Household Support Fund: Leeds councillors call for extension of lifeline helping struggling families

Leeds City Council heard the Household Support Fund (HSF) helps tens of thousands of people in the city, where one in five children live in poverty.

Councillors passed a white paper motion calling for the government to extend the HSF beyond March this year.

The motion warned that many charities depended on HSF to provide struggling families with emergency support.

Mary Harland, Labour executive member for communities, said: “Our residents should not be in a situation like this. It is not unreasonable to expect the state to step in when the cost of living becomes unaffordable for many.”

The motion said: “Council is concerned that across Leeds families are living under the threat of losing this vital lifeline, especially given one in five children in Leeds are living in poverty.”

A Conservative amendment to the motion said the council should welcome £2.5bn in government funding for the scheme since 2021.

The defeated amendment said that 1.7m fewer households were living in poverty than in 2010 as a result of government efforts to help the vulnerable.

Coun Barry Anderson, Conservative member for Adel and Wharfedale, questioned how extending HSF would be funded.

He told the Labour councillors: “You keep playing politics. Isn’t the point of local government to reach a consensus on a way forward, so we can start doing things together?

“There’s not an unlimited supply of money. You have got to have political priorities.”

Rothwell Liberal Democrat Diane Chapman said she helped run a foodbank, supported by HSF money, which was currently seeing about 60 families each week.

She said: “It’s getting worse. We need to reassure families that rely on it that they are not being abandoned.”

The motion was carried at a full council meeting on Wednesday.