Oeddech chi'n golygu to child benefit can?
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: Absolutely. My hon. Friend is spot on to draw the comparison on an issue that impacts both my constituents and hers. I think that probably the two places in Glasgow that are most often twinned are Easterhouse and Drumchapel. She is spot on to refer to the 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...
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...
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...
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: ...of the work that they do and the positive difference that they have made to the lives of women who have endured gender-based violence. The small team of four—a project manager, a training and network officer, and two welfare rights advisers who specialise in advising survivors of gender-based violence—use trauma-informed approaches and make a real difference. To date, they have...
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...
Richard Thomson: ...waited to see what the Chancellor would drop. The backdrop is certainly about as far removed as anyone could ever have hoped it would have been going into such a crucial period. Not only is GDP per capita still not above 2019 pre-pandemic levels, but the UK is expected to suffer the biggest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s. Most people are expected to be worse off...
Marion Fellows: ...energy bills. It is a top priority for them. At the outset, I would like to thank the many organisations that sent me briefings for today’s debate: Sense, Scope, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Mencap, Marie Curie, Age UK, and Kidney Care UK, as well as Citizens Advice, National Energy Action, Warm This Winter and Centrica—a record amount of briefings for me. Yesterday’s disappointing...
John Martin McDonnell: ...the day before, and it is not a novel playbook—it is one they have used consistently. It is the same old Tory strategy. First, there are tax cuts as a pre-election bribe, then it goes on to the scapegoating of some vulnerable group, before making ludicrous claims about Labour’s plans to try to petrify people into not voting for change. Even with the media that we have, I do not think...
Rachael Maskell: ...we have 14.5 million people on the edge, in poverty, in debt, struggling with heating, rent and food. And of course there was no promise of additional help today. We must remember that 4.3 million children in York and across the country now live in poverty; 18% of pensioners are counting the pennies to get by and we have a harsh winter ahead of us, with the energy price cap due to go up...
Shona Robison: ...to recognise that and to change course. Our public finances have continued to face significant challenges from inflation, Brexit, the war in Ukraine, the increased costs of public sector pay and a capital budget that does not come close to what is required. Despite those challenges, I am pleased that, last week, the Auditor General for Scotland gave the Scottish Government’s accounts for...
Viscount Younger of Leckie: The Government is committed to reducing poverty, including child poverty, and supporting low-income families. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and children, and around £152 billion on pensioners. Of this, around £79 billion will be spent on benefits to support disabled people and people with...
Wendy Chamberlain: Figures from the Trussell Trust show that food bank usage is at its highest ever level, and over the summer months a record 41,878 parcels of food were provided to 21,000 children in Scotland alone. Meanwhile, child poverty costs the Government £39 billion per year in poor health and educational outcomes. In order to tackle child poverty properly, will the Government commit to keeping...
the Bishop of Durham: ...-term decisions to build a better future for the country. I confess that I am struggling to see much evidence of that plan. To think truly long-term about our country’s future, it is vital that children and families and the environment are at the heart of every policy, particularly from the Treasury. Without prioritising investing in children, what hope is there of moulding citizens who...
Baroness Twycross: ...the Government are “continuing to roll out our mental health support teams in schools and colleges across the country so that 50 per cent of pupils are covered by 2025”. Place2Be, a leading children’s mental health charity in schools, is clear that by intervening early we can help prevent problems becoming more serious. How, then, is 50% cover by 2025 acceptable? Pupil absences are...
