Children: Affordable Childcare

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, for initiating this debate and for expressing so clearly the issues involved and, indeed still more, for her determined advocacy in this House and elsewhere of the rights and needs of children, especially those children who are most at risk within our society.

Childcare provision in this country has grown like Topsy. As we have heard from a number of examples comparing our own experiences when we were young parents with those of our children as parents now, the need for childcare has become more and more crucial to both parents and children, and as a mainstay of our culture as well of our economy. However, there is such a complex system, which is part universal and part not, with childcare vouchers in their varied forms as an additional complication. Rather strangely, there is also the danger that universal credit will actually make the situation more, rather than less, complex.

There is indeed a very strong case for extending access to affordable childcare, but there is also a case for starting again to provide a coherent system. I wonder whether there ought to be something along the lines of an all-party commission—we have heard a good deal about how the parties are coming together on some of these issues—which could stand back a bit from the immense detail with which we can get involved and consider whether there is a more coherent long-term strategy for looking at childcare.

Within that context, I should like to stress two particular points. First is the need for childcare to be not only affordable but of high quality. There are some welcome signs. The increase in the proportion of paid daycare staff who hold at least a level 3 early years qualification from 54% in 2003 to 84% now is a very encouraging marker. Nevertheless, childcare remains a low-wage profession, and the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, that we have here a system that is at the same time expensive and low-wage, needs looking at carefully.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, cited the statistic that turnover of childcare staff is as much as three times that of a good school. This must have an effect on quality. I know from my own experience how much my own grandchildren value the particular relationships that they establish through the childcare that is provided for them, and how difficult it can be for them and their friends when there are changes in that childcare. That turnover of staff is something that needs to be combated. What strategy do the Government have for improving the status of the childcare profession and the requirement for adequate training and qualifications so that it is comparable, for example, to teaching or nursing?

Secondly, despite the increase in free provision, childcare is taking an increasing proportion of the income of our poorest families, especially of those in work. More than half the families living in poverty are in work. We need to ensure that the main beneficiary of childcare is the child. Children in poverty need the high-quality childcare that enables their parents to work and so contributes to the well-being of the whole family. It is perhaps particularly important for lone mothers. Gingerbread has recently published startling evidence of the improvement in the mental health of lone mothers when they enter employment.

The Government need to be careful in the financial arrangements they make to support lone mothers and others who are unemployed in accessing affordable, high-quality childcare to enable them to return to work. Yet the current proposal for a childcare element of universal credit provides 85% of costs from 2016 only if both parents earn above the income tax threshold. The lowest-income working parents will receive only 70% of childcare costs. If earnings fluctuate, as they do in so many of these families, it will be unclear to them whether they are entitled to 70% or 85%.

Through tax credits and housing benefit, families can now receive up to 90% of their childcare costs. Those in most need will see help reduced to 70% in 2016. How will the Government ensure that support for childcare costs is given to the families in most need? This is a key part of the weft and woof of our society in these days. It is something that needs and deserves the attention that we are paying to it in this debate today, but this needs to be extended to serious consideration in all our parties and in this House as a whole. I hope that this debate will be a developing part of a concentration on childcare that will stress its importance for families, for parents, for our society and, above all, for the children themselves.

Millennium Development Goals

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right and it is important to take forward the current MDGs. However, one of the most important things now is to make sure that the proposed new MDGs, or something very similar to them, are adopted in 2015 so that the progress made in the past 13 years is built on. As noble Lords know, DfID is committed to 0.7% of GNI going to aid. For example, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has just announced £1 billion going towards the Global Fund. All this will help to deliver the original MDGs.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, will the Minister press for tax justice to be a distinctive international goal in ensuring that major corporations pay appropriate taxes and in channelling taxes to the countries where profits are actually made?

[Baroness Northover]

The right reverend Prelate is right to highlight that and he will know that the UK Government are emphasising the importance of tax being collected appropriately within the developing countries. This will be transformative. Corporate transparency is one of the aspects required and he will know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for BIS, Vince Cable, is working very hard on that. BIS has just consulted and is considering responses, and DfID is trying to ensure that tax regimes in the developing countries are strengthened and built on.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, one of the privileges of a debate of this sort in your Lordships’ House is hearing speeches from those with a deep personal knowledge and understanding of places in the world they have visited. The speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, was a good example of that.

