Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 121A and 131A. There is a real problem of mistrust with elective home education against traditional education. I acknowledge my noble friend Lord Crisp, and am delighted to be on his working party to try to do something about it.

I was in the same meeting as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and my noble friend Lord Russell where we talked to the DfE. It was rather wonderful, because instead of talking about technicalities, one of the people there started talking about cricket, which I am much happier with than Section 31s and things. He accused us of setting the field for a bad ball—so we were being extremes. Obviously, I came back with no setting the field for a bad ball but putting some sweepers out as well just in case. The whole point of legislation is to avoid the disasters, the out of the ordinary, the Sara Sharifs. We were also told that a possible future home visit might deter parents from seeking help with a Section 31. Again, I cannot see why. These amendments are incredibly sensible and thoughtful, and their spirit would help those avoidable disasters, which, tragically, may well happen.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I have also added my name to Amendment 121A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. This is a very important set of amendments. I welcome the fact that many of them are about strengthening safeguarding. That is really important.

I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, because he had, as ever, some very important points to make. I do not agree with everything he said, but I agree that the time is ripe have a broader debate about a wider set of issues around the whole issue of home education that go outside the scope of this Bill. I hope it will be possible to do that. I also agreed with the noble Lord about the need for any safeguarding action to be proportionate, but it is my view that the targeting of action—as it is in Amendment 121A, so that

“local authorities must consent to the withdrawal of a child from school”

if they are involved in either child protection plans or are a child in need as classified under Section 17 of that Act—is proportionate in trying to provide additional support for vulnerable children and making sure that they do not fall through the cracks.

We have heard too many times, over the years, these heartbreaking cases of children who have fallen through the cracks—the most recent one, of course, was the harrowing and terrible case of Sara Sharif—because of a lack of visibility. This amendment would ensure that greater visibility is given to these children, which is why I added my name to it. I know people have different views on this, but that is my reason for believing that it is a proportionate amendment.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I support Clause 31 and government Amendment 120. I also support Amendment 121A, which would extend the scope of what Clause 31 seeks to achieve, which is to prevent concealment of the real reasons for attempts to withdraw children from school, in particular by parents or a parent with something to hide. The clause provides that the consent of the local authority is required if there is a Section 47 inquiry under way or there has been such an inquiry. Amendment 121A would extend the scope of the need for the local authority’s consent, which I support. However, if we are talking about cracks, I suggest that it could go further. The need for consent should also be triggered if the family court, in private law proceedings, has directed a report and investigation under Section 37 of the Children Act or has directed a local authority to report under Section 7. Experience shows, and certainly my experience is, that it is often in private law proceedings that alarm bells first ring. That is the first opportunity to investigate what really might be happening in the family home.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendments 99 and 101, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. These are designed to tackle the sad and difficult problem of successive removals of children and babies from their parents, in particular from their mothers.

When a child is removed permanently under a court order, typically, a number of things can happen, and, indeed, not happen. The court which made the care order and consequent order for placement for adoption will have no further involvement. The local authority which brought the case may well have little or no further engagement with the birth family, who will receive no more attention and support, at least until there is another pregnancy, by which time it can be too late to address the underlying problems.

The mother, probably traumatised, may react to the first removal of a child with a bad decision to have another child, in the hope, rather than the expectation, that things will turn out better next time round, which is unlikely to occur. The mother and the father, if identified, will have become mistrustful of the local authority social workers and feel stigmatised and unwilling to seek or accept help. The mother may become hard to reach and may not reveal the next pregnancy until the last minute. Her underlying problems, by then, will not have been addressed; indeed, they may have become compounded.

Unless there has been some significant and unexpected change, the local authority will have no alternative but to start new care proceedings for the new child, usually with the same bad outcome as before. Speaking as someone who has had to deal with these cases, I know that those representing the mother and the court will struggle to find any real improvement or anything else to distinguish the case from that of the previous child. These are truly the most wretched cases for any court to deal with.

The charitable organisation Pause has considerable expertise in this area and has evolved a model of preventive support to break the cycle of repeated pregnancies and recurrent removals. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and others have had valuable input into this problem and highlighted the statistics. One in five care proceedings are repeat proceedings. The repeat proceedings are more likely to involve babies, and almost half of all newborn babies subject to care proceedings are born to mothers who have had a previous child removed. Indeed, it is quite likely that the mother herself will have been in the care system not so long before. The additional financial cost to local authorities for care proceedings and consequential adoption proceedings, and the support required to pay for foster care and adopters, is enormous. The human cost, obviously, is unresolved misery and grief.

Amendment 99 would require local authorities to provide post-removal support where there is a risk of further removal, based on the Pause model of specialist focused and intensive support. Some local authorities do this work, but it should be universal. It has been suggested that, for every £1 spent, £4.50 would be saved in the next four years. However, some local authorities—understandably, given their constraints—are reluctant to look beyond this year’s budget. The Pause model does make a difference, and primary legislation can now make a real difference. That is the basis for Amendment 99.

Amendment 101 would provide for data collection, which would be a valuable aid to local and central government. Ironically, if Amendment 101 was agreed and Amendment 99 did not succeed, it would simply serve to highlight in the data which would be collected the support that should have been provided through Amendment 99. That opportunity should not be missed.

In Committee, the Minister was sympathetic and suggested that one way forward might be by way of family group conferencing, which is part of the structure of the Bill. Quite frankly, that would not be of particular value in these circumstances. The first set of proceedings probably would not have got to where they were if there had been a supportive family in the background, and it would, by then, be too late to prevent what had already become a further pregnancy. Therefore, I do not think that is the answer.

I have tried to avoid repeating points that were made in Committee. I simply quote the late Nicholas Crichton, a pioneering district judge:

“A family justice system that removes the fourth, fifth or sixth child from families without doing anything about the reasons for removal is a failing system”.


I commend Amendments 99 and 101 to the House.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to lend my support to all three of these amendments. I was very pleased to add my name to Amendments 99 and 101 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran.

Listening to the debate today, I think this group is dealing with some of the most heartbreaking events that children and families ever face. It has really been very harrowing just to listen to the circumstances that some of these families have found themselves in. I was profoundly moved by the way the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, introduced her amendment. It is a really important amendment, and I very much hope that the Government will be able to look sympathetically at it.

I will just say a few words in addition to what the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has said, particularly about Amendment 99. As we heard from the noble Lord, almost half of newborns in care proceedings are born to mothers who have already been through proceedings with another child, so far too many children are entering care from parents who have already had at least one child removed from their care.

As we have heard, without support—and that is what this amendment is all about: the support that we want to see local authorities offering after a child is removed—parents, particularly mothers, are often left struggling to cope with all the existing difficulties that led to the child removal in the first place, while facing the additional trauma, grief and stigma of losing a previous child. This leads to further child removals too many times. It is simply a heartbreaking, vicious cycle.

But with the right support, parents can stabilise, overcome that trauma and make lasting change. The reason I feel so passionately about this is that in my time as chair of Cafcass, I was privileged to visit various Pause projects, to talk to the people who were providing the support and to talk to the mothers about the difference that having that support had made and why they now felt they could turn their lives around so that they would not find themselves in a position like that of a mother I was talking to—I think I said this in Committee, so forgive me if I am repeating myself—who had had eight children removed and now it was about the ninth child. We just cannot allow these situations to perpetuate. It is not something that a decent and humane society can do.

At the moment only about half of local authority areas are providing any support at all. This amendment is so critical to ensure that support is available and that this incalculable human suffering that we have heard about can be alleviated. I very much look forward to hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the Minister, and I really hope we can make progress here.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I echo other noble Lords and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey- Thompson, for her very powerful and moving speech. Sadly, like other noble Lords, I know families who have been touched in similar ways. Both personally and professionally, I hope that the Government listen to the noble Baroness’s advice.

