Household Support Fund: Children’s Bed Poverty

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point of tackling poverty not over one year but over several years. She will know that we will spend £276 billion through the welfare system in the coming year, 2024-25, including around £125 billion on people of working age and children. This is very much work in progress. Bearing in mind the point behind her question, I can say that my department, the DWP, is working ever more closely with the DHSC and other necessary departments to take a range of initiatives forward.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I cannot resist making the point that the last Labour Government actually lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. It is welcome that the Government, with less than a month to go, have renewed the household support fund temporarily. The last time that noble Lords discussed this issue at Oral Questions, I asked the Minister how the Government would work on long-term strategies to fight poverty rather than short-term measures renewed only at the last minute. My question remains very much the same: given that two-thirds of children growing up in poverty live in a household where one adult works, are the Government going to work to create long-term stability and security for families, including those experiencing in-work poverty?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Again, the noble Baroness has made a good point about looking beyond a year and taking a long-term view. More than 26 million awards of support were made between October 2021 and March 2023 across the first of the household support fund schemes. I reassure her that the largest category of spend has been on food support, including support during school holidays, targeted particularly at children who receive free school meals in term time. The focus on children is incredibly important and should be continued.

Household Support Fund

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Absolutely. That is a very good point, because local authorities have the funding and the autonomy to decide how it is directed. The government guidance is that the most vulnerable must be targeted first. I think the categories the right reverend Prelate has raised would fit into that area.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to return to my noble friend’s original Question about the temporary sticking-plaster measures. Decisions made at the last minute are not a substitute for a proper social security system that offers families a safety net in difficult circumstances. I want to ask the Minister about the plan, beyond the decision about the household support fund, which will come very late for families and local authorities. How will the Government ensure proper stability and security for families during difficult circumstances?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have outlined some of the measures. Perhaps the noble Baroness is alluding to the benefit cap, which we always keep an eye on. We believe that this provides a very strong work incentive and fairness for hard-working, tax-paying households and encourages people to move into work where possible. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are keeping that under review. The Secretary of State is not minded to review the levels, as there is no statutory obligation to do so. There was a significant increase, as the noble Baroness will know, following the review in November 2022.

Reducing Parental Conflict

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I believe the work achieved and continuing to be done within the RPC is invaluable. The programme has had three interim reports published that give strong evidence for that. As announced yesterday, three reports to be published in due course further demonstrate the impact of the programme with more granular detail. We are working to integrate RPC outcomes into other key government programmes, including family hubs and the Supporting Families programme, but for the moment the RPC programme remains firmly within DWP.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, for this programme, the DWP developed a national offer of parental relationship support. In 2015 it piloted a local family offer in local areas, in 2019 it invited top-tier authorities to apply for strategic leadership support funding and developed a practitioner training offer, in 2021 the DWP offered workforce development grants, and last month it announced £2.8 million funding for eight projects to reduce parental conflict. The Government have just now committed £33 million to be spent on this programme between 2022 and 2025. Will the Minister tell the House where the £33 million is going and the outcome of all these activities?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

It certainly remains work in progress. As the noble Baroness said, the reducing parental conflict programme was initiated in 2017 in response to two key pieces of evidence, one of which was the number of children who live in coupled families reporting conflict, which in 2020 was as much as 12%. We have three further evaluation reports coming out. They are enormous—I have seen them. This granular detail will be coming out shortly. It shows, for example, that 90% of those parents who have gone through it have a satisfaction rate, meaning that there is already some valuable information about its success.

Health and Disability White Paper

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for taking this Question. The PIP assessment is designed for a totally different purpose from the work capability assessment, so my first question is this: how will the Government reconcile those two completely different systems? What will happen in future to people who do not currently receive PIP—those on the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit—and particularly those with short-term and fluctuating conditions? Unless it is the Minister’s intention that some 750,000 people will lose £350 a year, an alternative needs to be in place. What would that alternative be and what would it look like? Finally, do the Government believe it is fair that the hundreds and thousands of people with disabilities that prevent them even engaging in work-related activity should receive less financial support through universal credit than people who are entitled to PIP? If so, what is the basis for that justification?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

I will attempt to answer the noble Baroness’s questions. However, I start by saying that, as she will know, these reforms are the biggest undertaken in a decade and have been years in the making, with our initial paper having gone out for a consultation in 2021.

