Turn2us responds to the 2024 Spring Budget

Responding to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's Spring Budget delivered today, Thomas Lawson, CEO of national anti-poverty charity Turn2us, says: 

"It will be a relief for people that they will be able to continue to receive emergency support through the Household Support Fund.  But the six month extension does nothing to address what causes financial insecurity in the first place.  

"The demand for the Household Support Fund is likely to far exceed what local councils can offer. We hear from hundreds of people every week needing immediate help with food, household bills and essential items: families with a broken fridge-freezer that can no longer store essential medication, or people escaping domestic abuse who need the basics for a new home. The temporary extension of the Fund highlights starkly how our social security system fails to prevent people from sliding into poverty.  

"The reduction in National Insurance will not benefit those on the lowest incomes. What we need is a comprehensive overhaul of the relationship between our welfare system and its beneficiaries. Such reform should begin with adjusting benefits to adequately cover essential living costs and abolishing punitive, ineffective measures like the two-child limit and sanctions."