Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Baroness Sherlock

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 6, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie as well as the names of other noble Lords. We rehearsed this issue in Committee but I return to it on Report because, with apologies, I found the response from the Minister so disappointing. Because it is the last amendment of the day, I will be brief.

The Government estimate that some 232,000 families will claim statutory maternity pay, or SMP, in 2012-13, rising to 235,000 in 2013-14. Using the Government’s own inflation forecasts, the Children’s Society calculated that if a woman were on maternity leave now with her first child, and had her second child in 2015, she would find that she received about £184 less in real terms during her second period of maternity leave than her first. If her earnings were below the flat-rate level of SMP, that figure rises to £217. Just when a family needs money most, support is being cut.

This is by no means the first assault on the living standards of mothers of young children. In Committee, I recited the litany of cuts to support for parents of new children. I will spare the House the entire list but will just reprise one or two. We have seen the abolition of the health and pregnancy grant, the abolition of the Sure Start maternity grant for all but the first child, the abolition of the baby element of child tax credit and the cancellation of the planned toddler element, the abolition of the government contribution to child trust funds, cuts to the percentage of childcare help and much more. Since then, the Children’s Society has analysed in detail the impact of those changes. The results are shocking. They have calculated that a working couple about to have a second child in 2015 could find themselves over £7,000 worse off than they would have been over the following two years, simply as a result of changes since 2010. That is the context for this amendment and, indeed, for this Bill.

My second concern is that the Minister failed entirely in Committee to address the question that I raised as to the rationale for including SMP in this Bill. Noble Lords may recall that the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson responded to critics by telling the Telegraph that it was a “personal choice” for parents to decide whether to return to work or to stay at home after having a child. Of course it is, just like deciding where to go on holiday, where to shop, or where to buy your children’s clothes is a personal choice—if you have enough money, that is. If not, then it is George at Asda for you, rather than Giorgio Armani Junior. Money is what makes people have choices, not simply the fact of having a baby.

However, that was not the reason that the Chancellor gave when he announced this Bill back in the autumn. He claimed that the legislation was necessary to ensure that the welfare state was fair to working people, and not to those who lie in bed with their blinds down when their neighbours go to work. In Committee, I asked the Minister to explain how SMP fits with his argument. Let us recall that SMP is a contributory benefit, paid only to women who have given up work to give birth or to care for a new baby, after having been in continuous employment for the requisite period and earning enough to require their employers to pay national insurance contributions on their behalf. However, answer came there none. I therefore ask the Minister one last time: how does including SMP in this Bill fit with the Chancellor’s narrative, and why should pregnant women and new mothers pay the price for a tax cut for millionaires? I look forward to the answer. I beg to move.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I very much support what my noble friend has said in moving the amendment. The House seems very quiet this evening, following the shenanigans of this afternoon when it looked very much to some of us as though there was an organised group on the other side—many of whose members are no longer present, of course, it being after dinner time—who found a huge interest in this Bill in order to keep the Report stage going. Be that as it may, those times are obviously past.

If I read correctly, the Minister—to whom I attach no blame at all for what has been going on, of course—said in reply to my noble friend in Committee that the cost in the last of the three years of allowing this amendment would be around £50 million. Let me tell her one way, at least, that that £50 million could be found five times over. The communities department has £250 million to spend, and has done for some time, in order to make rubbish collections weekly rather than fortnightly. No doubt that is a priority for some, and no doubt it has a validity of its own. However, compared to the wrong which is being done by this Bill—and by others too—and in particular the wrong addressed by my noble friend in her amendment, could the Government not get some proper sense of priority as to what does and does not matter, even at this late stage? That is £50 million, compared with £250 million that is sorted away. This was not mentioned, of course, by the noble Lords who were this afternoon defending the Government’s position with such vigour, because it is an inconvenient truth that in government there is spend which could be much better spent on protecting those who are going to be hammered by this legislation. I ask the noble Baroness to answer my question: what is wrong with spending part of that £250 million, and agreeing to my noble friend’s amendment?