My Amendments 99 and 101 have support from more than 20 children’s charities and the Children’s Commissioner, and I am very grateful to the co-signatories to my amendment. In Committee the response from the Minister focused on early help and family support that the Government will require local areas to deliver as a way of meeting the needs of these women. But as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, although the funding is obviously very warmly welcomed, it does not address the issues for families who have children removed into care, because once a child is removed from a parent’s care, services and support follow the child.

There is no requirement or expectation that the support needs formally identified for the woman during the care proceedings process will be provided after the removal of a child. Without support to change their circumstances, parents are vulnerable to repeat the same traumatic cycle that led to their first, second or—as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said—eighth child being removed. I think the late Nick Crichton removed a 14th child from the same woman, which led to the work that has been referred to today. We know that almost half of newborns in care proceedings are born to families who have been through proceedings at least once.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

35: Clause 7, page 12, line 32, at end insert—
“(vi) financial support and financial literacy.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds financial support and financial literacy as services relevant children must be provided access to, as part of “staying close support”.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 35 in my name, and I thank my noble friends Lord Storey and Lord Mohammed and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for adding their names to it. It seeks to extend the remit of Staying Close to include support in helping care-experienced young people to access services that provide financial support and literacy. I want to say immediately that I was delighted to see the Government’s amendments introduced on Report that will amend the information that local authorities must include within their care leavers’ local offer to cover financial support and services that provide financial literacy. This builds very much on our discussions in Committee, and I am grateful to the Minister for bringing forward those government amendments. This change will provide greater transparency and will help young people to understand their rights and entitlements better, as well as encouraging local authorities to think about the support they provide to equip care leavers to manage their finances effectively.

In our previous discussions on this topic, we highlighted how young people leaving care are much more likely to be living independently from a young age than other young people with greater financial responsibilities and often without a safety net—the bank of mum and dad that so many parents provide certainly is not there for them to fall back on. These factors, combined with young care leavers often feeling unequipped, unprepared and unsupported to manage the financial responsibilities that come with living independently from a young age, can put care-experienced young people at risk of facing unnecessary financial hardship and insecurity, falling often into rent arrears or debt, all of which can have a long-term impact on their well-being and security.

By seeking to expand the remit of Staying Close, my Amendment 35 would have plugged this gap even further, ensuring that young people who are leaving care are supported. I feel that this change would have real benefit, but the fact that the Government have brought forward these two amendments is an example of how constructive the debate was in Committee on this legislation. I thank the Government for that and for being open to amendments such as my Amendment 35, which would do a lot to improve the lives of care-experienced young people. Perhaps when the Minister responds, to provide absolute clarity, she will be able to confirm that government Amendments 39 and 40 will have the same effect as my Amendment 35, which, obviously, now I will not be pushing to a vote.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I am very grateful that these amendments have been proposed. They may not go as far as my Private Member’s Bill did a few months ago in terms of seeking a better financial deal for care leavers, but Amendment 40 takes us some considerable way towards that. At least it will make local authorities be honest about what they are and are not doing. My only regret is that it will not completely get rid of the postcode lottery that besets so many young care leavers, particularly if they move from one authority to another. But I am grateful for the amendments the Government have tabled, and I hope that they will be swiftly passed.

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[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and Baronesses for their positive comments today; they are a measure of the fact that all of us in this Chamber want to put the needs of the most vulnerable people in our society at the centre of the Bill. I think the Government have clearly put across that we are strongly committed to improving support for care leavers, both through the measures in the Bill on Staying Close, local offer and corporate parenting and through our other programmes of work, such as the care leaver covenant and the care leavers interministerial board, all of which seek to ensure that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.

We want to support those in care and preparing to leave care before they reach adulthood, and to ensure that they have the same support as all young people. They will of course benefit from the wider changes that we are making for all young people in this space; we have had some fantastic discussions about the need for financial literacy for all young people in different places over the last few months.

I emphasise that in November the independent curriculum assessment review published its report, along with the Government’s response. As part of the review, we are taking forward recommendations that will help to deliver a high-quality curriculum for every young person. One key recommendation is to embed applied knowledge throughout the curriculum, including financial literacy. We have given a clear commitment in our response to the review to strengthen financial education through both the maths and the citizenship curriculum so that all young people and children have the skills they will need in adulthood. These commitments will benefit those children in care and preparing leave care.

Amendment 35, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, seeks to ensure that Staying Close support includes support to access services relating to financial support and literacy. Having said what I did about the review in general, I acknowledge that care leavers have particular and additional needs in this area. I fully endorse the noble Baroness’s intent with this amendment, recognising the importance of care leavers being properly informed of the financial support available to them as they transition to independence.

We have listened to concerns from both Houses about ensuring that care leavers receive the support they need from local authorities, particularly with financial management, and helping care leavers to develop the skills and knowledge that they require in this area. That is why we have tabled two government amendments to Clause 8. Amendment 39, in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith, adds services relating to financial literacy to the list of services in Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, meaning that local authorities will have to publish information about those services as part of their local offer for care leavers. Amendment 40, also in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith, amends Clause 8 to require each local authority to include information about the arrangements that it has in place for providing financial support to care leavers in its local offer. In bringing forward these amendments, I acknowledge the continued advocacy for care leavers to receive assistance with financial literacy and financial support that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, has provided in this area, and I thank her for that.

Most care leavers already receive a pathway plan before leaving care that should cover their financial capability, money management skills and strategies to develop these abilities. Adding these government amendments will ensure that care leavers are better aware of the services available to them, and it will increase local authorities’ accountability in supporting care leavers to receive the support they need. That further underscores how the Government have listened to the voices of children and young people because, as we have heard and as everyone engaged in this area acknowledges, when we listen to care leavers’ requests for support, the message that comes across loud and clear is that they want more support in understanding their finances. For that reason, we consider Clause 8 the most effective place for the amendment, ensuring a robust and consistent level of support for every care leaver, not only those accessing Staying Close.

Importantly, including the amendments in Clause 8 does not remove or dilute the support for care leavers receiving Staying Close. Financial literacy remains a key factor in helping young people to find and, importantly, keep accommodation and will continue to be considered as part of the overall assessment of their ability to maintain a tenancy. This will be reflected in the initial programme guidance we will be sharing with local authorities before April this year as the national rollout of the programme begins. This has been developed in collaboration with local authorities, stakeholders and people with care experience and will be updated after evaluation of local authority practice and ahead of the publication of final statutory guidance. I hope that this answers the questions that the noble Baroness asked in moving her amendment, that noble Lords are reassured, and that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful and comprehensive response. The fact that the government amendments will go into Clause 8 and my amendment was to Clause 7 does not matter to me. What matters is that those government amendments will be there and that the care-experienced young people will now have access to the financial support and financial literacy that they need. I thank the Government again for their extremely constructive and helpful response. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 35 withdrawn.

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Equally, I ask my noble friend to have her officials undertake the review of Staying Put funding set out in Amendment 37, so as to determine its adequacy to meet the aims of such an important arrangement. That would not affect the Bill per se, so why not undertake such a review?

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, this is an important group of amendments and I am extremely sympathetic to the case that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has just put forward for his amendments.