The main answer is that we are very much focused on ensuring that more people are supported into the workforce so that they can enjoy the positive impacts of work, through a more simplified system. I turn to improving our services, which is probably at the heart of the noble Baroness’s question, in focusing on PIP. Putting aside the delays, which I realise we are making progress on, employment and health discussions, which are being tested at the moment, are led by healthcare professionals and focus on how we can help people to overcome their barriers to moving towards work. Furthermore, we have the enhanced support service and the severe disability group for those with the most severe health conditions, and we are developing the skills of our assessors to match people’s primary health conditions. These are game-changers and mark a significant change from the current system.

Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived
Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his introduction to the Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lady Lister for her contribution, which makes my job of inadequately filling in for my noble friend Lady Sherlock much easier. My noble friend posed many of the key questions, which I will try not to repeat.

On these Benches we of course welcome this Bill for what it is, and for the much-needed help it will provide to families up and down the country who are encountering some of the toughest financial conditions in a generation. The OBR has confirmed that the hit to living standards over the past two years is the largest since records began: inflation in recent months has reached a 40-year high; food rose by 16.8% over the past year to January 2023; gas and energy prices have risen to levels we would have thought unthinkable only two years ago; and wages, which are lower in real terms than they were 13 years ago, are expected to remain below 2008 levels until 2026. The gap between income and expenditure for many people who were already struggling before has now hit breaking point and is causing very real hardship.

Those in receipt of benefits and pensions are some of the hardest hit. Although the payments in the Bill recognise this fact, taken alone they represent a highly inadequate one-off provision that simply will not touch the sides of the deep crisis forcing families to choose between food and heating, and wrecking the physical and mental well-being of families up and down the country.

The Bill is rightly being criticised in the same way that its predecessor was, with the addition of how disappointing it is that the Government have not addressed the issues that Members across both Houses raised last time, and which have been raised again by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and my noble friend Lady Lister in their speeches. Last year, the previous Minister argued that help needed to be delivered swiftly. If the Government are committed to bringing short-term support through this one-off provision, they should have taken the time to bring in changes to make the support more effective this time round. They could also tell us when the first payment might be due.

A flat payment cannot take into account a range of circumstances that effect someone’s needs, with household size being the most obvious one. Children in larger families are at far greater risk of living in poverty. Over the summer, academics at the University of York estimated that 90% of large families would be experiencing fuel poverty at the start of this year. The cliff edge involved in these payments, which has been referred to by my noble friend, is also incredibly concerning.

Linking this cost of living payment to the receipt of means-tested benefits means a sharp cut-off for anyone earning above the limit. Being £1 over the threshold should not mean missing out on £900; that is a huge disincentive for people who might otherwise look to take on more hours or look for better-paid work to lift themselves off universal credit. The number of payments was increased from last year from two to three, but has the Minister considered increasing the spread of payments further in order to reduce this cliff edge?

The Bill will not sew up the holes growing ever larger in our social security net, but the £900 will be welcomed as an increase on last year’s payment. However, the £150 payment for those in receipt of certain disability benefits has stayed the same, despite the huge increase in inflation. Can the Minister explain why this payment has not also been increased?

There are other good questions about the Bill that need to be and have been raised. Having a one-month assessment period for recipients means some may not qualify in a specific month—which I think has also been referred to—because of the way they are paid. This same issue was raised last year with the previous Bill. Does the Minister have any information from last year on how many people who are paid every four weeks missed out last year on receiving payments because of the short assessment period? Does the Minister have a similar answer for those who are self-employed but will miss out because of the operation of the minimum-income floor? Again, this was raised last year. We were told that the payments were an admittedly blunt instrument that needed to be got through quickly—that argument works less well a year later.

These payments are welcome as a one-off help, and so we are happy to support them in that capacity, but we need to make it crystal clear that they are not a long-term solution that will reform our social security net, address our broken labour market and fix the dire living standards that are dragging families down. Anything less is simply papering over the cracks.

