Oral Answers to Questions

Mims Davies Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

7. If his Department will make an assessment of the reasons for which families in receipt of universal credit use food banks.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

The DWP does not assess the reasons why families may use food banks, but we do understand the pressures that they face as a result of the cost of living, and have therefore increased benefits by 10.1% this month. That is in addition to the increase in the national living wage to £10.42 an hour, and the provision of more than £11 billion in cost of living payments.

[Gerald Jones]

Food banks in my constituency and across the country are struggling to deal with demand. More than 40% of people using them are in work, and they are used by one in six children whose families receive universal credit. Meanwhile, the local housing allowance remains frozen and the five-week wait for universal credit is increasing debt. All those factors contributed to the reason why one of the food banks in my constituency nearly closed its doors last week, namely that it had no food to give out. Can the Minister tell me what else the Government will do to support families? It seems that there is very little understanding of the scale of the problem that the country is facing, let alone a willingness to do something about it.

[Mims Davies]

Let me draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the household support fund, which will provide an additional £50 million to help families in Wales through difficult times. The hon. Gentleman’s constituents who are in need will also be pleased to know that the next stage of the cost of living payments will begin tomorrow, with £301 being paid to households between then and 17 May. The DWP will be issuing further communications about those payments.

We have heard today about social tariffs and other ways in which people can obtain support and reduce their bills. The Help for Households website, which I commend to everyone, provides information about assistance with childcare, travel, energy and household costs, and about income support. It will help the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and, indeed, all our constituents.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister has just said that the DWP did not assess the reasons for which people are using food banks. Perhaps she will go back to her private office after this and ask her officials to look into whether people are using them because the Government cut universal credit by £20 a week, and cut it in real terms last year. Perhaps she could ask her officials whether it is because the DWP is taking deductions from universal credit payments every week. Perhaps she could ask the DWP if it is because earnings are worth less than they were in 2007. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether it is because the Government have raised the taxes on working people. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether it is because the Government crashed the economy and sent mortgages and rents through the roof. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether more people are using food banks because that is the price of 13 years of economic failure.

[Mims Davies]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman of Labour’s 10p tax rate, and the fact that we have doubled tax-free allowances? [Interruption.] Food banks are important. They are independent charitable organisations where people in local communities can support each other. [Interruption.] This is a great example of the generosity of spirit in our communities. [Interruption.] If this mattered to the hon. Gentleman, perhaps he would listen to my response rather than chuntering from the Front Bench.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we take the issue of food security very seriously. That is why we added the internationally used food security questions to the “Family Resources Survey: financial year 2019 to 2020”. The new statistics on usage will help the Government to understand more about the characteristics of the people who are most in need, and we will continue to do what we pledged to do and are proving to do in supporting the most vulnerable.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

8. What steps he is taking to reduce child poverty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

This Government believe that work is the best route out of poverty for families and we are supporting parents to progress, to stay in work and to be better off. That was shown in our spring Budget, which will deliver an ambitious package of measures, across Government, to support people to enter into work, increase their working hours and extend their working lives. We have also raised benefits and benefit cap levels by 10.1% and we are providing those further cost of living payments, which commence tomorrow.

[Hywel Williams]

Have the two-child limit and the benefit cap increased child poverty?

[Mims Davies]

The reality of the policy that the hon. Gentleman mentions is about fairness for the taxpayers who support the most vulnerable and making sure that we have a welfare and benefit system that works. We will spend around £276 billion through the welfare system in 2023-24, including £124 billion on people of working age. I would again point people towards the cost of living website and the benefits calculator on gov.uk and I would ask him to note that the benefit cap was raised this year as well.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the importance of the role of carers in implementing the health and disability White Paper.

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[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

T3.   A few weeks ago, I visited Tools with a Mission, a 40-year-old charity in Ipswich with 70 or 80 local volunteers. It takes old, disused and discarded tools, the volunteers work incredibly hard to make them as good as new and those tools are sent to developing countries, where they make a tremendous difference—Zambia and Uganda are two examples. But the impact does not stop there; there is a local impact also. Many of the volunteers are of pensionable age or have recently retired; their involvement in the charity gives them a great sense of purpose and community, and the charity’s work with many individuals with educational needs has helped them to go on with the skills they have learned at the charity to get full-time jobs elsewhere. Will the Minister join me in applauding that work, and work with me to find funding to enhance what the charity is doing?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

Local charities play an important role in providing support in our communities. I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency later this month to see what Combat2Coffee can do to support veterans and their families, and I hope to take a keen interest in Tools with a Mission too, if possible.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

When he appeared before the Select Committee in November, the Secretary of State said that,

“the more transparency there is, the better. It informs public debate and allows a feedback loop for the Department. It is all part of holding us to account and that is extremely important”.

In light of that and in the spirit of the Department’s new approach to transparency, can the Minister provide me with figures on how many DWP staff are themselves reliant on universal credit?

[Mims Davies]

I know the hon. Gentleman takes a particular interest in transparency. I work strongly on the Department’s behalf, with the Minister in the Lords, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with a response.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

T4. I welcome the measures in the Budget to encourage over-50s back into work, harnessing their experience and skills. I also notice that the Department has signed the Age-friendly Employer pledge—I have signed my office up too. What is being done to promote the scheme more widely among employers to encourage them to do the same?

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[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

T8. We must do more to tackle delinquent parents who do not pay child maintenance. When can we expect the home curfew powers to come into effect, and how many people do we expect to be subject to them?

[Mims Davies]

Enforcement action is used as a last resort when a parent is failing to pay their maintenance payments and other action has failed. Home detention is a powerful deterrent and, as such, we would expect usage to be low—perhaps less than 10 cases a year on average. I know that my hon. Friend focuses on this matter. The Child Maintenance Service continues to explore how existing powers can be used to encourage compliant behaviours and facilitate constructive relationships between parents to ensure that, importantly, financial support reaches the children for whom they are responsible.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

A new Work and Pensions Committee report on the health assessments for disability benefits such as PIP and employment support allowance has found that “issues or errors” in the DWP health assessment system have, in some ways, contributed to the deaths of claimants. What assurances can the Minister give the House that those issues and errors will not continue to kill our disabled constituents?