Amendment 59, in my name, seeks to enable care-experienced young people to remain living with their former foster carers under what are called the Staying Put arrangements to the age of 25. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Farmer, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for adding their names. Staying Put arrangements currently provide an important opportunity for young people to remain with their former foster carers until the age of 21, if they wish to and their foster carer agrees. Evaluation of the programme demonstrates that continuing to live with foster carers beyond the age of 18 can benefit care-experienced young people in a range of ways, including providing a more positive and planned transition from care to independence, a stronger support network and relationships, increased stability, stronger health and well-being, and a reduced risk of homelessness, as well as greater likelihood of remaining in full-time education.

While it is welcome that the introduction of the Staying Close support, through Clause 7, will apply to young people whose final placement was in foster care, this does not enable them to continue living with their former foster families. Many young people and foster carers across the country would like the children they are fostering to stay with them past the age of 21, but cannot at the moment because there is currently no provision in law for this or funding to support it.

Extending Staying Put arrangements to the age of 25, which is what my amendment is about, would provide more continuity for young people leaving foster care in their transition to independent living at a time that is right for them. We all know that strict age points do not work for everyone—everyone is different. It would provide a more stable home, family environment and support network for them as they start adulthood after what has been a difficult start in life. It would align Staying Put with other care leaver entitlements, such as Staying Close, which runs to age 25. I urge the Government to support this amendment.

I have also added my name to Amendment 95, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. This proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a document called the national care offer, which would set out minimum standards of information that local authorities must publish in relation to Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. I am going to leave the right reverend Prelate to set out the case—I do not want to steal his thunder. I simply want to say that this is a great opportunity, in my view, for the national and the local care offers to be strengthened. I very much hope that that opportunity will be taken.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I am grateful for the amendments in this group. We are continuing, as the Bill makes progress, to strengthen the offer that is made to care leavers. In the previous group, we discussed matters that, assuming they are voted on in a little while, will improve conditions and improve what local authorities have to publish.

My Amendment 95, which I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for signing, would simply extend that to make sure that care leavers have a clear understanding of what their local authority is willing to offer and what it is not, particularly given that so many care leavers at age 18 or 19 end up leaving. Some, I am delighted to say, go to university and end up in a different town in perhaps a different part of the country entirely; others, for whatever reason, may decide it is appropriate to move and perhaps go back to be closer to friends from former times.

It is therefore not just the people who are already in a particular local authority who need to really know what the care leaver offer is; it is young people who might be considering moving to that area. As became clear in discussion of my own Bill a few months ago, that is often where people fall through the gap: they move for good and solid reason from one part of the country to another, and in that new part of the country they find that the services they expected are not there because that local authority either chooses not to provide them to anybody or, as is sometimes the case, chooses to provide them only to young people who have been in its care through the previous years.

I hope that we can get some support for Amendment 95. Understanding procedure—I am slowly learning this place, after about six years in—I know we probably will not get to a vote on this tonight, so maybe the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and I can agree between now and Wednesday whether this matter should be put to a Division or not.

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Moved by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

43: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Promoting relationships for looked after childrenIn section 22(3A) of the Children Act 1989 (duty of local authority in relation to looked-after children), at end insert “and a duty to promote the child’s family and social relationships in ways which are consistent with the child’s welfare.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds promotion of a child’s family and social relationships to the safeguarding duties of a local authority.

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[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, this is an important group of amendments regarding family relationships and the appropriate placement of children in care. I have four amendments in my name in this group and will move through them as quickly as I can.

Amendments 43 and 49 are linked. They are about promoting children in care’s family relationships and particularly improving sibling contact, an issue that we discussed at some length in Committee. We know and previously debated that children in care are too often separated from siblings when in the care system. Unfortunately, we have also heard that, for too many children in care, they are not supported to have either consistent, appropriate or high-quality contact with their siblings when they are separated so that they can maintain these most vital relationships and stay connected.

The evidence shows that there is real variability in the type and frequency of contact between siblings. It can be affected by things such as workforce issues, instability and geographical factors—including where children are moved to. As we discussed in Committee, there is a real disconnect between policy and practice here. Amendment 43 seeks, in general terms, to strengthen the duties on local authorities to promote children’s family and social relationships, including with siblings. This would make a real difference to overall family relationships and to a sense of identity for these children.

Amendment 49 seeks to close a specific loophole in the current regulations. Paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 1 of the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 includes provision for arrangements to promote contact between siblings who are in care but who are not placed together to be set out in children’s care plans. The key point and the purpose of this amendment, however, is that this does not cover the promotion of contact between a child who is in care and a sibling who is not in care. While there is currently limited data about how many children in care have siblings outside of the care system, the charity Become has reported examples from children and young people who have felt unsupported to adequately maintain relationships with siblings who are not in care, particularly when they are living miles away.

This amendment seeks to close this loophole by requiring a child’s care plan to include arrangements for promoting contact with all their siblings, whether they are in care or not, as far as that is consistent with the child’s welfare. For children in care, their relationship with siblings can be the most important relationships that they have, with lifelong consequences. Too often, these relationships are being strained or damaged by a system that just does not support these relationships effectively. This needs to change. These amendments seek to strengthen the policy framework, close a loophole and influence practice to better protect these fundamental relationships.

Amendment 61 seeks to amend the sufficiency duty to prevent children in care being moved far from home when that is not in their best interest. This amendment seeks to amend the sufficiency duty in a number of ways. First, it would place a stronger requirement on local authorities to take “all reasonable steps” to provide children with appropriate local accommodation. It would place a more explicit requirement on local authorities to plan, deliver or commission on a range of accommodation to meet children’s needs locally. It would also require local authorities to plan to keep children near to the local authority if they are unable to be kept within their own local area.

In recent years, local authorities have faced real challenges in delivering sufficient places close to home and in ensuring that they have enough of the right type of homes and carers in the right places at the right time to meet children’s needs and keep them close to the relationships, places and support networks that matter so much to them. Increasingly, for too many children this has meant being moved far away from the people and the places that they love. Last year, 22% of all children in care in England were living more than 20 miles away from their home communities and support networks. This number has increased by over 40% over the last decade. There are also too many children living hundreds of miles away from home. Become’s “Gone Too Far” campaign has highlighted the devastating long-term impact that living far from home can have on children’s relationships and well-being.

Relationships, which is what these two amendments are all about—where children in care live and who with—are pivotal to children’s outcomes and experiences. There needs to be greater accountability and oversight about the extent to which this sufficiency is being delivered to drive real system change, starting with a stronger sufficiency duty, and to keep more children living close to home. I very much hope that the Government will look sympathetically on this amendment.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Hampton, for adding their names to my Amendment 62, which is essentially about the mental health needs of children in care. They often experience dramatically higher levels of mental ill-health than their peers, yet their mental health needs are often underidentified and poorly supported. While current regulations require health assessments to include mental health, they do not require the involvement of health practitioners with mental health expertise. As a result, assessments are often inconsistent and frequently fail to identify need early enough to offer the sort of evidence-based professional responses to address mental health needs and prevent deterioration of a child’s mental health.

My amendment addresses this gap by seeking to ensure that mental health is assessed by a qualified mental health practitioner as a core part of the initial and ongoing health assessment for children in care. This builds on the work of the Education Committee, which has done very important work in this area in its inquiry. It reported that specific considerations around mental health were frequently absent or treated very superficially in health assessments. It is a limited change but an important change. It is asking that mental health is not simply included in the initial health assessment, but that mental health expertise is involved in carrying it out. Because of the importance of mental health to children in care, because of the high prevalence that they have and because of the difficulties that they have in accessing the right sort of mental health support and treatment, I very much hope that the Minister will look sympathetically at this amendment.

