Carers: Financial Support

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I know the noble Baroness has much experience in this particular area. On the carer’s allowance, I can reassure her that we continue to review the limit and make changes where we feel they are warranted and affordable. The carer’s allowance has an earnings limit, which she alluded to, which permits carers to undertake some part-time work; it also recognises the benefits of staying in touch with the workplace, which we regard as important, including providing greater financial independence and social interaction. As the noble Baroness will know, it can be extremely lonely and very hard work being a carer, as the hours are often long and the work very demanding.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, a place in a local authority care home will cost a local authority a minimum of £800 a week, which is over £700 more than is paid to a carer who cares for more than 35 hours a week, as carer’s allowance is only £76.75. Does the Minister agree that the Government and local taxpayers are getting a very good deal on the backs of unpaid carers?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

We definitely want to applaud the huge number of unpaid carers who work in our society. Caring for a family member or friend, as we know, can be enormously hard work but it can also be incredibly rewarding. To pick up on the noble Baroness’s point, means testing comes into this and this can increase weekly income and act as a passport to other support, including help with fuel costs through schemes such as the warm home discount and cold weather payments, and more recently payments to help with increases in the cost of living.

Child Poverty: Ethnicity

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, on his excellent speech.

This ONS report is very interesting. I want to focus on food poverty. I particularly value the granularity of the data because it allows us to explore which elements of a child’s experience and background affect their educational attainment. The ONS has made a clear the link between poverty in general and educational attainment and, within that, the excessive representation of certain ethnic groups.

First, I believe that the provision of free holiday meals should be extended to all holidays when schools are closed for whatever reason. Children do not get hungry only during the major holidays. Secondly, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, that we should increase eligibility for free school meals and do more to encourage the parents of children in poverty of all ethnicities to apply for them. However, the ONS found that pupils who were eligible for free school meals —FSM—made less progress between the ages of 11 and 16 than those who were not eligible. This indicates that it is the poverty, not the meal itself, which affects educational attainment. However, free meals help to alleviate poverty and help with children’s health, albeit in a small way. For those reasons, will the Government consider reintroducing free lunches for all primary pupils at least, as was done for a time under the coalition Government? There was evidence of better attainment during that period. That may have been because, by removing the barriers to application and the stigma, more pupils who really needed a free meal got one.

However, the ONS found that educational outcomes for Bangladeshi and Pakistani children did not follow this lower attainment trend, since children of those ethnicities who were eligible for FSM had higher Progress 8 scores than the national average. Since the ONS also found that these children are more likely than average to live in low-income homes, this indicates that there is something else operating here to overcome the poverty effect. It is not that these ethnic groups have higher incomes than other Asian groups, but it could be something about the home background and the extent to which the parents positively engage with the child’s education. We need more research to find out whether this is the case. Can the Minister tell us if that will happen?

Of course, when we talk about child food poverty, we are not talking just about free lunches. It is important to make sure that children get a good breakfast by increasing support to the excellent voluntary organisations that provide them to ensure that they are available everywhere and throughout the holidays.

Finally, because all aspects of a child’s life link together to predict their life chances, it is vital to tackle child poverty in the round through housing, special education provision and all the other things that contribute to education and health inequality. Will the Minister comment?

Covid-19: Over-60s

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Shielding was paused on 1 August in England, and clinically vulnerable and extremely vulnerable people are now required to follow the same local and national arrangements as the rest of the population. This means somebody living with someone who is clinically extremely vulnerable is able to attend work as normal if they are unable to work from home.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, at the heart of this Question is how to protect the most vulnerable. At the start of the pandemic, my husband received a letter telling him to shield because of his vulnerability and, as the noble Baroness said, in August he got another letter saying that he no longer needed to shield. Given that virus cases are now doubling every day, what consideration is being given to whether such letters will be sent out again, on what criteria and in which tiers of risk?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The answer to the noble Baroness’s question needs to come from the Department of Health and Social Care. I will talk to my colleague and ensure that a letter is written to the noble Baroness with the answers to her questions.

