THE Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, was described by Christians Against Poverty (CAP) as their “ideal minister”, when he visited the charity’s headquarters in Yorkshire on Monday. He met their “debt advisers and real clients” to speak with them and to “hear what it’s prefer to be on advantages”.
CAP’s chief executive, Stewart McCulloch, said that, amongst many things, they discussed how you can “make advantages simpler, easier, and more appropriate for people who use them?
“In some ways, Sir Stephen is our ideal minister. He covers the transient of advantages and disability, and the overwhelming majority of our clients slot in relatively well with those two categories.”
Mr McCulloch believes that it is important for politicians to satisfy those affected by hardship, and that visits like these to charities engaged in that work can inform and drive meaningful policy changes. “In politics, there are sometimes numerous individuals with a view of why we’ve got so many poor people and what the solutions could be. You’ve really got to check with people and ask them ‘Why are you on this circumstance, and what are the problems you’re facing?’”
In an announcement, Sir Stephen said: “It was essential to listen to the views of the charity’s clients and debt advisers on how we are able to make sure the profit is tackling poverty and works higher for people.” He said that CAP was doing a “unbelievable job supporting people”.
Mr McCulloch said that, because “inflation has been much higher”, this has caused a “big issue for things like rent, food, energy, and clothing”. But “inflation statistics are based on a basket of products and services that your average person buys. Our clients don’t buy the typical, they will’t afford it. So subsequently they’re buying the fundamentals, and the inflation on the essentials has been much, much higher.”
Across the UK, “seven per cent of adults have borrowed to purchase food” and 59 per cent of CAP’s clients have done so, he said.
Mr McCulloch described CAP’s clients in financial difficulties as having a “big rock squashing them. Their mental health could have caused it not directly, but it surely’s actually made so much worse by that pressure. And our job is to take that pressure off, after which the church wraps across the person and frees them.”
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