Employment: Disabled People

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Indeed, and this is very much a matter for Jobcentre Plus. Further training is being given to job coaches in jobcentres. It is very important that those with health conditions or disabilities receive the support and advice that they need to move into or to stay in employment.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, last December, research conducted by the economic and social inclusion unit revealed the huge benefits and the challenges regarding the working conditions, employment and retention of personal assistants for working-age disabled people to allow them to be economically active. This is the third time that I have raised this issue in the House, so hopefully it will be third time lucky. Has the Minister taken account of this useful evidence on service user need and experience? Will it inform improvements and, if so, how and when?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Yes, indeed, I am aware of the question. Although I do not have an answer to that point, I will certainly write to the noble Baroness about it. I am not sure that she has asked it three times, but maybe she did so with my predecessor.

Disabled People: Impact from Policies and Spending Cuts

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to assess the impact of their (1) policies, and (2) planned spending cuts, on people with disabilities, to ensure that they do not exacerbate existing inequalities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise the barriers that disabled people face across many aspects of their lives. All government departments have rigorous processes in place, in line with the public sector equality duty to ensure that they consider proactively the impacts on disabled people when carrying out their day-to-day work in shaping policy and delivering services. This includes the Treasury, which carefully considers the equality impacts, including for disabled people, of the individual measures announced at fiscal events.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. This Question concerns the wider issue of impact assessments being used to guide government policy for disabled people, and is not just around vital income support. First, is an impact assessment being conducted, or has one been proposed, to look at the impact that Home Office immigration rules are having on the supply of personal assistants for working-age disabled people to allow them to be economically independent? Secondly, is an impact assessment being carried out, or has one been proposed, on the effects of the proposed modernisation of the railways on the mobility of wheelchair-users and people with sight impairment, many of whom are very worried about this?

Millennium Development Goals

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, on initiating this debate. I am aware that I am probably the least qualified on international matters to speak in it, given the excellent contributions, particularly when I put myself alongside my noble friends Lady Kinnock and Lord Browne.

The noble Lord, Lord Loomba, outlined the key issues, and I will not repeat them. However, the fact that we know that 123 million young people still lack basic reading and writing skills and that 61% of them are young women is a huge concern. We know that the millennium development goals will not be met in full so, surely, the question for the British Government to address is: what happens next? Are the UK Government involved in discussions about post-2015, particularly as outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley?

I want to make two points about how important girls’ education is. The first is to do with reproductive rights and control over their own fertility. We know that there are 215 million women in the developing world who want to delay or avoid pregnancy. We also know that all the information available from across the world, some of which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, tells us that the whole of their societies and communities benefit when women have control of their sexual health and childbirth.

The second link is between illiteracy and sexual violence. Yesterday, I read an article in the Nairobi Star from Kenya. A report had been published on the Ganze sub-county that states that higher literacy levels are partly to blame for the increase in cases of sexual, gender-based violence. The reason for this is in this report. Basically, the high illiteracy level hinders the conceptualisation of information about gender-based violence. In other words, young women and parents cannot report gender-based violence because they are illiterate. They do not understand how to do these things. Indeed, the children’s officer who compiled the report pointed out that literacy classes would be enormously beneficial in this respect.

We should take some hope from initiatives that have been taken and the dedication of people who are determined to effect change across the world to get girls and women educated. I would like to mention that our former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has dedicated a great deal of his time to this issue. He was the person who moderated the United Nations session in September in which Malala made her speech about the importance of education. It is worth quoting from that speech. Among her remarks she calls on leaders to focus on education:

“This is our demand, our request to all the responsible people—that instead of sending weapons, instead of sending tanks to Afghanistan and all these countries that are suffering from terrorism, send books. Instead of sending tanks, send pens. Instead of sending soldiers, send teachers. This is the only way we can fight for education”—

well, exactly.

I would also like to pay tribute to Hillary Clinton and the work that the Clinton Foundation is doing. No Ceilings: the Full Participation Project links education to women’s control over their lives, fertility and health. It is important to end my remarks on a note of hope. There is hope and there are people who are dedicated. I would like the Minister to assure us that the British Government are taking part in the hopeful nature of what comes next.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, the passage of the Bill has been a remarkable thing. Having sat through every bit of it, I have to say that the discussions in your Lordships’ House have been not just of the highest calibre but deeply thoughtful about the nature of the society that we wish to pass on to future generations; none more so than the contributions from the Bishops’ Benches. The Bill represents a real sea change for gay people and for our society—a good one that heralds the start of a new relationship between minority groups and faith groups. All those groups have an important part to play in building strong communities for the future and that is why we on these Benches have supported this Bill at every stage.