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This has been a wide-ranging debate and I hope I have provided sufficient reassurance to enable the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive and helpful response to a large number of amendments. I listened very carefully indeed to what she had to say on family relationships and sibling contact, an issue that is very dear to my heart. I welcome that she talked about sharing best practice on sibling contact, which will certainly be helpful, but I must admit I was disappointed that she was not able to go further, particularly on my Amendment 49. I give notice that, when it is reached, I am minded to seek the opinion of the House. Finally, I thank her for her response on Amendment 62, in particular her commitment to make changes to statutory guidance on mental health and to consult with the APPG for Children. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 43.

Amendment 43 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

49: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Promoting contact between siblings who are not living togetherIn paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 1 to the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 (S.I. 2010/959) (care plans), for the words from “for” to “together” substitute “whom they are not living with”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment extends requirements to promote contact between a child in care and siblings who are not living with them, including those not in care, so far as this is consistent with the child’s welfare.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, as I indicated during the debate on this vital issue of sibling contact, including siblings both in care and not in care, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will briefly focus on Amendment 53, on the right to education. I want to bring in the voice of one child who spoke to the Children’s Commissioner in her report on this issue. Talking about the lack of education they were receiving, this child said:

“I don’t think it’s fair that they’re making us miss out on our education because they don’t know where to put us”.


That child understands the situation they are in, and it is just unacceptable. All but two of the children whom the Children’s Commissioner spoke to said they were receiving less education when subjected to deprivation of liberty than they received in their otherwise often very chaotic circumstances. We have to make sure that these children continue with an education.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very important and sensitive area of law, and valid issues and concerns are raised in the amendments spoken to so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. I also pay tribute, as she did, to the work of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory in this area. I know the Government have been working hard to see what can be done and to give various assurances. I hope the Minister can provide further assurances today so that we can all be satisfied that they are taking this issue very seriously and have a clear plan to tackle it.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

I have added my name to Amendment 53. It is vital that children who are deprived of liberty can access quality education. Otherwise, we really are depriving them of hope and a future. I too quote the Children’s Commissioner:

“For the very small number of children where controls on their freedom are necessary in order to keep them or others safe, we must make sure they have not only excellent, individualised care, but also full protection under the law … we have a moral obligation to ensure that children at risk of harm are not simply contained and kept out of the community, but are seen, heard, and given the care and support they need to thrive”.


She continues later:

“Where a deprivation of liberty is authorised, the conditions should include a plan for meeting the child’s specific needs through intensive intervention and work aimed at helping them to be safe in the long-term. This plan should be co-produced by health and social care if appropriate, and could include mental health support, mood and behaviour management, work on addressing risks of exploitation, educational support, and any other specialist therapeutic intervention that is required”.


Once again, adding one word to the Bill could change many futures.

Carer’s Allowance: Overpayments

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her important question. Our data suggests that there are around 212,000 overpayment cases in the relevant period, between 2015 and September 2025. We will set out the details in the new year, but we plan to review every case to understand where mistakes were made. Cases that were affected specifically by our unclear guidance will have their overpayment reassessed. If the review confirms that the money was not due, we will make an appropriate refund or reduction. I should say that if it were to result in a higher overpayment, we will not ask anyone for additional money—I just want to reassure anyone who is listening. If the review confirms that the person still owes money, we will give the usual support to make sure that it can be repaid appropriately, because it is not to do with this question.

I want to reassure those who are listening that nobody needs to get in touch with DWP at the moment. Our intention is to work through the cases. We have data for most of these cases and we will contact people proactively. We will set out in the new year how that process will work and what we will do in any remaining cases, but no one needs to get in touch. Please do not phone us at the moment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the independent review and the Government’s response, but what will happen to those carers who have already been convicted of benefit fraud as a result of the mistakes that have been made? Why did the Government decide not to offer compensation to those who have already been so badly affected and whose lives have, frankly, been made a nightmare by the mistakes?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I said that we will set out in the new year the details of how the reassessment is going to work. We will be working our way through all the cases. I do not know how many, if any, of the cases resulted in prosecution. We will work through what will happen in cases where people, for example, either had overpayments or may have had a civil penalty or even possibly another form of administrative penalty. On compensation, it is not unusual for there to be reassessment exercises when guidance or other systems are found to be wrong, and DWP does not routinely make special payments under those circumstances. The noble Baroness may not welcome it, but I am very grateful that carers’ organisations have really welcomed the fact that we have taken the trouble to work out through an independent review precisely what went wrong and are putting it right. I am delighted that we are able to do it, and I look forward to our being able to right those wrongs.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

462: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty of school governing bodies regarding mental health provision(1) Subject to subsection (3), the governing body of a maintained or academy school in England has a duty to make arrangements for provision in the school of a dedicated education mental health practitioner.(2) In subsection (1) “education mental health practitioner” means a person with a graduate-level or postgraduate-level qualification of that name earned through a course commissioned by NHS England.(3) Where a school has 100 or fewer pupils, the duty under subsection (1) may be satisfied through collaborative provision between several schools.(4) The Secretary of State must provide, or make arrangements for the provision of, appropriate financial and other support to school governing bodies for the purposes of facilitating the fulfilling of the duty in subsection (1).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the governing body of a maintained or academy school in England to make arrangements for provision in the school of a dedicated education mental health practitioner.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 462 is in my name. I thank my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for adding their names.

This is a very important group. It is about the mental health and well-being of children, something that is, or indeed should be, central to the Bill. It is the name on the tin. My amendment would ensure a dedicated mental health practitioner in all schools qualified to a level—and this is the critical point—that they can deal safely with the problems that are more complex than those currently dealt with by early-intervention CBT—cognitive behavioural therapy—support, which is currently delivered by existing mental health support teams.

To be clear, I welcome and applaud the Government’s commitment in the spending review to expanding mental health support teams to all schools and colleges in England. These teams work with children, parents and wider school staff to promote good mental health and, funded through the health system, provide effective prevention and early-intervention support for children with a range of mild to moderate mental health needs, including things such as low mood and anxiety. They are doing important work.

These teams are staffed by education mental health practitioners. The terminology can be a bit confusing here, but it is a relatively new role within the children and young people’s mental health workforce system. As these mental health support teams expand, these practitioners in training are recruited for a work-based placement, while they complete a diploma or postgraduate qualification over a period of one academic year. During this time, practitioners are trained to deliver low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy to children or, in some cases, to parents, to allow them to directly support their children.

While this approach has been effective for children with lower-level needs, CBT is not appropriate for all. Evidence has shown that some groups of children are less likely to benefit from these interventions; this includes those with special educational needs, younger children, and children experiencing moderate to more complex mental health needs.

The problem is—and this is specifically what my amendment is designed to address—that these children with more complex needs still do not meet the very high threshold for child and adolescent mental health services, because their needs are deemed to be not severe enough. In short, they are currently falling through a gap in support, and it is often referred to as the “missing middle”.

In the last 12 months, CAMHS has closed 28% of referrals without offering any support. This results in mental health support teams in schools often being asked to hold cases that they are not trained to work with safely, leaving children at risk. These children include those who are at risk of or have indeed self-harmed, those who have experienced trauma, bereavement or loss, and those who have thoughts of suicide. These things are real; these children are not making those things up. These children are often clearly visible to the professionals within schools and the health service through repeat presentation at health services. Often, they are struggling, not attending school or unable to engage with learning.

It is worth noting that respected voluntary sector providers, such as Barnardo’s and Place2Be, have recommended that, as part of the Government’s rollout of mental health support teams,

“the model is expanded to include provision of funded … school-based counselling”.

They say it would fill this missing middle

“to ensure that all children in mental distress can access timely support”.