Universal Credit: Free School Meals

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I heard quite a lot of what was said in another place yesterday, and I am afraid that quite a lot of it is misinformation. One only has to look at Channel 4’s FactCheck, which looked at the claims made by the Opposition about children losing free school meals and was clear that the Government are not taking free school meals from the 1 million children who currently get them. I quote the article directly:

“This is not a case of the government taking free school meals from a million children who are currently receiving them. It’s about comparing two future, hypothetical scenarios”,


both of which are more generous than the old benefits system.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, on what basis was it decided that the earnings threshold for eligibility in Northern Ireland would be double what it is in England? Is this because poor children in Northern Ireland are twice as malnourished as they are in England, or could it be political expediency?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, it is not a question of political expediency. In fact, the earnings threshold in Scotland, introduced last August, is lower than what we propose to introduce in England. Let me also explain further, referring—as the noble Baroness opposite did—to the threshold. The £7,400 relates to earned income and does not include additional income through universal credit. Depending on its exact circumstances, a typical family earning around the threshold would have a total annual household income of between £18,000 and £24,000, but let us remember that if we allowed free school meals to continue beyond the transitional period when universal credit is rolled out, we would include parents earning over £40,000 or £50,000. Is that absolutely fair? Is that what noble Lords opposite want?

Fit for Work Scheme

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Luce, on initiating this debate and I echo his call and that of other noble Lords for the benefits of the Fit for Work scheme to become more widely known. It really is mad that this great network of provision has been set up at great expense but that so many of the people who should know about it, especially GPs, do not make use of it.

I was so glad that my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester and the noble Lord, Lord Fink, both mentioned people with mental health problems. As the noble Lord said, they are often the primary cause of people being away from work for a long period, but I am sure we all know that many people who have chronic pain or another serious condition also have mental health problems that need to be addressed. I ask the Minister: what training do the occupational health advisers in the scheme have in identifying the mental health aspects of a person’s absence from work and in signposting those people towards treatment that will help them overcome it?

I will concentrate my brief remarks on the issue of chronic pain. As we have heard, 8 million adults report chronic pain that is moderate to severely disabling, such that it prevents them working or living a normal life day to day. But many more people live with lesser levels of chronic pain. The incidence is, understandably, much higher in the older age groups. However, few of those people are likely to be in work and are therefore not affected by the Fit for Work programme that we are debating. However, it often prevents them volunteering in the way that they would like—and we all know how important older people are in that capacity. Most charities would fall apart without them.

In the working-age group, one of the conditions that produces chronic pain is fibromyalgia. I know something about this because a member of my family suffers from it. It is incurable and variable. She had such a level of pain and stiffness as to make it impossible for her to carry on with a job in the public service that she very much enjoyed. Eventually she was forced to take early retirement, which penalised her financially until she reached pensionable age. I know that her employer was very sorry to lose her, and I wonder whether she might have been able to carry on if the Fit for Work programme had been available at the time.

However, the rules of Fit for Work, as I understand them, are such that you are not eligible unless you have been, or are likely to be, absent from work for four weeks. I happen to know that my relative, although she suffered a lot of pain at work, did not have long periods of absence. But in the end, she found it just too difficult and retired early. I suspect that many people like her soldier on with a stiff upper lip, taking stronger and stronger painkillers, perhaps performing well below their capacity and not enjoying life at all. In many cases the employer, too, will suffer from their reduced productivity. I wonder whether more people could be helped if the scope of the programme were expanded to help people stay in work, rather than just to return to work from sick leave. Back pain is so common that I would be very surprised if there were not hundreds of thousands of people working below their full capacity because of it.

My family member worked in the public service and did not have an occupational health department to turn to. The Fit for Work programme fills that gap and is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses that often do not have the resources that are available to big corporates. But the point must be made that public service workers often do not have that, either, because they are scattered in smaller units around the country.

Occupational health professionals can often identify the obstacles that prevent a person returning to work or working at full capacity, and can avert the need for them to leave their job. Indeed, I suspect that these professionals would have a lot more clout when negotiating with employers about reasonable adjustments that could be made than the employee herself or himself. It would seem sensible and desirable that, just as reasonable adjustments must be made for workers with a disability, employers should also be prepared to make reasonable adjustments to help people with chronic pain retain their job and help the employer retain an experienced worker.