We have been helped enormously by the Front Bench team in dealing with some quite difficult, tricky and intricate issues. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that, no, there is no room for triumphalism. However, he will perhaps allow some of us today to celebrate what for us is a really important step towards equality and equal treatment. There is no room for intolerance but this House should be very proud.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, the custom at this stage of the Bill is for all of us to look at each other and congratulate ourselves on the piece of legislation that we are just about to sign off. Of course, I realise that not all noble Lords feel the same sense of satisfaction at a job well done that the Minister, other noble Lords who have supported the Bill and I feel at this moment. I regret that they are not sharing the sense of joy and happiness that some of us are experiencing. Certainly, if the London Gay Men’s Chorus’s tuneful offerings outside the House are anything to go by, very many others feel the same. Some of us, indeed, could not resist wearing pink carnations. However, I note that even the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is somewhat resplendent in pink himself.

To noble Lords who opposed the Bill I say that you have tested the Bill to within an inch of its life, and for that I congratulate you. No one expected that getting the Bill through your Lordships’ House would be a walk in the park, and I think that noble Lords have done their job as they see it with dedication and commitment.

There were moments at midnight when we were again discussing adultery when I thought we were never going to reach this point. Those moments were made all the more memorable by the description by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, of what is adultery and what is not. I refer noble Lords to col. 146, 8 July 2013, if they are in any doubt. I wish her well with George Clooney, and I myself do not think that he is anything like worthy of the noble Baroness.

I very sincerely hope that time will change the views of noble Lords who are still concerned about the Bill. I hope that the happiness the Bill will bring to thousands of same-sex couples will persuade everyone that, after all, Parliament was right in its huge majorities on free votes, which led us to where we are today. I hope that your own marriages will indeed come through this change unscathed and as whole as ever, and that marriage itself will actually be strengthened and deepened by the Bill.

We must recognise that when the Prime Minister, to whom I pay tribute for his steadfast support, my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, and the leader of the Liberal Democrats all speak in unity, then the issue has powerful friends. However, even with those powerful friends, free votes ran through the Bill on all the major votes, and were won all the way through with huge majorities.

I pay tribute to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for the way in which she steered the Bill through the House. Patient, energetic and always ready to listen, she never lost her sense of humour or proportion. Ditto her helpmates, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. Indeed, we worked together on this Bill, and I am glad of it. The Bill team were always helpful and friendly, and are to be congratulated on their very hard work. I know that the demands that were made on humanism, pensions and a host of other issues meant that they and the Ministers had to go back and persuade their colleagues in government that they needed to revisit or revise matters they thought already settled. I know how hard that is.

Across the House there has been remarkable work by groups of Back-Bench Peers, co-operating to win the free votes on the Bill. My noble friend Lord Alli has been remarkable; not only did all of us on the Labour side receive bulletins and information about what was going to happen and when votes were taking place, but he also organised some light entertainment for Labour colleagues. On Monday the actor Richard Wilson and last Wednesday evening Paul O’Grady, aka Lily Savage, joined us in Committee Room G. I thank them for their support and generosity. My noble friend Lord Alli has talked to everyone all the time, which I think helped the good humour and tolerance which characterised the debates even when we fiercely disagreed.

There are other Members one should thank. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, fought the corner for humanist weddings. The noble Lady, Baroness Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, helped to find a way through on humanist weddings. My noble friend Lady Gould explained with great clarity the issues faced by transsexual people, matters not yet resolved and to which we may return some time in the future, but not on this Bill. Many of my colleagues have been here all the way through. I thank you all.

I personally have been blessed with support and equal sharing, as it should be, by my noble friend Lady Royall, who fitted the Bill in with her many other duties. I thank her. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe sat next to me all through the Bill, and kept us to time and calm while under duress. I also thank the back room: Bethany Gardiner-Smith from the Opposition Whips’ Office, whose research, political management and inspired amendment-drafting made many things possible.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that this is an elegant amendment. However, although it might be bracket free, it has an awful lot of commas and sub-clauses. I have listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, and the supporters of this amendment who did not speak but are distinguished Members of your Lordships’ House, to see whether there are new arguments to justify passing an amendment that would—like the ones that we discussed on Monday and in Committee—undermine the purpose of the Bill, which is to put same-sex marriage on the same basis as opposite-sex marriage, and although I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, for this ingenious amendment which seeks to undermine the Bill through secondary legislation, its effects are the same as those of the amendments that went before. I am still puzzled as to why those noble Lords feel that same-sex marriage somehow undermines opposite-sex marriage and, indeed, their own.