I particularly associate myself with the magisterial speech of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, on Sri Lanka, with which the diocese of Ripon and Leeds has connections, through the worldwide church, with the dioceses of Colombo and Kurunagala. Like him, I emphasise the need to work with the people of that land both in securing the peace which has been achieved and in ensuring human rights in that country.

The other thing that I have done this afternoon is go with a number of other noble Lords to the Christian Aid presentation in Westminster Hall. In the middle of Christian Aid Week, it is particularly crucial that the Government join millions of our fellow citizens in affirming our desire to see an end to hunger in our world. I welcome the leadership that the Prime Minister has shown to date, particularly in challenging tax evasion, which has a particularly detrimental effect on the poorest countries of the world.

In that context, I remain disturbed by the absence in the gracious Speech of any reference to the target of 0.7% of gross national income being spent on international aid, and I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for her firm statement on the importance of achieving that target for our country. However, we still lack any information on the intention to embed this in law. That commitment represents our concern for the poorest people in our world and is an important part of the determination of the still-wealthy nations to continue their support of those in most need. I associate myself with the words of the noble Lords, Lord Chidgey and Lord McConnell, in wanting to affirm clearly at this point the millennium development goals and the need to move beyond them in seeking to put an end to hunger in our world.

There have been various assurances over the past 12 months that a Bill incorporating the 0.7% commitment is written and ready to be presented to Parliament when the business managers can find time for it. I am aware that a fortnight ago a Bill was lost in the other place under pressure of business after the Government had said that it was almost identical to what we would have tabled. I look forward to the Minister’s assurance that not only is it the aim of this Government to ensure that the 0.7% target continues to be met but that the search is still on to find parliamentary time for such a Bill. It may be that the noble Lord who is to reply can table it in this House because the promise is beginning to look somewhat thin unless it is now accompanied by action.

There has been much important debate on the proper objective of aid to other countries, and I welcome the desire to concentrate aid on where it can do most good in appeasing hunger. In particular, it is crucial that aid goes to those Governments who need the administrative power to collect tax and to close those loopholes that enable multinational corporations to send their profits offshore. However, that should not extend to military action, and it would help me greatly if the Minister can commit himself to the OECD requirement that aid is judged as such only when it is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective.

That brings me to the UK’s presidency of the G8. I am encouraged by the commitment in the gracious Speech to “tackle tax evasion” and to “encourage”—although I would have welcomed a stronger word—“greater transparency and accountability”. The key challenge is to ensure that any tax agreement concluded by the G8 benefits poor countries and enables them to access information about company ownership and assets held in tax havens. In particular, can the Minister tell us whether any tax haven has yet signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters? It would be a powerful example of leadership if the UK-linked tax havens were to sign the convention in the lead-up to the G8.

The Government must be aware that the IF campaign’s pressure, to which a number of noble Lords have referred, to end tax-dodging by individuals and major companies has rightly touched a nerve with the public in our country. The Government need to bring a beneficial ownership action plan to the G8 and encourage other countries to do the same, whereby we can know who ultimately benefits from the profits of companies and ensure that taxes are paid in the countries where those profits are made.

Finally, I welcome the commitment to a hunger summit prior to the G8 meeting. This concentrates attention on where it primarily belongs—on the appalling truth that the world has the capacity to grow enough food for its population and yet NGOs, Governments and individuals still need to provide for those who starve. That is the greatest scandal of all in our world economy.

Global Hunger

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that part of the solution for our broken food system lies in taking steps internationally to ensure that companies pay tax appropriately in developing countries and to help those countries to use their own resources in the fight against hunger? Can she assure us that the Government’s G8 tax reform agenda addresses the problems of tax avoidance faced by developing countries?

[Baroness Northover]

The right reverend Prelate is quite right and I am sure he has noted that transparency in this regard is going to be on the G8’s agenda. One important development is the risk to companies and banks these days related to what they do in various countries. The spotlight is potentially on them. We have seen the backlash in the United Kingdom about the paying of tax. We need to get across very clearly the need for transparency, to highlight what is happening in different countries and to point out to companies that they incur risks thereby.

South Sudan

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for her consistent highlighting of the issues faced by the Government of South Sudan as they attempt to establish a civil society which is robust in peace building and the provision of basic services. I am also grateful to the Department for International Development for its work in seeking to ensure a peace dividend for South Sudan and for Sudan, too. I would be grateful for comment on what more can be done to ensure that finance and funding mechanisms are in place for the medium term to support peace building, humanitarian relief and long-term development work.