I am afraid my remarks have gone somewhat wider than the Fit for Work programme, but I think what I am calling for would also achieve some of the Government’s objectives in setting up the scheme—for example, helping workers, improving productivity and increasing the tax take. I wonder therefore whether the Minister can tell me what action the Government are taking to widen the net and provide more help to a broader group of workers who are living with chronic pain but who keep calm and carry on in the good old British fashion.

Families: Work Incentives

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

As the noble Baroness will know, a reduction and a cost saving are going on in this part of the benefits system. We had to make a decision about how to structure that. We decided that the taper was critical because it moved people right the way down at 65%. We have maintained that level. We have taken it out and reduced the work allowances in other areas. In particular, in our experience, for singles the removal has meant that people move straight through the work allowance out of UC. We have tested people carefully and seen a significant, measurable increase in the amount of work that they do and in their earnings. The work allowance impact seems to be less in those areas.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, in some disadvantaged areas parents are finding it difficult to access 15 hours of good quality childcare. Can the Minister guarantee that all parents, in all areas, will receive 30 hours of free, good quality childcare, to enable them to go to work confident that their children will be very well looked after?

[Lord Freud]

It is clear that when you put up people’s rights, the provision has to catch up. It has been doing so, but there is some way further to go and we will be working on that.

Welfare: Cost of Family Breakdown

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

There was a very substantial long-term jump in the number of cohabiting relationships. It went up over the last Government from more than 600,000 to 1.1 million. It is somewhat flattening now; it currently stands at 1.2 million. The noble Baroness is right in that the actual figure is that those couples are four times more likely to split when their child is under three than if they are married. However, there are some structural and major societal changes behind those trends, and it will take an enormous amount of effort to start putting marriage back into its rightful place. That is exactly one of the things that we are looking to do with the family stability review.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister have a breakdown of the amount of funding that the Government give to those charities that help families in difficulty to prevent the partnership breaking down? Can he say whether there is a role for the Family Nurse Partnership in helping families stay together?

[Lord Freud]

We are running two immediate programmes. The first is to provide help and support for separated families, running in SR10 at £14 million, £10 million of which is spent on an innovation fund that tests various interventions, involving 17 different voluntary and private groups. The other aspect is the relationship support interventions, on which we are spending £30 million. There are three main areas—something called Let’s Stick Together, marriage preparation and couples counselling.

Millennium Development Goals

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Loomba for securing this important debate. I think we would all accept that when you educate a girl you also benefit her family. Although eliminating gender disparity has been a major focus of the MDGs, there are still 31 million girls of primary age not in school.

The poor quality of schooling in many parts of the developing world causes many girls to drop out and return to domestic or agricultural work. In some places the teachers do not turn up, demand bribes or are simply not well enough educated themselves. Among many other charities, the Steve Sinnott Foundation is trying to do something about that by training some of the teachers over here. As has been said, another reason why girls in rural areas do not go to school is because they simply fear for their safety on the journey. Among adult women, literacy rates are rising and the gender gap is narrowing. Even so, women represent two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults.

If we draw any conclusions from the MDGs it should be that development must be holistic to have any real impact. The charity Network for Africa found that Rwandan women were unable to attend their free literacy and numeracy classes or vocational training sessions because they were worried about the safety of their children who were left at home. When childcare was provided, girls were no longer being kept home to care for younger siblings; mothers attended training programmes; and toddlers, who benefited from just one year of nutritious meals and cognitive development games, gained years ahead of their peers in health and mental ability. The women in the project quadrupled their income, on average, after six months. When women know that their babies are safe, they will attend classes and improve their life prospects.

Sadly, MDG progress sometimes disguises the fact that social norms still perpetuate discriminatory behaviour toward girls and women. Until someone challenges the idea that we cannot question traditional culture, no great strides will be made. Therefore, in the MDGs post-2015, we need indicators for social norms embedded into every aspect of development programming.

The MDGs tackle the easy part. The tough part is challenging cultures that keep discrimination against women in every aspect of their lives. The myth that gender equality is culturally sensitive and must be treated with kid gloves has to be challenged and debunked and the importance of universal human rights stressed. The position of adolescent girls is crucial and ought to be one of the focuses post-2015. Adolescence is when girls realise that their dreams are unattainable because of cultural traditions and persisting views about gender roles. It is all very well aiming attention at schooling but if negative attitudes still exist in the home they will dominate girls’ lives.

