Universal Credit

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord German this evening not because I am at all qualified in the intricacies of the working of the current benefit system or any of the proposals. I speak because I know a little bit about children’s grief and the distress following the death of a family member. In my case, one daughter was killed and her younger sister and I lived through the ensuing years and the aftershocks of extreme grief. I was lucky to be married to an extremely supportive second husband, who had himself suffered the death of his beloved elder brother at a similar age to my surviving daughter, so he was able to empathise more than most people.

During earlier debates on this issue, I note that noble Lords who are speaking today, including the Minister, referred to the many effects of extreme grief, and I do not need to reiterate them now. However, one thing that I would add to this evening’s debate is that a child in distress may learn very adequately to disguise that distress because they want to make the burden less on the surviving parent. That is a danger: if one of the measures is whether the child is in distress, the answer may be apparently no. My noble friend said:

“The point I am trying to make is that it is far better to recognise that individual responses to grief vary. As a number of noble Lords have said, grief often does not manifest in behavioural and emotional challenges until months or even years down the line”.—[Official Report, 27/2/14; col. 744.]

I appreciate his deep understanding of the issue.

This evening, I want to share a few points about the causes of bereavement and what effect they can have on the grieving process. Those come not as a direct result of my personal experience but because I was, as a result, asked to become patron of the Compassionate Friends, which is an international bereavement support network. Through that organisation, I have learnt of the many and varied circumstances in which parents can find themselves. The death could be suicide, accident, murder or illness. It can be sudden, shocking and numbing or it can be lengthy and drawn out, so that by the actual death the survivors are already exhausted.

This is particularly pertinent to this evening’s discussion because in the case of suicide or murder there would of course have to be an inquest, which might well not begin for over six months. I am glad to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, is in her place, because she and I debated the issue of timeliness at length during the passage of the Coroners Act. This has improved, but the inquest could still not take place for several months, and might then continue for several weeks. This is likely to be at a time which is at least as stressful as the actual death and often more so, given the forensic examination of details. In the case of a death resulting from a crime there would be a court case. Again, this may continue for some time and be very stressful. In those cases it would be impossible to apply the formula which my noble friend raised this evening, because periods of one month every so often would not cover those sorts of scenarios.

I will briefly make a point that has been raised by the organisation I mentioned, the Compassionate Friends. Of course family and friends generally rally round at first to help. However, as time passes they might not be able to continue that support, or they may feel that it is time someone got over it, and so the situation may become more stressful after six months.

Returning to work is often welcome, because a return to any sort of normality is helpful. I must say that in my own case, while I would not say that returning to the House of Lords was life-saving, it brought me back to a state of normality. Even when someone is back at work, there will of course be the dreaded Christmas or other festive occasions such as birthdays, and there will be anniversaries of the death. In addition, for the child or children there will be things that trigger an enormous need for extra support from their surviving parent—for example, very predictable things such as exams or parents’ evenings. Holidays can be very stressful. There might be things that are not even foreseen. A teenage child might suffer from the break-up of their first or second relationship, which would also trigger all sorts of unforeseen issues.

As the Compassionate Friends say, individuals grieve differently and there is no timetable for grief. I hope that, within the constraints of needing some guidance, the discretion given to the easement months can be considerably more flexible. I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue.

Food: Food Banks

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the criteria for the issuing of food vouchers by Jobcentre Plus branches for use at food banks.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, Jobcentre Plus offices do not issue food vouchers. Some Jobcentre Plus offices have an agreement with their local food bank for referrals, but some simply signpost claimants to a variety of available local provision, including by local authorities, depending on their immediate needs. We gave Jobcentre Plus district managers the freedom to make local links with food banks.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply, but does he agree that because the provision of food banks by major retailers is driven down by the Courtauld agreement, whereby retailers have very few food surpluses, the signposting by job centres to food banks will not be a way of providing food to those in emergency need? Will he ensure that his department monitors the referral and re-referral of signposting, so that by the time universal credit, which I support, is introduced, his department will have a full picture of those in food need and proper account will be taken of it?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I must emphasise to my noble friend that food banks are absolutely not part of our welfare system, in which we have other means of supporting people. There is local provision, and following the devolution of part of the Social Fund to local authorities, local authorities are now responsible for setting up local welfare provision. To the extent that they are interested in using third-sector groups, including food banks, that is entirely up to them.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I entered your Lordships’ House in 1998, and at the first gracious Speech debate that I attended one word was never uttered—and it was probably not uttered until about 2000. Now it is one of the most commonly used words in political conversations, and one which we ask for if it is missing from legislation. That is the word “sustainable”. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Redesdale referred to it in relation to the water Bill. It can be used carelessly to mean anything from “nice” to “environmental”, or to cloak things in greenwash. But in its true sense it is a vital word to help us to frame legislation. We will certainly need to debate exactly what its definition should be now. With most of the Bills in this Session—certainly the water Bill, the Energy Bill and the legislation on HS2—we will need to consider whether the definition that we explored and put into legislation under the previous Government is still fit for purpose. Luckily, help is at hand to update and redefine the concept, because the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management has just issued a report, Reframing Sustainable Development. That new report should be required reading for all of us before we embark on a debate about what sustainability means with regard to many of the Bills in the gracious Speech.

