Lord Cryer (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 9 January 2025

Debate

Contribution

I am grateful for the question, but I do not recognise the figure of 70%. The noble Viscount is accurate in saying that the ambition is to move 2 million people into work. The traditional view, which still holds credibility, is that being in work is not just the best way out of poverty but that people in work are generally much healthier than people who are not. The problem is that, under the previous Government, we saw a situation develop where roughly 60% of households in poverty have at least one person in work. That had never been the case before in British history. That itself provides all sorts of complexities and problems, which we are trying to deal with, partly through the White Paper, which he mentioned, but also through the Green Paper, which introduces the consultation in the spring.

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