Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alison McGovern and Meg Hillier(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)
Our Labour Government will build the homes that Britain needs and put our country on a path to end homelessness for good, unlike the Tories, who—if people have not heard us say this already today—allowed homelessness and rough sleeping to double. We will publish the child poverty strategy and the homelessness strategy shortly, and both will set out steps to defend families against the risk of getting stuck in temporary accommodation.
Alison McGovern
That is a very important point: London is a fine city, but we need to ensure that everyone there is housed well. That is why the Labour Government are investing more than £1 billion in homelessness services this year—an increase of more than £300 million. That includes £10.9 million of top-up funding, announced last month, to increase access to support services in areas with the highest number of children in temporary accommodation, like the one mentioned by my hon. Friend. We have to get everybody in this country properly housed.
Dame Meg Hillier
As the Minister says, we do need that housing. There are some solutions locally, where Education or Health land has become available. Will she undertake to talk to those Department—I can talk to her in more detail about local issues—to ensure that that land can be released as soon as possible, with the prospect of it becoming social housing for local families?
Alison McGovern
My hon. Friend is an expert in these matters. She knows that the Secretary of State has taken recent steps to make sure that we do build homes, including social and affordable homes, in London. We will certainly work very closely with her, and with the information she mentions, to get homes built.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alison McGovern and Meg Hillier(9 months ago)
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Alison McGovern
The Health Secretary and I talked about child poverty many times as we sat on the Opposition Benches watching the situation for our kids get worse and worse every year. The Member makes a very serious and important point about the wide-ranging consequences of poverty and, if I may, I would encourage him to submit the evidence he mentioned to the child poverty taskforce so that we can take full account of it.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
One in two children in my constituency live in poverty. There is a lot of speculation swirling around the excellent child poverty taskforce, which I applaud the Government for establishing, including that the cap could be lifted for under-fives, which would affect fewer than 20,000 households compared with the 440,000 households which currently are affected by the two-child benefit cap. Can the Minister reassure the House and the country that the child poverty taskforce is looking to support all children in poverty, whatever decisions it comes up with, and not just a small segment of them?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alison McGovern and Meg Hillier(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I applaud the Front-Bench team for its energy in driving the child poverty taskforce, but every decision has consequences and costs. Will the Minister outline the costs of some of the processes she is looking at changing, particularly the cost of lifting the two-child cap, and if she does not have the figure to hand will she write to me?
Alison McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Treasury Committee for all her work on this issue. I will happily engage with her through correspondence on the matter.