When the concept of sustainability first came to be widely debated in this Chamber during the passage of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, we talked about it as having three elements. We likened it to a three-legged stool, with social, economic and environmental legs. That was a useful start in the thinking. This Government have made good progress in developing that thinking and deepening the understanding of the interplay between environmental, social and economic factors. For example, they have established the Natural Capital Committee and national ecosystems assessments. But we need to recognise that environmental limits are the ultimate constraint to social and economic development. Much of today’s debate has concentrated on those elements. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, who is not in his place, made quite a play of ridiculing the environmental aspects, or, as he called them, the “green” aspects. But even he must realise that the planet has finite limits. Indeed, his speech reminded me of the words of Benjamin Disraeli, who said that it is easier to be critical than to be correct. I am sorry that the noble Lord is not in his place, but I shall engage him in conversation about that later.

The report of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management states:

“To be sustainable an action must not lead, or contribute, to depletion of a finite resource or use of a resource exceeding its regeneration rate”.

That definition is going to be very useful as the Government examine the various intensive livestock proposals. If they examine them under a proper definition of sustainable, they will be looking at the whole carbon cycle—and that is just for a start. The intensive livestock proposals are very complex, particularly when you look at the whole carbon cycle. They also involve things such as the disease risks, land use questions, animal welfare issues, and even the nutritional quality of the product. We need to begin government guidance on these issues by thinking about whether our definition of sustainable is fit for purpose.

That is also so with government procurement, and procurement in your Lordships’ Chamber. Many of us in this Chamber have a mobile phone, a computer or a laptop, myself included. We see from the recent report from the Gaia Foundation and Friends of the Earth, Short Circuit, the roll call of the metals and minerals needed to make these gadgets. Many of them are rare minerals, and thousands of hectares of land, forest, pasture and mountain are stripped bare in the search for them. Our gadgets are literally costing the earth. But we need only to demand that they be recycled efficiently, and we can transpose the directives about end-of-life use to see to that, and make sure that they are manufactured in a way that allows this. Then at least there would be something like a 70% reduction in the mining effort to procure the minerals. That is an example of the new way of thinking that we need to adopt on these issues. It is not just all about legislation.

In the time remaining, I want to talk about schools and nutrition in schools. Several noble Lords have mentioned the importance of early years provision. I am very pleased that in the previous Session the Government introduced more guidance on early years nutrition. Therefore, I was outraged to hear in February the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, belittle school governors for spending far too much time,

“looking at the quality of school lunches”.

He said that many had their priorities wrong and ignored fundamental aspects of education such as teaching standards, student behaviour and school culture and instead spent their time worrying about “marginal” issues such as school lunches. Sir Michael’s comments completely ignore all the research: for example, that of Michèle Belot of Oxford University, work that directly correlates nutrition and higher achievement. Having decent food is the first step in being able to learn. Indeed, Ofsted itself commented in 2010 on the importance of nutrition.

The Government took an immensely important step when they reintroduced cookery to the school curriculum in the previous Session. They recognised the tremendous work of the School Food Trust, now the Children’s Food Trust. I hope that emphasis on the importance of early years nutrition will continue. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will have a word with Sir Michael, who is busy swimming in the wrong direction on this matter.

I was saddened to discover that the Department for Education has just downgraded the gardening and horticulture element of the B.Tech. On the one hand, the Government recognise the future challenges of food production and our position as a world leader in horticultural innovation and practice, yet the Department for Education takes this vicious swipe at the very roots from which this expertise grows. I ask the Government to have a rethink on that. The importance for our future food production cannot be overemphasised. I wish to emphasise the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, about the importance of well qualified young people going into agriculture.