Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I support Amendment 174. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said, it relates to our earlier discussion about coalitions of organisations working and campaigning together. As my noble and learned friend the Minister said when summing up that debate, it is important to get the balance right between not creating loopholes in the rules, or rules that can turn into avoidance measures and things like that. But we must balance that with not just allowing but recognising in many cases that it is a good thing for small and medium-sized charities, in particular, to work together in their important campaigning. That should not be made overly burdensome or difficult for them. The amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Hodgson is a sensible way of allowing coalitions to nominate a lead charity to deal with the reporting requirements, and I look forward to hearing what my noble and learned friend the Minister has to say about this in his summing up.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

On this side we very much support getting rid of red tape for small organisations. I think that it is tomorrow that the Joint Committee on the Government’s draft Deregulation Bill will produce its report, so it will be slightly ironic if there is that on the one hand and, on the other, we are regulating these small groups. I look forward to what may be the time when the Minister gives us a “yes” today.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I support the amendment that has just been moved so powerfully and comprehensively by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. Having myself moved a similar amendment in Committee, I do not wish to go over the same ground that she has, save to say that there is a powerful case for providing an exemption from the cap for grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles and other family members who are raising vulnerable children because of very difficult family circumstances such as parental death, alcohol or substance misuse, imprisonment, severe illness, disability, abuse or neglect—the list goes on and on. Children living in the care of family and friends are often exceptionally vulnerable and have already suffered huge disadvantages and traumas in life.

As the noble Baroness clearly put across, one consequence of the benefit cap that I am sure is unintended is that fewer family and friends may step forward as carers in these difficult circumstances, and the cost to the state, particularly if more children go into care as a result, would be considerable. To amplify that point, I shall mention a few statistics that the Family Rights Group was good enough to share with me from an internet survey that it has just conducted—the largest survey of family and friends carers in the UK—with 500 respondents. The survey’s findings show that: more than 16 per cent of respondents were raising three or more children, both kinship children and their own; 11 per cent of respondents were in private rented accommodation and 28 per cent in housing association or council rented accommodation; 29 per cent received housing benefit; 31 per cent had given up work permanently when taking on kinship children while 14 per cent had given up work temporarily; and 20 per cent of the children that they were raising had previously been in an unrelated foster care placement. I think this puts some flesh on the bones of this particular issue.

I know that my noble friend the Minister was very sympathetic in Committee to this issue and has written in very sympathetic terms to the charities which are most involved. I very much hope that he has some reassuring words to give us tonight.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, rather like the amendment which we discussed earlier on carers, this amendment will, as has been spelt out, protect another unappreciated group: grandparents and other family members or friends who take on the care of children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has just told the House, we know that the Minister is sympathetic to this group, which includes many children who have experienced significant traumas before their move to a new caring family.

The Who Cares? Trust estimates that a quarter of these children have lived with abuse, neglect and violence, and a quarter will have been deserted by their parents, often after drug and alcohol abuse. About 60 per cent go to grandparents after family breakdown, one in 10 after a parent’s illness—often mental illness—and one in 10 after the death of a parent. Applying the benefit cap to these families may leave them facing the difficult choices, of which we have already heard, about whether they can simply afford to carry on taking care of the child or children.

As we know, the impact assessment tells us that a family will lose about £93 a week. That is a substantial chunk of income. That may not be very much to Sir, or Mr, Fred Goodwin, but it is a fortune to some of these families. Should any of them decide that they can simply no longer afford to continue looking after the child, that will, as we have heard, create significant costs for the state. With regard to kinship carer allowance, there are estimates that if just 5 per cent of those currently in the care of family or friends were in formal foster care, that alone would add £500 million a year to the cost that the Minister would have to justify to his friends in the Treasury.

The Minister has spoken many warm words about the role played by kinship carers. He has also told us that the benefit cap is primarily intended not as a deficit reduction measure but to change behaviour. Indeed, his right honourable friend the Secretary of State told the BBC that the cap was aimed at making lives better by reducing dependency. We are not talking about dependent claimants here. We are talking about dependent children, who, after some great trauma or difficulty with their own parents, desperately need the kindness, care and homes offered by these grandparents, siblings, aunts or friends. We should be very careful that the Government’s laudable desire to reduce dependency for one group does not have dire effects on the well-being of another.

Given that the cap is not about deficit reduction, so we are not sending the Minister off to arm-wrestle with Her Majesty’s Treasury, we hope that he will try to turn those warm words into concrete protection. It has been suggested earlier this evening that maybe there is a little bit of movement to come. I look forward to hearing from him.