Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Kieran Mullan and Andrew Western(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
The Government are committed to reforming the Child Maintenance Service to get more money to children by removing direct pay to combat hidden non-compliance, streamlining enforcement by introducing administrative liability orders and improving our most serious enforcement measures. That said, there are currently no plans to introduce curfew measures; doing so would require amendments to primary legislation and raise significant safeguarding concerns for paying parents and those who live with them.
Dr Mullan
Every year, millions of pounds of child maintenance go unspent, not including deductions for money hidden away and parents who pretend they cannot work. As far as I am concerned, if someone has children and they can pay towards their maintenance, they absolutely should. Enforcement is not working, because the Government treat it like an unpaid utility bill rather than a moral obligation that people have towards their children. I would like the Minister to revisit his suggestion that the Government would need primary legislation to use curfew orders, as that is not my understanding. If all the other measures are not working, why should someone who does not pay for their own children be able to go out on the lash on a Friday and Saturday night when the Government can stop that happening?
Welfare Spending
Debate between Kieran Mullan and Andrew Western(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Andrew Western
What is low is scrapping the Child Poverty Act in 2016. The Conservatives’ record on child poverty is cheap and low. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) can continue to chunter from a sedentary position; I could reel off their record all day.
Andrew Western
I will not at the moment.
Let me come to the shadow Secretary of State, who, like many Conservative Members, was in total denial of the Conservative record, not only on child poverty, but on the welfare bill, which has spiralled enormously since 2020. They put 4.5 million children in poverty, and they come here with this motion. There was no recognition of the fact that almost 60% of families affected by the two-child limit are in work. There was no understanding of the lack of clarity in their motion, which does not specify whether it relates only to universal credit and child tax credit. It says that children “should not receive” any “additional funding”. What of child benefit? What of disability living allowance for children? The motion is not worth the paper it is written on, unless that is now their policy.
The Conservatives have talked about personal and fiscal responsibility—quite unbelievable from the party that crashed the economy and left the welfare bill spiralling. They take no responsibility for their actions at all, but they seek to lecture others on how they should live their lives. The shadow Secretary of State talked about giving families broader support—for instance, through family hubs. How many Sure Start centres closed under the previous Government? In their first 10 years alone, it was 1,300. Then, we heard that only the Conservatives understand the importance of living within their means. I have two words for the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately): Liz Truss.
Andrew Western
Lifting the cap is one of the many levers that the Government are considering. We will look at that in the round, and when we come forward with our child poverty strategy, we will look to lift children in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and here in England—children up and down this country—out of poverty, because that is a moral mission for this Government. Indeed, we have already started that important work, with free breakfast clubs, free school meals for families on universal credit, restrictions on branded school uniform items and, to the point made by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), proposed changes to the Child Maintenance Service. We will also abolish direct pay, which was created by the Conservative party. This will lift 20,000 children out of poverty.
Andrew Western
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there was £1 billion worth of employment support alongside those measures, the impacts of which are yet to be scored by the Office for Budget Responsibility. We are serious about getting people back to work as a route to tackling poverty, as well as providing an important safety net for those who need it.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) asked why others should subsidise someone’s third, fourth or fifth child. I say gently to the Conservatives that it is never the child’s fault. A third child has the same right to thrive as the first two, and if they do not, all three children suffer. A hungry child is a hungry child, whatever their background.