UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

I am not sure that the Government would do much different from what they are doing. They have a safety net and there are various measures to support people. We are building at speed now the universal support system in which we are combining

with local authorities to help the most vulnerable, but in a very different way from how people have been helped in the past, which was through crisis loans that they went on and on building in a random way, without anyone looking at the root causes of their problems and trying to help them out of them. This approach accords with that. Clearly, we will be spending our money on the root causes of poverty and on life chances. But there will be income measures published, because we have said that we will go on publishing the HBAI. If people want to see what is happening, that gets a lot of publicity every year. That is the change: the money that we will be spending on life chances. Those are some of the mechanisms by which we will do it. Universal support is one of the key things, but there are a lot of other things. Getting mental health right is something that has evaded Governments for a long time, and we are now spending more money on that than any Government have before.

I urge noble Lords not to press these amendments.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
767 cc1426-7 
Session
2015-16
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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