We do not believe that the Bill needs to provide for two classes of marriage—one gold and one base, which would be the effect of the amendment—but we do feel that the time has perhaps come to stop having this argument. I and my colleagues will not support the amendment.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, for his amendment. I think that we were all very grateful to him on Monday evening when, in view of the hour, he decided to degroup it so that we could debate it today.

Even allowing for the intervening hours, however, it will not come as a surprise to the noble Lord or to anyone else that we do not feel able to accept this amendment however—to use my noble friend Lord Deben’s word—ingenious or, as my noble friend Lord Lester said, extraordinary it is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, it contains within it, in paragraph (b), the same distinction between a marriage of a same-sex couple and a marriage of an opposite-sex couple that was embodied in Amendment 1—admittedly without the brackets, although I am not sure if it is for better or for worse.

The amendment which my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern moved sought to have two different institutions of marriage in law: one for same-sex couples and one for opposite-sex couples. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, this is another attempt. In all fairness to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, when moving his amendment on Monday he said:

“This is the minimum that seems to work, although I and other noble Lords think that it may be possible to go further. The later amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, to which I and others have added our names, indeed goes further than the minimum”.—[Official Report, 8/7/13; cols. 13-14]

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, government Amendments 86, 87, 88, 89 and 133 will provide a fast-track procedure for gender recognition where individuals have been living in the acquired gender for a long period and clarify that the consent of a spouse means consent to the marriage continuing, not consent to gender recognition. There is no doubt that we wholeheartedly welcome these amendments; we would like to put on record our thanks to the Minister and her team for the amount of work that they have put in on this issue.

This is an issue that colleagues in both Houses have been pushing throughout the Bill’s passage, and we have made progress with the Government on pensions and the fast-track procedure. However, as my noble friend Lady Gould has said, consent is a very sensitive issue, and the transgender community has reacted with outrage at the idea that their final recognition through gender recognition certificates should or possibly could be vetoed by their spouse, particularly if they were estranged or if the relationship had broken down.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and my noble friend Lady Gould, we think we have made great progress, but this issue is unresolved and a community that has faced enormous discrimination and prejudice is very concerned about it. We need to keep a watching brief on this issue, and we will need to return to it, certainly in post-legislative scrutiny, if not in another Bill that comes along in which we can find some other way of doing it.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Baronesses who have contributed to this debate, who are the same noble Baronesses who I have met to discuss these matters.

I will be very brief in responding to the points that have been made. The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, raised the question of post-legislative scrutiny. I certainly expect the Bill’s impact to be considered and that the issue of spousal content will be part of that process. That would be a matter of form, so I can give some reassurance in that regard at least.

My noble friend Lady Barker mentioned the fast-track procedure and the length of time. The fast-track procedure reduces the amount of evidence that a transperson must submit to the gender recognition panel. Therefore it saves them from having to obtain new, additional evidence, which may be difficult and time-consuming. It does not affect the length of time from application to the issue of the gender recognition certificate; it is about the process prior to that point.

In concluding, I want to say how grateful I am for the generous remarks that have been made and to remind all noble Lords that the Bill is about allowing same-sex couples to marry. We have allowed transpeople who are already married to stay married. That is an enormously positive step forward, and we should not lose sight of that. However, it is worth pointing out also that because those transpeople are already married, it is essential that both spouses confirm that they want to remain married because their marriage is a legal contract that will change. When we get married—although, as we all know, I am not married. I have been to weddings, even if I have not had one of my own—on our wedding day we take somebody to be either our lawfully wedded wife or our lawfully wedded husband. That is a legal contract between two people. This Bill has enabled us to ensure that if one of those people is transgender and wants to have transgender recognition, they are able to do that and to remain married to the person who they fell in love with and married some years before. That is an important thing that we have been able to make happen. I take on board the points that have been made in the debate, but I am pleased that we are at least able to acknowledge the big step forward that this Bill will allow us to take.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I find this a much more difficult issue than all noble Lords who have spoken so far. There are very strong arguments on both sides of the case and I very much hope that noble Lords on each side would recognise that.