Finally, I wish to make a point about the importance of education in emergencies; it is an aspect of global education that is often forgotten. Nowhere is this more critical than in complex emergencies like the crisis in Syria. Currently in Syria, 2.3 million children inside the country and 400,000 refugee children are without education. More than 4,000 schools have been destroyed, damaged, used as shelters or occupied. In countries surrounding Syria, refugee children have put a strain on the local education systems. Without education and adequate psycho-social support, these children are at risk of accepting violence as normal and replicating it, undermining their own futures, the future of their nations and the stability of the region. The future of an entire generation lies in the balance; the global community must be more strategic in its planning and take steps now to avoid this lost generation and destruction of the region.

I ask the Minister whether the UK Government will ensure that the post-2015 MDG agenda adopts a 100% target for quality, basic education for all children and that inequalities relating to gender, location, age, and income levels will be tracked in all the targets in the post-2015 framework.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I like roundabouts. They often have flowers on them and are very good reservoirs for wildlife. I shall focus my remarks on the Children and Families Bill that is currently going through another place. I am pleased to say that there are several things to welcome; for example, the improvements in the independence of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. Like Oliver Twist, I always want more, so I will be hoping for a few further improvements. However, generally, the Bill provides a great step forward and one that will allow the Office of the Children’s Commissioner to take its place at last around the table of international children’s ombudspersons.

I also welcome the changes to the arrangements for children with special educational needs, for which we have to thank my honourable friend Sarah Teather, the former Minister of State for Children and Families. Thanks to her, at last we will have a holistic approach to the needs of these children. I know that there are concerns about this and how it will work but I am sure we can sort that out when the Bill comes to your Lordships’ House.

I welcome the parental leave measures and I welcome with caution the changes on the arrangements for adoption but it is a pity that the Government did not take the advice of the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation in relation to racial matching and how soon fostering for adoption can be considered. Those matters will be debated in more detail on Thursday afternoon, so I will keep my powder dry until then.

The main issue on which I shall concentrate is the proposal to change the ratios of adults to children in early-years settings. I think that that is a daft idea. I am a great believer in evidence-based policy and in consultation. I am afraid that there is no evidence that these proposals would result in either an improvement in the welfare of children or in the affordability of childcare. When 95% of the professionals responding to a consultation tell you that you have got it wrong, the Government must pause for thought. Fortunately, my own party leader, the right honourable Nick Clegg, read the consultation responses and took notice. I was delighted with his statement that he is not convinced these proposals should go ahead. I agree and hope that he will stand firm.

The Government report, More great childcare, proposed changing adult to child ratios for babies under two years from one to three to one to four, and for children aged two to three years from one to four to one to six. Of course, some might say, “I had four children and I managed”. Yes, but they were not all under two at the same time. We need to remember that, however well qualified and committed, a child carer has only one pair of eyes and one pair of hands. So to be asked to look after too many children could actually put children in real danger as well as impeding their development.

These changes are counter to research evidence on quality and ratios. The current ratios are not there by accident but for a very good reason. Research for the Department of Education by Munton, Barclay, Ballardo and Barreau in 2002 and research from New Zealand in 2011 indicates the safe and effective ratios and I do not believe that they should be changed. It has been said that Sweden, whose childcare we all admire, has no national ratios. However, it has ratios but these are established locally.

Changing the ratios so that young babies vie with three others for their needs to be met by one practitioner will inevitably mean that many of their attempts at communication through eye contact, babbling and pointing will be missed. Yet evidence tells us that it is the responsiveness of the carer, noticing and responding to these small signs of communication and mirroring the child’s facial expressions, which supports language development.

As we all know, language development is one of the most important factors which must precede learning to read. A confident speaker with a wide vocabulary will become a confident and happy reader, and that will have an enormous impact on his future academic achievement. Research by Wells and Nicholls, Language and Learning: an Interactional Prospective, and significant articles from The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry provide the proof of the importance of interaction with adults in language development. This would be impeded if the ratios were increased. The changes are also counter to evidence and recommendations in the government-commissioned Nutbrown review of 2011. I believe that Professor Nutbrown, among many other professionals, has expressed her concern about the Government’s proposals.