A dedicated mental health professional qualified at the right level, such as a school-based counsellor, would normally hold a degree in counselling or psychotherapy. That would improve outcomes for children whose needs are not currently being met and—this is critical—should help to reduce pressure on CAMHS in a cost-effective way. These professionals are trained to deliver a range of different therapeutic skills and approaches that allow them to understand the unique needs of each child. One size does not fit all; I am sure we can all agree on that.

Evidence from other UK nations demonstrates how embedding school counsellors can indeed reduce pressure on CAMHS. In Wales, where school counselling services are statutorily funded, only 1.7% of those accessing counselling need to be referred on to specialist CAMHS. Existing mental health support team staff and school-based counsellors have different routes of training, different qualifications and different skill sets. They each fill a different mental health need and working together could offer more support to more children than is currently the case.

In conclusion, my amendment proposes that the skill mix of the mental health support team workforce should be expanded to ensure that all children have access to an appropriately qualified mental health practitioner as part of the rollout. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on this.

Finally, I want to express my strong support for Amendment 472 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, to which my name is also attached, and to Amendment 479 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I will make a just a few very quick points on Amendment 472. This is a Bill about children’s well-being but, frankly, with very few direct references to the broader issue of well-being and, certainly, without any provisions for measuring well-being. This amendment would provide for a single, optional online well-being survey, delivered annually in schools and with centralised support made available to schools that wished to take up the option.

That is a modest but important ask. School data from the surveys would not be published or used to penalise schools in any way, or be part of the formal accountability systems. In case of any misunderstanding, this would not be a stick with which to beat schools. The survey would be optional. Schools would not be mandated to participate. It would be up to them, as indeed it would be for parents, carers and pupils, to opt out should they choose. However, we know from a recent YouGov poll that 75% of parents agree that, to improve young people’s well-being, we need to measure it. Critically, the data collected would allow the whole system to respond, including children’s services, education, health and the voluntary sector, at both national and local level.

I end by pointing out what I think we all know: happy and healthy children are most likely to be present at school, to engage in learning and to achieve to their full potential. Surely that is what we all want. We have a real chance here to progress that aim. I beg to move.

[Lord O'Donnell (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak on behalf of Amendment 472, which is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, who has spoken very well, and the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Moynihan. This is a modest proposal, but it is probably the most important one. I have sat through all the hours of this debate and I would say to all noble Lords who have spoken that, if this does not go through, they will not succeed.

The reason I say that is that I have not spent over two decades in the Treasury without knowing that you need evidence: you need to prove what works. Your Lordships have talked various things. The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, mentioned various interventions and wanting to know whether the costs and benefits were worthwhile; that is absolutely right. She mentioned NICE. The key thing about NICE is that it works out whether a given medicine is worthwhile by doing a cost-benefit analysis based on QALYs—quality adjusted life years. We now have more sophisticated measures known as WELLBYs—well-being years.

To understand whether a thing makes sense, we need to do the assessment and for that we need data. Your Lordships have all made suggestions: we want more physical exercise; we want less bullying; and we want to think about what things in SEND work. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, we need some common definitions. We need a common definition of well-being that we can use; the department can give us that. Then we can work on the basis of exactly how important and how effective all these things are.

If we think about how this debate started, we all talked about our favourite brand of school: free schools, academies, you name it. How do we assess which one is better? Well, either implicitly or, in some cases, very explicitly, it was a matter of exam results or Ofsted rankings. Nobody talked about these schools’ impact on well-being, for the very good reason that we do not know. We do not have data. The only data we have is the world’s most embarrassing data of all, which nobody has mentioned yet: the PISA data. The PISA data shows us that, out of all of Europe, our young people have the lowest well-being. Of the 38 countries in the OECD, where do we come? In 37th place. My favourite football team, Manchester United, is not even that bad in the league.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that, after this wide-ranging debate and with that response, noble Lords will feel able to withdraw or not press their amendments.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response to this, as she said, wide-ranging—you could even say “interesting”, in a certain sense—debate. I simply reflect that, in terms of the tone of the debate that we have had, there was a time not so long ago—perhaps a few years ago—when, if you were talking about children’s mental health and well-being in this Chamber, there would have been a certain sort of debate. There would probably have been a general consensus about the problem and what we were trying to achieve, and there would probably have been some disagreement over the best way of getting there.

I have to say: that is no longer the case. As with so many things in this current world, this whole issue seems to have become highly polarised and contested in a way that I find pretty unhelpful, but we are where we are. We can all quote our favourite bit of evidence or research report that backs up our own worldview but, frankly, unless you are looking at these things in the round, that rarely takes you much further forward.

I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, talk about the need to look carefully at the root causes of mental health issues. That was a very helpful perspective; personally, pretending that a problem does not exist rarely helps to address it.

I do not recognise that schools have turned into some sort of industrial complex of mental health with an excess of mental health professionals. All I can say is that the schools I have visited are not like that; they tell me what an issue mental health is and how they want extra help and support. That is all I am going to say in general terms.

I will respond to a couple of the points on the amendments. On my amendment, I was moderately encouraged to hear the Minister talk about the pilots, looking at the enhanced levels of support from mental health support teams. That is exactly what I was trying to get at in my amendment about the missing middle, as I put it. It is about the skills mix. There is a legitimate question to look at there. I hope that that we can return to that point on Report because, according to the people I have talked to—practitioners on the front line—it is important.

There was such a strong consensus. Well, it was not a consensus, but many people in the Chamber could see clearly the case that was being mounted for a national well-being survey—a voluntary survey. No one would be forced to do it. None of it would form any part of the accountability system of schools, but it would be something that those schools could have and use.

Having and being able to use that data will be fundamental if we are to increase the well-being of children and young people in schools. As far as I am concerned, there is no running away from the PISA data that tells us that the UK’s young people have the lowest well-being in Europe and the second worst in the OECD. That is what PISA tells us. We need to do something about it. To do something about it, we need to be collecting that data.

I am sure we will want to think about this again, and about putting it across—the costs would be very modest indeed—in a way that will be acceptable to the Minister and to this Government. Until we have that, we will not be able to address the fundamental problem of children who have poor well-being, are unhappy with perhaps poor mental health, do not learn well, do not achieve, and do not live the fulfilling lives that we all want them to live. However, at this point, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 462 withdrawn.

Universal Credit Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, to say that this Bill, in its various incarnations, has had a bumpy ride would be something of an understatement. The Bill is now being rushed through Parliament at what feels like an indecent pace and now, having been assigned as a money Bill, it means that this Chamber cannot undertake its normal scrutiny. In short, the Bill has had neither proper consultation nor in-depth scrutiny. To be blunt, the whole parliamentary process has been shambolic, and I fear that this has seriously damaged trust with disabled people, including those with mental health problems, who have needlessly gone through turmoil.

I totally understand that the current welfare bill is unsustainably high and that reform is needed, but if the Government are serious about cutting welfare spending at source, they would also get serious about fixing health and social care without delay so as to tackle chronic ill health at its root, rather than start by trying to cut funding for carers and some of the most vulnerable.

Having made those general points, I will focus on two issues which give me real cause for concern. The first is mental health. The initial plans in the Bill when it was introduced would have had a devastating impact on people with mental health problems. Although I welcome the announcement of the Timms review of the PIP assessment, to which I will return, there remain fundamental flaws with the Government’s plans. The cut to the health element of universal credit, which remains, will mean that about 750,000 disabled people will miss out on about £3,000 a year by the end of the decade. This will include many people with mental health problems who find themselves too unwell to work.