My reason for speaking is that I spoke in Committee in favour of this amendment, and I am in a very unusual position in that the debates that we had in Committee on this issue have actually caused me to change my mind. The reason I have changed my mind is because I think that there is a very real injustice done to the people for whom the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has spoken, but I am not persuaded that this is an appropriate vehicle by which this injustice should be addressed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, says, sotto voce, “Why not”—and I will tell him. The purpose of the review is very simple; it is to assess whether the existing civil partnership regime, which is part of the law of the land, continues to serve a useful purpose now that we will have same-sex marriage. That is a very narrow purpose, and I do not think that it is appropriate that a review should consider whether a civil partnership should be used as a means to address a very real injustice which, if it is to be addressed, should be addressed through the taxation system and other means. That is why I have changed my mind and why I much regret that I cannot support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, this amendment would seek to extend the civil partnership review to include unpaid carers and family members who live together. I am just going to read the amendment, because of the discussion that took place between my noble friend Lady Kennedy and the right reverend Prelate. It refers to,

“unpaid carers and those they care for, and … family members who share a house … provided that they have cohabitated for 5 years or more and are over the age of eighteen”.

If that does not mean fathers, daughters, sisters and brothers, I am not quite sure what it means. So I think that my noble friend had a point in her indignation about that matter.

The problem before the House has been very adequately explained by various noble Lords. This is an issue about legitimate support for carers and the protection of people, sisters and brothers, growing old together and sharing a home, who require a new regime that protects their interests in their home and all the other things. That is to do with carers, tax and inheritance, and it is to do with compassion and the other issues that noble Lords have mentioned. But it is not appropriate to use those words—in terms of pulling up ladders, and so on—in this Bill.

This review is about civil partnerships, as explained by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I am not going to read out my note, because he said it much more eloquently than I could.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

It is proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that the review should deal with,

“the case for amending the criteria in the Civil Partnership Act 2004”.

Is my noble friend suggesting that the criteria themselves should not be amended in any way? What would she suggest should be the criteria employed by the review? Will we seek to limit what it can review?

[Baroness Thornton]

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, very adequately, concisely and accurately explained exactly what the review is about.

The point is that the claims that the noble Baroness has explained to us are legitimate. As my noble friend Lord Alli said, the last time I heard the noble Baroness speak with such passion about these issues, apart from in Committee on this Bill, was during the passage of the Civil Partnership Bill.

In the mean time I can recall at least two carers Acts put forward by my own Government. There was the free personal care Bill, and there have been numerous discussions about finances and inheritance tax. Although we may not necessarily discuss those matters in this House to conclusion, certainly there are plenty of Members of Parliament in the other place who can and could put down amendments. I would be more sympathetic, perhaps, if I thought those things had happened, but they have not. My noble friend Lady Kennedy is right when she says that you have to question the purpose of this amendment when all those opportunities have been missed. We ask the noble Baroness not to press this amendment but if she does I will be voting against it.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for moving the amendment and the other noble Lords who have put their names to it. It would amend Clause 14, under which the Secretary of State will arrange for the operation and the future of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 in England and Wales to be reviewed. The amendment requires the terms of the review to be extended to consider first, the case for enabling carers and family members who live together to register civil partnerships and secondly the case for creating a new legal institution to give carers and family members the same benefits as couples in a civil partnership.

I recognise, as we did in Committee, that many views have been expressed very passionately. I listened in particular to my noble friend Lady Hooper, who made an important contribution to this debate arising from her own circumstances. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that, in many respects, the issues that have been raised about inheritance or the rights to have a say, for example, about funeral arrangements or related matters are issues in their own right. I will say more later about whether there has been a clamour for them, but my principal position is that this is not appropriate for a review of civil partnerships.

First, there is the issue of the nature and purpose of civil partnerships. They were designed to provide rights and responsibilities akin, to use the word of the noble Lord, Lord Alli, to those of marriage for same-sex couples. I note that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester thought that they possibly mirrored marriage too much. I think he said that was the view when they were brought in. These rights and responsibilities were provided because under the Civil Partnership Act people were unable to marry because they were the same sex. As civil partnerships are akin to marriage they have a formal means of entry and exit. They have imported the prohibited degrees of affinity parallel to those in marriage law. They have similar rules governing deathbed civil partnerships and financial and property arrangements.