Speeches by Kendall.

“Absolutely, and we are already doing that. It will continue until and beyond when the strategy is published, but particularly, as I have said, on the employment support side, we have a big manifesto commitment to devolve more, so that we get it right in Wales. We are working closely with the Welsh Government on that. B…”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“An important part of the work of the child poverty taskforce is to make sure that we take action in every part of the United Kingdom, including in partnership with the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government. We have had meetings about this topic with all the key players, including voluntary sector organisations. …”

“This is really important to me personally. I used to chair something called Feeding Leicester, a programme to end hunger in my city. That emerged from a survey that we did back in 2018, which showed—this was even before covid—that one in five kids in our city were worried about having enough to eat every single day. Th…”

“We want to get this right. We understand that there will be funding implications, and it is really important that we spell out a comprehensive strategy. But we have not had slippage on tackling child poverty. We are putting that into action.”

“Would you like me to answer the question?”

“I think action speaks louder than words. We have taken action to tackle child poverty—”

“You said that there was slippage. I think we have taken action and made a down payment on tackling child poverty.”

“It will be in the autumn—I cannot give you an exact date. I do not believe there has been slippage in this Government’s determination to tackle child poverty. We have introduced a fair repayment rate in universal credit to stop people being plunged into debt. We are introducing free school meals for all children in hou…”

“We are obviously thinking seriously about pension freedoms. There are big decisions when you gain access to your pension about how you make the best use of that for what are longer retirements as we live for longer. Knowledge is power. However, we have to make sure that the plumbing, as you refer to it, and the informa…”

“I understand that this is something that both the previous Committee and you have pushed. Torsten was very open about understanding those implications when he last came here. He has written to the Committee and given evidence to you. That is where we are at the moment.”

“If people have been defrauded of their money, we want them to get it back. We have to make sure that we do that as effectively as possible. What happened here was that actually we were not getting as much of the money back as we wanted, so a change has been made. I want to make sure that this is tackled properly, and w…”

“As Torsten said to you, we are really aware of what is happening and the implications. There are implications for the public finances, and any decisions have to be taken with that absolutely in mind. He is fully aware of it, and he told you that he is looking into it. But there are wider implications for the public fin…”

“When Torsten Bell came to speak to the Committee, he said that he was absolutely aware of the points you have raised about older pensioners, many of whom are women. He has personally met many of them and is fully aware of all of those things. But there are obviously also wider implications for the public finances. I th…”

“We will be saying more soon about the next phase of our pensions review. I am concerned about the risk that tomorrow’s pensioners will be poorer than today’s. As a Labour politician, I do not accept that that is good enough, and we need to face that head-on. I am concerned particularly about those on low incomes who ca…”

“You will know that the main purpose of the Pension Schemes Bill is to try to produce better results for UK pensioners and savers but also for UK plc to start switching some of those investments. The main way we are doing that is by trying to consolidate those small pension pots into larger funds that are able to take m…”

“I think we have to be really clear-sighted about the fluctuating nature of many health conditions. We need a benefits system that reflects that. That is an issue that came up in discussing the legislation. We know that some people are able to work on some weeks or days and not others—how do we have a system that does n…”

“What we want is for people to get into jobs and stay in those jobs. That is always better done when you match people’s skills and what they want for their lives with the appropriate jobs. That is not always available, but that is partly why this Government want to try to create more, better jobs in every part of the co…”

“You will know that we are consulting in the Green Paper on a new unemployment insurance, a new contributory benefit, which would be non-means-tested and set at a higher rate for those who have paid into the system. At the moment, we have two separate benefits, JSA and ESA. The argument behind this is about how we can b…”

“My experience of talking to employers, even since the rise, is that many are desperate to recruit. They have jobs for which they really need skills, and we have people out of work who we need to get those skills. As I said earlier, we want to make sure that we much better match the needs of employers with the right peo…”