Oldham MP challenges ‘inadequate’ cost of living support

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams

The Work and Pensions Select Committee, which includes Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams, has published a report which she insists shows that the Government’s cost of living support has been insufficient.

The cross-party inquiry received nearly 2,000 survey responses from those with first-hand experience of the payments. 

It found that payments have not reached all low-income households and therefore calls on the Government to consider adding housing benefit as a qualifying benefit for future cost of living support payments.

The Committee also found that the unsophisticated nature of the payments system has often failed to meet the needs of families, older people and those with disabilities. 

As such, the report recommends that future cost of living support payments should therefore take account of family size, while financial support for those with disabilities should be increased in proportion to the additional costs that they incur. 

The report also recommends that the Government should uprate Universal Credit instead of issuing payments and that guidance to local authorities on the Household Support Fund should be clarified to make clear the potential eligibility of some people with no recourse to public funds, who are currently missing out on help. 

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Ms Abrahams said: “Here in Oldham and Saddleworth we have seen the brutal effects of the cost of living crisis on ordinary families.

"Prices have spiralled out of control while wages and social security support have been drastically cut in real terms. 

"It is at moments like these that we see the importance of a social security system that is adequate enough to support those who need it, not a safety net with gaping holes. 

"For example, this September I published a film called 'The Unequal Pandemic' and one of the clear conclusions of the experts who were interviewed was that the inadequacy of the social security system was linked to excess deaths during the pandemic.

"The link between social security and our health could not be clearer, in Oldham, Saddleworth and beyond.”

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