Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I also join in the thanks, particularly to the Clerks’ team, who have been incredibly helpful, as ever. I expect nothing less, and have never received anything less from the House of Commons staff; they are always excellent. I also echo the Minister’s thanks to all those in DWP and HMRC who will be working so hard; we appreciate the additional work that it will mean, and has already meant, to get these things in place. We are massively supportive of all those staff who will be doing a really difficult job, and potentially working an awful lot, in order to pull this off. That is massively appreciated The provisions in the Bill, although welcome, although additional and although they go towards the cost of living, do not cover the cost of living increases that our constituents face. They do not even cover the energy price increases, never mind the inflation on the most basic foods which people just have to buy. You cannot get away without buying pasta, rice or bread. People are stuck with the massive price increases in those foods; they have to buy those things. There has already been a time lag—people are not getting the payments today, although I appreciate that they are getting them quickly—and people will already be feeling the squeeze and struggling. The £326 on the horizon is great; it is helpful, but it is not enough. It does not provide the level of support that uprating benefits in April could have provided, which would have helped with that squeeze resulting from the cost of living The one really big thing that the Government could do today to make a massive difference to people’s lives would be to put up the pretendy living wage to a real living wage—a wage that people can actually live on. That is reserved to Westminster—the Scottish Government do not have the powers to do that—and it would make a difference to people. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) was talking about the hard work that his constituents do and the amount of money that people get on benefits. The thing is that 40% of the people on universal credit are in work. A huge number of the people going to food banks and their children are in households with at least one parent in work. I get that the Government want to get people into work, but people are in work and still cannot afford to live. They still have to have this top-up from the Government. The Government can help to fix that problem by increasing the minimum wage to a real living wage and giving it to everybody who is over 18, removing the inherent ageism The other thing that the Government have missed and failed on in this Bill relates to people who have no recourse to public funds. Those people are, by definition, missed. That is the intention of what the Government are doing, but we can see that the most destitute, desperate people in our society are those who have no recourse to public funds. The Bill fails to provide support to anybody who is not on the gateway benefits or to anybody who is struggling but does not fit into the criteria. This is particularly acute when people have no recourse to public funds. We are seeing children literally starving because their parents have no recourse to public funds. Some of these cases involve people who are fleeing domestic abuse and are not eligible for the destitution domestic violence concession because they are, for example, an EU citizen or because their partner was a student. There are a lot of problems with this. Another thing that is missing is that we do not know when we are going to get the legislation on the pensioner cost of living payments. If the Minister could let us know when that legislation is coming, that would be very helpful. Could he also let us know when we are going to get the energy bills support scheme legislation? This Bill is only part of the package. We have been discussing the whole package, but this legislation only brings in a bit of it. The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) asked me earlier where the money was going to come from to pay for all this, but we do not yet have any legislation on the charges that are going to be made on the energy companies. If we could just have had a timeline for when we could expect that legislation to come in, we would not have been in this situation, with this Bill appearing a week before we go through every single process in the Bill. MPs need longer to look at these other pieces of legislation that are coming through, and if the Government could do anything to ensure that we get even slightly more time to scrutinise the legislation as it comes in, that would be appreciated. As I have said, I thank the Government for bringing forward this package, but it is not enough. They need to go further, and they need to uprate benefits and backdate that to April, but we welcome this package Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed. Business of the House (Today) Ordered, That, at this day’s sitting— (1) the Speaker shall put the questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the motion in the name of Mark Spencer relating to the Speaker’s Conference not later than one hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order; such questions shall include the questions on any amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; and the business may be proceeded with, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and (2) Standing Order No. 41A (deferred divisions) shall not apply to either the business relating to the Speaker’s Conference or to the business relating to the Committee on Standards.—(Michael Tomlinson.)