Universal Credit

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Coussins

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

We have increased the local housing allowance to cover the lowest 30th percentile of the local market, and alternative payment arrangements to landlords have been put in place. If claimants have great difficulties, they can speak to their work coach or client adviser, who, if there is a way to help them, will do their best to find it.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, the five-week wait has significantly increased household debt and anxiety as a result of council tax arrears. Will the Minister please press the Government to issue clear guidance to local authorities that collection and enforcement activity on council tax arrears, including all bailiff contact, should be suspended for a minimum of three months?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I am happy to take that point back to the department and will write to the noble Baroness in due course.

Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Baroness Coussins

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I can only agree with my noble friend about how important vaccination is. We know about its benefits and how safe it is. It is common for people to be afraid of needles, so it is not an easy matter. Perhaps I may take noble Lords back to the point that the right reverend Prelate made about the 800 pastors whom the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation trained. They are working at grass-roots level to ensure that prevention is on the agenda—vaccination is a great contributor to that—and that the culture is changed. But I will take back my noble friend’s point regarding the Foreign Office and will see what I can do.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that all the prevention and treatment programmes funded directly or indirectly by DfID are being delivered not in English and French, which have proved ineffective in the past, but in Swahili and the other three official community languages of the DRC?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

In preparation for the Question, I had to ask my officials what “francophone” meant, which reflects the point made by the noble Baroness. These things are indeed being done in other languages so that we can get the messages to people in the most effective way.