These cuts to universal credit are supposed to be safeguarded by the new severe conditions criteria, which apply to people who meet a set of requirements including having a lifelong condition and being likely to satisfy the relevant criteria for the rest of their life. This will mean two things: first, that at least one of the descriptors of people’s conditions applies to them “constantly”; secondly, that they will have been given an official diagnosis by an NHS practitioner. I share the concern of many in the sector about the requirement for a descriptor to apply constantly because, for many mental health problems, even severe ones such as schizophrenia, people’s mental health can fluctuate. This sort of fluctuating condition also applies to people with severe conditions such as MS and Parkinson’s.

I am also concerned about the new NHS diagnostic requirement, as we know that many people with mental health problems can wait years to receive a diagnosis and many feel forced to receive or seek treatment outside the NHS because of very long waiting lists or inaccessible services. It just does not feel fair to penalise people who seek private diagnosis and treatment due to the inadequacies of the current NHS.

I share the concern expressed by some about the extent to which the Timms review into personal independence payments will be a genuinely co-produced endeavour. Despite welcome promises to work closely with disabled people on changes to the system, the way this Bill has been handled so far—and, frankly, the way it fell apart—demonstrates a clear lack of consultation with the people most affected. It is also unclear what obligations the Government will have to implement the review’s recommendations and whether they will need to be bound by the current spending envelope of the cuts we have already seen. Can the Minister give me an assurance that there will be proper parliamentary scrutiny, including full debates in both Chambers, following the publication of the Timms review?

I return to the Bill’s impact on unpaid carers. Given that PIP is a crucial gateway for carer’s allowance and other carer benefits and that 150,000 disabled carers receive PIP, it is vital that the Government provide a firm commitment that unpaid carers and organisations that represent them will be consulted and fully engaged with throughout the Timms review. This time, we really need to take the time to get it right.

What assurances can the Government give that the outcome of the Timms review will not lead to significant numbers of unpaid carers being put at risk of losing their own benefits entitlement? It is worth reminding ourselves that the original Bill would have resulted in 150,000 carers losing entitlement to carer’s allowance. I quote one carer: “The extra costs we faced as carers will not disappear if the health element is cut. For those of us like myself who are carers and disabled, this will be a double whammy”.

Carer’s Allowance

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I think I should just reiterate that the Government thoroughly recognise and value the vital contribution made by carers, but it is also the case that, if a claimant incurs an overpayment due to payment error or fraud, this overpayment will need to be repaid and, in some cases, as the noble Baroness will know, a penalty will be charged. However, we carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments and safeguards are in place to manage repayments fairly. Some overpayments will attract no penalty at all, and I can certainly expand on the safe- guards that we have in place.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee has written to the comptroller of the National Audit Office asking the NAO to conduct a second inquiry into carer’s allowance overpayment, five years after the initial investigation in 2019? Would the Government welcome such an investigation and how quickly could it be set up?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have to say that the gist of the argument that came from the noble Baroness’s question is, “What is going on?” I can tell her that around 1 million people are in receipt of carer’s allowance and that the vast majority of them—around 95%—were paid correctly. I do not entirely accept the statistics that the noble Baroness mentioned: the total overpayment rate for carer’s allowance was 5.2%, which represents about 60,000 people. About half of them ended up being given a penalty of £50—the basic civil penalty.

Health and Disability Reform

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity at last to ask some questions about this Statement, because the route here has not been pretty or swift. The Prime Minister made a speech on 19 April about the need to reform sickness and disability benefits. Cue lots of headlines about sick note culture and the need for a crackdown. Then, there was silence: 10 days of expecting a Statement which did not come; 10 days of asking for detail; 10 days during which, if noble Lords are anything like me, they will have had a succession of messages from sick and disabled people who were very anxious about what was going to happen to their benefits.

When the Secretary of State finally talked, it was not to Parliament but to the media, of course, so we began to find details there. The Telegraph ran the headline, “Disability benefits could be vouchers, not cash”. The Sunday Times said, “Depressed and anxious face losing … benefits”, with the sub-headline, “Tories plan welfare reform as election divide”. I sorry to say it, but there we have it. The Secretary of State was quoted in the Sunday Times as saying that

“it was ‘extraordinary’ that Labour was refusing to say whether it supported his benefit changes”.

At this point, there was no document, there had been no Statement in Parliament, and no details were available. In fact, when the Statement was made in Parliament, the Secretary of State did not even observe the usual courtesies of giving an advance copy to the Speaker and the shadow Secretary of State. I do not know why the Government would sit on the Statement and document for 10 days and then publish them in the week of the crucial local elections—it is a mystery.

Now we have the details, although it is not very detailed. I read the Green Paper from cover to cover, and if you exclude questions and the padding in the annexes, there are 14 pages of content. The Green Paper could hardly be any lighter green.

How did we get here? In 2013, the Government abolished disability living allowance and created PIP. According to the Green Paper:

“PIP was intended to differ from DLA by being fairer (by paying greater regard to needs arising from mental health, sensory and cognitive conditions)”.


It was also to be

“more consistent … objective … transparent … sustainable … modern and dynamic”.

The Government committed to undertake an independent review of PIP after two years and again two years later. There have been two consultations covering PIP since then.

Then, in July 2021, the Government published Shaping future support: the health and disability green paper, which launched a consultation on PIP and ESA. Nearly two years later, in March 2023, the Government published a health and disability White Paper which set out the Government’s vision

“to help more disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work”.

That paper announced the plan to remove the existing universal credit limited capability for work and work-related activity element and replace it with a new universal credit health element. It was also going to abolish the work capability assessment, which was people’s gateway to those benefits, so there would be only one health and disability functional test in future: the PIP assessment.

Now, a year after that White Paper, we are back to a Green Paper, which proposes abolishing the PIP assessment. What is going on? How will anyone be assessed for anything? Will the Minister tell us what happens to people who are clearly too sick to work at the moment but are not disabled? How will they have their support assessed when there is neither a work capability assessment nor a PIP assessment? Is the plan still to have a new universal credit health element, or is that under consideration again as well? The Government suggest that some health conditions can be taken out of PIP assessments. Can the Minister tell us which conditions they have in mind? PIP is also passport to the carer’s allowance. How will that work if there is no PIP assessment? Do people risk losing their benefits and their personal care from family or friends at the same time?

The Government said that DLA was the problem and PIP was the answer; now it seems that PIP is the problem. The fact is that we have a problem in this country: we have a record 2.8 million people locked out of work due to long-term sickness. But what or who is to blame? How much of that is down to the Government's record on the NHS? When the Statement was debated in the Commons, the chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee pointed out that:

“PIP assessment providers confirm that worsening delays in NHS treatment are a big factor in the increase in the number of people applying for PIP”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/4/24; col. 52.]


We have also been hearing strong hints that the real problem is people with mental health problems. I do not doubt the Minister on this, but politicians in general need to be very careful about how we speak about mental health, for risk of stigmatising people or making them afraid to speak out or seek help. Can the Minister say whether the Government’s plans involve treating people’s mental and physical health differently? If so, can he explain the legal basis for making such a distinction? Can he also say what the Government will do about the near impossibility, for many people, of getting any timely mental health support at the moment?

A Labour Government would take a different approach. Among those who need the help of the state, there are some people who are temporarily or, in some cases, permanently unable to work and who need support to have a decent life. There are many others who need extra help to get, keep and advance in a job, and it is the state’s job to give that to them. For those people, health and work are two sides of the same coin.

Rather than blaming people for being sick, a Labour Government will support our NHS. The last Labour Government delivered the highest patient satisfaction level on record, and that is the record on which we want to build. We will drive down NHS waiting lists by getting patients treated on time, with 2 million more weekend and evening appointments, and we will ensure more support for those with mental health problems through an extra 8,500 mental health staff.

