Oeddech chi'n golygu child benefit can?
...from the UK Government through the social security block grant; notes that this investment includes the Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods, as well as the landmark, and extended, Scottish Child Payment, which is estimated to lift 50,000 children out of relative poverty in 2024; recognises that £614 million of Scotland-only benefits are being delivered in 2024-25, which is support that...
David Linden: Rather than deal with the known policy failures within the benefits system, the Government seem to be more focused on penalising people through, for example, the two-child cap. Last week, the Labour party joined the Conservatives in prioritising lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses rather than the two-child cap on working women. Does the Secretary of State take comfort in the fact that his...
Patricia Gibson: ...Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, “UK Poverty 2024”, was clear that six successive UK Prime Ministers have overseen deepening poverty over the past 20 years. It also noted that the Scottish child payment is making a difference in Scotland. We know that the current UK Government will not implement a similar measure in England, but we also know that no incoming Labour Government will...
Wendy Chamberlain: ...to pensioner poverty in my recent Adjournment debate, and I look forward to meeting the Minister, as was promised, to discuss some of them. As Members have already said, we know that one in three children are living in poverty, and that is not acceptable. Madam Deputy Speaker, the report card is in, and it is a fail. Record numbers of families are relying on emergency food parcels. In...
Amy Callaghan: Oh, sorry, you’ve just moved. Low-income families with children continue to be disproportionately hit during the crisis. It is no surprise that that has had an horrendous impact on mental health. When families are in fuel and food poverty, struggling to keep warm and fed, the stress is certainly not limited to parents, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Tooting. It can aggravate specific...
Afzal Khan: I will simply say yes; I will make some of those points later. Manchester City Council has the third highest rate of child poverty among local authorities in England. The Manchester, Gorton constituency has the sixth highest rate, with just over half of all children living in poverty. There are other ways in which we can understand the scale and impact of poverty. For example, 27% of...
Drew Hendry: ...is biting right now. A week ago, this Westminster Government oversaw not the hoped-for help of the £400 energy bill rebate that we in the SNP called for, but another 5% hike, courtesy of the price cap increase. Although clause 25 is righting a small wrong, people living off the gas grid deserve a lot more help than is being offered with this measure. They should have had the comfort of...
Stuart McDonald: Has the Prime Minister seen the utterly damning new UNICEF report showing that in the decade to 2021, child income poverty rose way faster in the UK than in any of the other 39 countries analysed? Scrapping the benefits cap, scrapping the two-child limit and rolling out the Scottish child payment UK-wide could reverse a decade of utter failure, so why will he—or indeed the so-called...
David Linden: ...fact that in-work poverty continues to be a massive blight on our communities. She actually raises this at just the right point, as I approach talking about universal credit, which is an in-work benefit. Ending the five-week wait for universal credit, scrapping the two-child cap and lifting the benefit cap are all measures that can be taken to reduce the significant long-term effects that...
Shona Robison: ...is the third largest as regards wages and gross value added per person in 2021. A record number of foreign direct investment projects were secured in Scotland last year. Devolution has brought many benefits, but it has also exposed quite how beholden we are to the decisions of Westminster. We are fighting Westminster austerity with one hand tied behind our back. In today’s budget, the...
Drew Hendry: ...balances in which the borrower is behind on payments is the largest in six years. The SNP asked for direct help for people: a £400 energy bill rebate, a social tariff on energy, a lower price cap, mortgage interest tax relief and help for tourism businesses through VAT adjustments. Of course, there could have been much more, but we got none of that from the Chancellor or from this place....
Steven Bonnar: I thank the Minister for that answer. As the Women’s Budget Group has rightly pointed out, women are more reliant on benefits, due to care-giving roles, and they have been disproportionately impacted by regressive social security changes since 2010. What consideration has the Minister given to the abolition of the poverty-inducing benefit cap and the hated two-child limit, to prevent...
Lord Sikka: ...less than £12,570 and, as a result, were not liable to pay any national insurance contributions. Due to fiscal drag, that number is now around 19 million. The national insurance cut delivers zero benefit to 19 million adults, the majority of whom are women. This includes families who have been robbed of nearly £3,000 a year by the Government’s two-child benefit cap. As usual, the...
Viscount Younger of Leckie: ...just round up some of the themes. There were a lot of wide-ranging themes this afternoon: the importance and value of marriage, including same-sex marriage and in the traditional sense; a focus on children; views on single-person households and lone parents; relationships generally, and relating better, and how much this matters; a focus on the elderly from the noble Lord, Lord Davies; the...
Jo Churchill: It is not possible to produce robust estimates of the effect of the impact of uprating the household benefit cap by inflation on the number of children in child poverty or similar impacts of the removal of the household benefit cap on the same group. There was a significant increase to the benefit cap levels following a review last year. The benefit cap continues to provide a strong work...
Baroness Andrews: ...Lords who have put their name down to speak this afternoon, despite the hour and the weather. In the spring Budget, the Government made £4.3 billion of new investment to expand entitlement to childcare. For children between nine months and three years, who will be offered 30 hours of funded—not free—childcare per week from April 2024, this was extremely welcome. I want the Minister...
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle: ...increase in the past decade. We are going to see a huge spike in pensioners living in private rental homes that they cannot afford. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures show that 1 million children experienced destitution last year—a number that has almost doubled since 2019. What is in the Green Party’s alternative Autumn Statement, released before the Chancellor stood up, for...
Gillian Martin: ...drivers of people not being able to eat, which relate to poverty. The Scottish Government has tried to identify meaningful and efficient measures that we can take to alleviate poverty. The Scottish child payment of £25 a week has been hailed as making a “significant difference” by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations in the report that it published this week. I recommend...
Bob Doris: ...in the wider advice sector in Glasgow to spot victims of economic abuse, ask them about it and provide them with support. The team have secured £857,000 in financial gains for clients through benefit gains or debt write-offs. Significantly, the team has also identified and supported seven women who have been subjected to gender-based violence and who were losing out on welfare support...
Jon Cruddas: ...would effectively freeze all non-statutory spending. There is obviously also a wider national story here. Councils continue to face increasing demands for statutory services, especially adult and children’s social care, the provision of temporary accommodation, and homelessness support. Demographic forces are driving up demand for those services, and that affects some councils more than...
