Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chloe Smith and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

19. What steps her Department is taking to support people in receipt of disability benefits with the rising cost of living.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)]

Six million people in receipt of an eligible disability benefit will receive a £150 disability cost of living payment, as well as the £400 energy bill discount. Many will also be eligible for the £650 cost of living payment for lower-income households, the first instalments of which are being paid this week.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for that response, but at the time when the then Chancellor came up with that support package in May, Ofgem’s cap prediction was that a typical bill would rise to £2,800 in October. It now looks as though it could be something like £450 more than that, with yet another rise in January. What additional support will whoever the Chancellor is, or will be in a couple of weeks’ time, come up with to ensure people with disabilities can manage to pay their fuel bills?

[Chloe Smith]

The helpful thing I can add here is that disabled people can, of course, also benefit from the package previously announced in the spring statement, which continues in the format of the household support fund. Many millions of pounds have already been allocated to local authorities, which are best placed to direct help to those who need it most.

Elections: May 2021

Debate between Chloe Smith and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I, too, extend my best wishes to the Minister. Bristol has a particularly complicated set of elections coming up. We have the all-outs for councillors; the mayoral election; the West of England Combined Authority metro mayor election; and the police and crime commissioner election. That would be difficult enough for people to get their head round in ordinary times, so what extra support will the Minister be able to give to local authorities such as Bristol’s to try to ensure that people understand what they are voting for and quite what is up for election? I am thinking, in particular, of those who perhaps do not have the best command of the English language, and those who have visual disabilities or other reasons why this would be particularly tricky for them.

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful for that point and for the hon. Lady’s personal wishes. She rightly says that at any election there is a need to make sure that the public are well informed of what it is for, how to go about it and how to have their voice heard. The Electoral Commission, will, as always, be performing that role ahead of this election. That is in addition to dealing with the specific circumstances of this year, where, as I have said, we will be working together to ensure that there is the right guidance to help people approach these elections with safety, as well as the usual election issues, in mind. All of that together is absolutely the work ahead of us. This is made a little more complicated by the fact that this is already, in part, a postponed set of elections. This House took the decision to postpone a set of elections not at all lightly, in the knowledge that greater complexity would arise later, and that we cannot keep postponing elections and then have to be able to lay the plans and deliver them successfully. That is what we are now doing.