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 talk with them and to “hear what it’s like to be on benefits”.

CAP’s chief executive, Stewart McCulloch, said that, among many things, they discussed how to “make benefits simpler, easier, and more appropriate for those that use them?

“In some ways, Sir Stephen is our ideal minister. He covers the brief of benefits and disability, and the vast majority of our clients fit in relatively well with those two categories.”

Mr McCulloch believes that it is vital for politicians to meet 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 often lots of people with a view of why we have so many poor people and what the solutions might be. You’ve really got to talk to people and ask them ‘Why are you in this circumstance, and what are the issues you’re facing?’”

In a statement, Sir Stephen said: “It was important to hear the views of the charity’s clients and debt advisers on how we can ensure the benefit is tackling poverty and works better for people.” He said that CAP was doing a “fantastic 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 goods and services that your average person buys. Our clients don’t buy the average, they can’t afford it. So therefore they’re buying the basics, and the inflation on the essentials has been much, much higher.”

Across the UK, “seven per cent of adults have borrowed to buy 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 may have caused it in some way, but it’s certainly made a lot worse by that pressure. And our job is to take that pressure off, and then the church wraps around the person and frees them.”