We will focus constructively on work, the other side of that coin, because the costs of failure in this area are a disaster for individuals and the country. Where it is possible, work is good for us—for our mental and physical health. Labour will have a new deal for working people, improving rights for the first time in a generation. We will drive up employment in every region, devolve employment support and end the tick-box culture in jobcentres. We will tear down the barriers to work for disabled people and provide help for young people.

Labour will carefully review the issues raised by this latest Green Paper. Clearly, sick and disabled people need appropriate help and support, but we also want to be a country where disabled people have the same right to a good job and the help to get it as anyone else. We will judge any measure that the Government bring forward on its merits and against that principle. I look forward hearing more from the Minister.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will not repeat what the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has just said about the lead-up to the publication of this Green Paper, but it can hardly be described as ideal. When announcing the Green Paper and the reforms to PIP on Monday, the Prime Minister said that something had gone wrong since the pandemic, leading to more people not working because of long-term ill health; he singled out the rise in people unable to work because of mental health conditions. Of course, I agree with helping people to get back into work, where that is possible, and I agree that for some people with mental health problems, it can improve their well-being. What I worry about greatly is putting the spotlight on people with mental health problems in such an unhelpfully divisive and—I agree—stigmatising way.

We need to go back to the root causes here. Can it be any surprise that so many people are claiming sickness and disability benefits when millions are still waiting for NHS treatment, and mental health wait times are through the roof, due to an acute shortage of mental health professionals, including doctors, nurses and counsellors? Does the Minister agree that if the Government are serious about getting people back to work, they need first to reduce waiting times for NHS treatment and tackle the crisis in our mental health services which makes accessing mental health treatment so difficult and protracted?

The Prime Minister also claimed that these changes are about “compassion”, but does this not rather miss the point that most young people claiming PIP are doing so because they have ADHD or autism, rather than anxiety and depression? Last year, 190,000 young people claimed PIP due to autism, ADHD or other learning disabilities, compared to just 129,000 claiming for all other disabilities. Could the Minister explain why, in the announcement of these proposals, there has been such a strong focus on anxiety and depression and how far this is based on the evidence?

I am concerned that potentially stopping cash payments will be seen as an affront to the dignity of benefit recipients. The BBC News website yesterday quoted one 71 year-old recipient, who said that for her PIP is about

“maintaining independence, not being a burden on my family and keeping my dignity”.

It could hardly be said that the reaction from the sector has been favourable. The charity Scope has said that these plans do not fix the underlying issues faced by disabled people. The chief executive of the charity SANE has pointed out that

“mental health problems are often invisible and fluctuate from month to month or day to day, and … assessments for benefits are all too often based on ‘snapshot’ judgments that do not take account of how hidden and disabling mental illness can be”.

Can the Minister say what consultation took place with the mental health sector and those who work closely with people directly affected by these issues prior to the Green Paper being published?

Finally, I turn to a wider issue. The Statement talks about a

“new conversation about how the benefits system can best support people to live full and independent lives”.

I am sure we can all agree with that, but we need to look at these issues in the round. Being able to live independently in the community can often rely on the help and support of unpaid family carers. Does the Minister agree that it is simply unacceptable for over 150,000 unpaid carers to be facing severe financial penalties—pushing many into debt or financial hardship —for often quite unknowingly breaching the earnings limit while caring for a loved one? What urgent steps are the Government taking to stop this outrage, and will they agree to an amnesty while it is being sorted out? If the Minister cannot answer that now—I accept it is not within the immediate focus of this Statement—would he please write to me?

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

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Tyler, for their questions; I will do my best to answer them.

Indeed, the Prime Minister did make a speech on 19 April, and I was there in person. He covered a whole range of announcements in the world of welfare. I found it to be a very caring and compassionate speech; that is a really important point to make, because it did not come across in some quarters in the media. On how the Statement was communicated, I will not dwell on that other than to say that both noble Baronesses will know that apologies were given. That is on the record, and I do not think it is right that I should say anything more about that now.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock—and it was alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler—spoke strongly about mental health and the link with physical health. I want to make a few remarks about this, because we should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk about mental health more openly. The Government will never dismiss or downplay the conditions that people have; it is precisely because we take mental health so seriously that we need to reform the system. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but the current system does not reflect that. It is simply wrong to write people off when there is a growing body of evidence that good work can improve mental health.

In terms of the evidence raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, I visited a jobcentre only this morning and asked various questions of the job coaches. I reassure her, or alert her to the fact, that the evidence is certainly there. I am sure she will know from her own experience there is an increased level of mental ill-health, some of a severe nature. Action must be taken.

But it is more than that; it has been over 10 years since the introduction of PIP. We need to ensure that our system is fair and accurately targeted at those who need our support most. Although we have made significant progress, the disability benefits system for adults of working age is not consistently providing support in the way it was intended. In terms of a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, I reassure her and the House that we will and intend to continue to support those who need it. That includes those who genuinely are not able to work—that is what we are doing at the moment. In terms of what may come out of the Green Paper, and indeed this conversation or consultation, that is a most important point that I want to emphasise—which, by the way, the Prime Minister also emphasised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about the importance of investing in mental health services. She is right; we want to ensure we are providing the right support to those who need it most, targeting our resources most effectively, and supporting disabled people and people with long-term health conditions to live independently and reach their full potential, irrespective of whether this is a physical or mental health condition—which alludes to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, made. Mental health remains a key government priority; that is why we are investing £2.3 billion a year into NHS mental health services, and why we brought in the long-term workforce plan, which will deliver the fastest expansion of mental health services in the NHS’s history. Just this morning, as I said, I visited a jobcentre and found out more about that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked about PIP and mental health. I will give a few more statistics to back up the views I have given so far. In 2019, there were an average of 2,200 new PIP awards a month in England and Wales, where the main disabling condition was mixed anxiety and depressive disorders. That figure more than doubled to 5,300 a month in 2023. As I said earlier, we will and must continue to support everyone with mental health conditions, recognising that the severity and individual circumstances will vary and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Those with the most debilitating conditions should be entitled to the support they need, as I said earlier. That is exactly what PIP is intended to do, and that core aim will not change.

However, we need to have an honest conversation, which we have just started, about whether individuals with some conditions are better served by treatment and tailored support than by cash payments—which I think was a point raised by one of the noble Baronesses. To increase support, we have expanded mental health provision. Altogether, between 2018-19 and 2023-24, spending on mental health services has increased by £4.7 billion in cash terms, increasing access to mental health services. This has put 400,000 extra people through the NHS talking therapies programme, which the House will be aware of.

On the question raised by the noble Baroness about the amount going on, I say that there is a huge amount. We fully intend to go ahead with the reforms that we announced in Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, because the Government are committed to doing everything that we can to help disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. These changes are separate from this PIP consultation but, as we develop our proposals, we will consider how some interactions with the current welfare system will be reflected in a reformed system. This will be carefully worked through and reported on before we consider introducing any changes. I say again that this is the start of a conversation. We are asking as many people as possible to input into the Green Paper. Already, we have received a good number of responses in the past few days since it was announced.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler—it might have been the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, as well—spoke about too many piecemeal publications and not enough action. Since 2010, we have delivered significant welfare reforms, including introducing universal credit, a modern benefit that ensures that people are better off in work than on benefit. There are nearly 4 million more people in work than in 2010 and 1.1 million fewer people in absolute low income. However, we are now seeing a new challenge—they come up in government sometimes —that emerged in recent years and accelerated post pandemic. As the Prime Minister said, the current system is unsustainable, unfair for taxpayers and no longer targeted at those who need it most. That is why it is essential that we take action.

