Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Meacher in her amendment, which she so eloquently moved. A couple of years ago a woman called Stacie visited Parliament to talk to your Lordships in preparation for a childcare Bill. She talked about her difficulty, as a mother of a disabled child, in finding appropriate childcare. I think she went through more than 20 childcare providers who just said, “Look, we cannot deal with the needs of your child”. Eventually she found a very good provider that was prepared to go the extra mile. I know that this is an issue we have to take seriously and are looking to improve in terms of making childcare more easily accessible. It continues to be a problem. So there is that additional issue that I would highlight to your Lordships.

My noble friend also highlighted the fact that so many of these women are bringing up disabled children on their own. I invite your Lordships, women and men, to think about trying to bring up a child on your own when that child has a disability. The risks of isolation, of being overwhelmed—all those things must be exacerbated.

The Minister, in the early discussion about popular feeling with regard to taxation, made his response. It made me reflect a little that perhaps part of the way the public sees these issues is mediated by how the Government present them. I encourage the Government to be very careful, and I hope that this will not be taken the wrong way. On Saturday morning I was speaking to a mother with a two week-old baby, and she was speaking with another mother. The other mother, perhaps a little unkindly, because this two week-old baby had an elder sister, who was three, said, “Has the older sister started trying to kill her yet?”. What this highlighted for me is that it is such a basic element of human nature to be envious, to resent something that somebody else has, that one has to think through very carefully how one presents sharing resources with somebody else, or giving resources to somebody else and not giving it to another person. I am afraid that that may not come across very well. I say to the Government that I hope they are being very careful about how they present these things.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, we on these Benches support these amendments, too—Amendment 3 in particular. The House needs some assurances from the Government that the disability premium for each disabled child in both tax credits and universal credits will be protected, regardless of the number of children in the family. However, the child element in tax credits and universal credit will be paid only in respect of two children in a family, even when the third child is disabled. That is the point. We need to look at those exemptions, so if the Government have already said that there is some protection, surely that same protection should be afforded to the third child who is disabled.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make a brief point in support of the powerful case that has already been made. I believe that the latest HBAI statistics showed an increase in poverty among disabled children. Can the Minister tell us his assessment of the impact of these clauses on the number of disabled children living in poverty?