If ratios are revised upwards, babies will find their care needs to be less well met, leaving less time for peaceful cuddles during feeding or for patient coaxing during weaning. Responding quickly to need plays a large part in supporting babies’ development of empathy and self-control. A recent book by Paul Tough, How Children Succeed, brings together evidence from numerous research projects in the United States, one of which shows how important is the touching and cuddling of the baby to brain and social development. This helps the child to develop resilience and the ability to concentrate and persist in a task, all essential for future success. Much of this is, of course, provided by the parents, but when a child is being cared for by somebody else it is very important that this interaction is carried on.

The main reason given for the idea of changing the ratios is to make childcare more affordable for parents. However, we are told that settings will be able to raise the ratios only if they have highly-qualified staff. While I strongly support the aim of increasing the qualifications of staff working in the early years, I cannot see how this would bring the costs down. More highly-qualified staff will want to be more highly paid, thus cancelling out any savings that might have been made by the nursery by taking on more children per adult. It is only right that staff who work to get higher qualifications should expect to be paid more. Otherwise, why would they bother? The sector is not highly paid, so there must be some incentives to train.

Andreas Schleicher of the OECD has been quoted in support of the changes, but what he actually said was that, while staff qualifications are more important than ratios, the research relates to “formal schooling—primary, lower secondary and upper secondary”. But here we are talking about the youngest children who have very different needs. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has also been quoted in support of the Government’s proposed changes, but Ofsted has taken no public position on the matter. Sir Michael rightly supports improvements to staff qualifications, but he accepts that the arguments for the youngest children are different.

I know that these changes would be voluntary, but it is clear from the consultation that most parents do not want them either, and I think they will look very carefully at ratios when choosing care for their children. There are other ways of making childcare more affordable while protecting quality and the Government have made a great start with recent announcements about tax relief. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, who is not in his place, said that education is a good investment. I agree with him; indeed, I usually do, and today is no exception. But good quality early years education is a particularly good investment, beneficial to the individual and to the economy, and the Government should embrace it. The evidence for this is “sky high”, to quote a Scottish Minister when proposing more Scottish Government investment in the field. Will my noble friend the Minister look kindly on the evidence when the Children and Families Bill comes to your Lordships’ House?

Children: Child Protection

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Baroness may recall, when I recently answered a Question about the role of police and crime commissioners with regard to dealing with various different kinds of abuse, I had the opportunity to make the point that there is a clear statutory requirement on the police to ensure that they safeguard the welfare of children. This is a very important matter and a priority. Under the heading of child abuse—other noble Lords may wish to ask about this—there are things to do with child exploitation, which is a specific issue within child abuse. If that is what the noble Baroness is referring to, after the recent government review on this, CEOP has taken the lead in ensuring greater training of the police in the area of child sexual exploitation, and that is being rolled out in all police areas in the country.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords—

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Baroness makes an important point because child sexual exploitation is a specific type of child abuse. As noble Lords will be aware, this form of abuse is very pernicious because those who are affected by it often do not consider themselves to be victims of that abuse. As the noble Baroness rightly suggests, it is very important that we ensure that the relevant agencies are properly briefed and made aware of what to look for. That was a recommendation that came out of the original government action plan, which was published a year ago. We are considering carefully the report published yesterday by the deputy Children’s Commissioner, and we will look to build on the action we already have in place.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Will the Minister join me in condemning those who called yesterday’s excellent report “hysterical”? The evidence was extremely sound. Will she encourage those who inspect local authorities to ensure that if authorities do not take into account the very clear evidence about the factors which lead to a young girl being abused, they should be downgraded when they are inspected?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make it absolutely clear that the report published yesterday by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is very important. The Government will consider it carefully and seriously, and will respond later this year. As to the point made by my noble friend about inspections, as the House may or may not be aware, Ofsted carries out inspections of local authorities as regards their provision for child protection. The noble Baroness makes an important point; namely, that inspections have to be rigorous. Certainly, in recent times, the criteria and the way in which Ofsted has carried out these inspections has been tightened. We no longer accept a level of standard that clearly was not adequate to tackle this issue.