On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, about carers, there probably is not enough time to go into everything I want to say, but perhaps I can give her some reassurance on the issues circling at the moment. We must carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments with safeguards to manage repayments fairly. Claimants have a responsibility to ensure that they are entitled to benefits and to inform my department, the DWP, of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. To be helpful, we have improved, rather urgently, customer communications to remind them of the importance of telling us about any earnings, including in the annual uprating letter that all claimants receive. We are looking to make the best possible use of earnings information collected by HMRC—so-called real-time information—to help to prevent some overpayments occurring in the first place. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are taking this extremely seriously.

Carer’s Allowance

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

There are two things. We understand the pressures on carers facing the cost of living crisis, especially around energy costs. They will get support through the energy price guarantee, which is supporting millions of households with rising energy costs. I am just waiting for someone to ask me about uprating. We have nine minutes to go until the Chancellor’s Statement, and I stand here in hope.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, carers who care for longer are more likely to be struggling to meet the cost of living crisis at the moment and are more likely to be falling into debt. The Carers UK report shows that that is particularly the case for those who have cared for over five years. What plans do the Government have to set up some sort of independent inquiry looking into the relationship between carers and poverty and to try to come up with some solutions for bringing unpaid carers out of poverty?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My very straightforward answer is that there are no plans for a review or working group on this. Knowing how vociferous the noble Baroness is about things that matter to her, I would have thought that a letter to the Secretary of State would not be a bad thing.

Universal Credit

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what impact assessment they have made of the proposed withdrawal of the £20 uplift to Universal Credit.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register, particularly as a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission and president of the Money Advice Trust. I very much look forward to hearing the contributions of other noble Lords, who I know feel passionately about this issue—one that goes to the heart of who we are as a nation and our moral obligations to each other. I thank the Library for its excellent briefing note setting out the context around the proposed withdrawal of the £20 uplift in universal credit.

The basic facts are as follows. In March 2020, the Chancellor announced that the standard allowances of universal credit and the basic element of working tax credit would be increased by £1,000 a year, or £20 a week, describing this very welcome uplift as a measure to “strengthen the safety net” during the pandemic. It was part of a wider package of support for family finances hit hard by Covid, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme. This package was generally considered to be well-judged and the right thing to do in quite extraordinary circumstances.

In March 2021, the Government announced that the uplift, initially intended to last 12 months, would be extended for a further six months. In July, the Government confirmed that they would withdraw the uplift at the end of September. What has been the impact of this and how has it been received?

Back in November 2020, the Legatum Institute reported that, although poverty had risen because of the pandemic, government policy, including the uplift to universal credit and working tax credits, “has insulated many families” from it. It estimated that the policies had protected 690,000 people from poverty in winter 2020. On the day that the withdrawal was announced, Boris Johnson told the House of Commons Liaison Committee that, as Covid-19 restrictions eased, the emphasis

“has got to be on getting people in work and getting people into jobs”.

This statement, suggesting that there was a binary choice to be made between work and benefits, completely ignored the high and rising levels of in-work poverty.

It is fair to say that the withdrawal announcement has been met with widespread criticism across the political spectrum. Among others, the Centre for Social Justice, the chairs of the relevant committees in the House of Commons and devolved assemblies, the influential Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House and, quite remarkably, six former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretaries have called upon the Chancellor to make the uplift permanent, with many calling on it to be extended to legacy benefits. Tellingly, the six former Tory Secretaries of State argued that

“work remains the best way out of poverty for those who can work, but we want to make sure that those who cannot work are supported with dignity”.

It is hard to disagree with that statement.

In September, 100 organisations, including charities, health professionals and others, called on the Government to abandon their plans to remove the uplift. They argued that the decision would

“pile unnecessary financial pressure on around 5.5 million families, both in and out of work”.

That list is not just the usual suspects; it is a much wider cross-spectrum of opinion.

Crucial to this debate, what assessment did the Government make of the impact of this highly controversial decision? There has been no shortage of calls for the Government to publish any impact assessment or analysis they have done on the effect of withdrawing the uplift. I was shocked to learn that, in response to a Written Question on 22 July, asking the Government to publish the impact assessment for the removal of the uplift, Will Quince, Minister for Welfare Delivery, said,

“no assessment has been made”.

I ask the Minister if she will explain whether such an assessment is now available and, if not, why not, when it will be published and, ideally, what it says. Is there any truth to the report in yesterday’s Financial Times that an internal Whitehall analysis says that the Government should be braced for a “catastrophic” end to the welfare uplift?

Given this gaping hole, various organisations have produced their own analysis of the potential impact, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Citizens Advice—both highly respected organisations. Among others, these assessments have commented that 6 million low-income families will lose over £1,000 from their annual incomes; 0.5 million more people will be pulled into poverty, including 200,000 children; working families make up the majority of families who will be affected by the cut; families with children will be disproportionately impacted; and the impact of the cut will be greatest across the north of England, Wales, the West Midlands and Northern Ireland.

It is ironic to note that, according to Citizens Advice, people are 1.5 times more likely to claim universal credit in places the Government have said they want to invest in, including those areas prioritised by their levelling-up fund. Indeed, it seems that this decision will take more money out of these local economies than it would put in, which is an extraordinary case of giving with one hand, but taking—in brackets more—with the other.

I am particularly concerned about the real-life impact: heart-rending decisions that individual households will need to take on whether to put food on the table, pay the rent or pay the bills—in short, going without essentials or being forced into debt to cover the costs. According to recent research from Toynbee Hall looking at the experiences of Londoners disproportionately affected by Covid, for many, income has reduced, expenditure has increased and debt has risen.

The Financial Inclusion Commission, of which I am a member, has argued that continuing the uplift is a key measure in avoiding the future financial and human costs of unpaid bills, evictions and debt recovery. For the most financially vulnerable households there is a real danger that people will have no option other than to turn to high-cost credit or illegal lenders to meet basic costs. The charity StepChange has highlighted how the termination of this uplift will be a cliff edge for millions, pushing them into deficit budgets. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to ask all financial services providers and utilities suppliers, as part of their vulnerable customer activity, to signpost claimants to the freely available benefits and grants information and advice provided by a wide range of charities?

On the impact on mental health, many people with severe mental illness rely solely on benefits to survive, and the uplift has provided a much-needed lifeline to people who cannot work because of their condition. According to a recent Rethink Mental Illness survey, 76% of UC claimants said that over the last 12 months, concerns about money had impacted on their mental health “a lot” and over half said that they had experienced not having enough money to pay for food.

I want to ask the Minister, who I know thinks deeply and feels passionately about these issues, the following questions. First, all of the last six Work and Pensions Secretaries have described the uplift as a vital improvement in the adequacy of social security, joining hundreds of charities and other experts who have warned that this cut will cause real hardship, rising poverty and debt. Why are the Government ignoring this warning from such a wide array of voices and taking welfare support back to inadequate levels, particularly at a time when energy bills are set to rise?

Secondly, we keep hearing the Government’s plan for jobs as the justification for this cut. However, the majority of people who will be impacted by the cut are in fact already in work, and universal credit provides vital support for families moving back into work at precisely the same time as other pandemic-related government support schemes finish. How does this add up?

Thirdly, what are the Government’s plans for families on universal credit who are unable to work due to caring or disability? Surely, we believe these families should live above the poverty line and with dignity.

Finally, what assessment have the Government made of the interaction between the ending of the uplift and Tuesday’s announcement about the rise in national insurance to fund health and social care? Will there be any overlap between universal credit recipients and those earning enough to pay national insurance, in which case is this a double whammy?

I end by making a heartfelt plea to the Government, adding my voice to so many others, urging them to keep the £20 uplift, make it permanent and extend it to legacy benefits.