for many years; I think it was not until 2020 that it was removed from the information that was formally published on the transfer, recognising that councils were still being funded on local welfare assistance.

I am conscious that covid was a challenging time. In particular, we wanted to make sure we went to the upper-tier unitary authorities that had statutory responsibility for children and adults. We made sure the funding was ringfenced, and we also imposed reporting conditions to ensure the money went either directly into people’s hands or to agencies that could make a difference.

I am conscious that quite a lot of councils resorted to vouchers for funding, but I commend Telford and Wrekin Council, and others like it, for thinking ahead. Instead of just handing out vouchers, the council identified the children who were struggling at home and started buying coats for people—they considered the long term. I would have loved to have seen more innovation in some of the ways the money was spent—whether that concerned bed poverty or similar issues—so that the local elements could be identified. It was important to increase funding for pensioners too; they did not have any opportunity to increase their economic income and were struggling.

I hear what councils are saying, and I do think the Government should extend the household support fund—whatever they may choose to call it in the future. We should challenge councils more to work with, for example, community foundations, whereby significant tax relief is given to local philanthropists to make the money go further. At the same time, we still have the holiday activities and food programme. That was established in October 2021 and was deliberately targeted at young children who were receiving free school meals. Those are the sorts of initiatives in which I am proud to have played a part. I urge the Minister to look further at how we can make the most of the money we distribute.