Lord Hylton
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(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The noble Baroness has asked a range of questions, and if I fail to answer all of them now, no doubt we can speak later. We are clearing the backlog and, as she will know, there has been significant progress. I shall repeat the figures: the backlog is coming down and we are clearing 65,000 claims a month. The Minister in another place, Mark Harper, will report on progress to the Work and Pensions Select Committee on 28 January. The rate of clearances is improving month on month, and the number of outstanding cases in the system has been falling significantly.
Lord Hylton (CB)
Last year, food banks served 500,000 people in six months. If people cannot even afford food, does that not show that there is acute financial hardship? Will the Government therefore try to reduce the number of people suffering sanctions and make sure that sanctions last for the minimum possible period?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The noble Lord draws attention to the important role that food banks are fulfilling. Food banks have existed for well over a decade throughout western Europe, the USA and Canada. The reasons for using food banks are many and complex, and I pay tribute to what they are doing. As I say, to address some of the concerns we are publicising much more the possibility of early payment of hardship benefit and so on, and we are working with food retailers on food waste.