The churches and faith-based organisations are among those best placed to help in the provision of aid and mediation at a local level within South Sudan. The Anglican Episcopal Church of Sudan, under the leadership of Archbishop Deng, to whom the noble Baroness has already referred, has continued to work ecumenically and with aid organisations both north and south of the border. It seems to me that one of the great advantages of the fact that the Anglican Church has not split into a Sudanese and a South Sudanese church is that it can work across the border and provide support on both sides of it. The churches have often been able to maintain unfettered access to villages at times of crisis and violence and to respond both in mediation and with humanitarian aid. Can the Minister say what progress is being made on the need to stabilise the political situation in and around Abeyi and whether she believes that the international community can do more to support local mediation efforts, including those led by the church, such as recently in Jonglei state? Humanitarian aid remains crucial. The threatened doubling of the cereal deficit in 2012 means that a new emphasis is needed on food security from the international community in support of the World Food Programme. Again, there is a major issue working with local communities so that food is able to reach those in most need of it.

I would like to focus for a moment on education, in which the churches continue to have a historic involvement both north and south of the border. The diocese of Salisbury in this country, and indeed Lambeth Palace, have had a long-established concern to support the Episcopal Church of Sudan in its provision of education, both north and south of the present border. This is crucial to literacy levels and to equality in the education of girls as well as boys. However, 80 per cent of the police force in South Sudan, for example, is currently said to be illiterate, with major implications for the establishment of the rule of law and for justice. Will the Minister comment on how education can best be enhanced both north and south of the border and on what support can be given for the churches’ provision of schools and teacher training which, when provided by the churches, is always provided on the basis of need and without reference to religious or political affiliation? One considerable possibility would be the redesignation of church-supported schools as “community” rather than “private”.

South Sudan is a country of immense promise. At the moment it suffers from the war with Sudan and from Sudanese action against it. In this very early stage of its development, it finds it hard to develop its own structures. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s strategy on how we can help the promise of South Sudan to be fulfilled in the future.

International Development Policy

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I, too, am deeply grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for achieving this debate and for his powerful opening speech emphasising the positive contribution that aid can make to breaking the “chains of poverty”, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. Yet, we heard from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, of that continuing failure to tackle discrimination based on work, descent and caste. I therefore welcome the renewed emphasis on the situation of Dalits in south Asia, and look to ways in which international development policy can be used to affirm and develop human rights for those who are so savagely damaged by descent and caste.

I hope that we will not be lulled, if that is the right word, into thinking that this is a problem for India and south Asia alone. We need to watch the ways in which such discrimination exists in other societies, including our own, and I therefore welcome the determination of the UN Decade of Dalit Rights to identify and connect with the diaspora of those affected by discrimination based on descent and caste.

Like others, I want specifically to welcome the Government’s defence of their international aid budget of 0.7 per cent of GDP even though that involves some diminution in the actual amount of aid. But to defend that figure through tough economic times is a major tribute to the work of the Minister and of the Government as a whole. I hope that she and they will hear our congratulations on achieving that continued figure. I hope that in her reply the Minister will report on what she expects of the high-level forum on aid effectiveness in Bhutan, to which others have already referred.

I also welcome the establishment of the department’s faith working group, which recognises the importance of faith in many communities around the world and the need to explore how faith can contribute to the success of policies tackling discrimination—not just the work of faith bodies in this country, which I acknowledge and am very grateful for, but the contribution made by religious organisations and faiths throughout the world. In that context it is particularly good to be able to be part of a debate in which the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, is taking part, someone from whom I and many others have learnt much of the place of faith in societies all over the world. I should be grateful for comment on what progress the faith working group has made and whether any concrete steps have been taken as a result of its work.

The UK has a strong record on seeking an international aid policy which will have real impact. In particular, I want to both stress and encourage the new moves being made, not just here but throughout Europe, for greater transparency in the extractives sector. Tearfund’s recent report, Unearth the Truth, gives examples of the need to use natural resources for the real benefit of our poorest communities across the world. Exports from extractive industries are worth something like nine times the value of aid to Africa. Tearfund cites Sierra Leone and also Colombia as countries where conditions could be transformed if the revenue from the extractives sector was reinvested in meeting millennium development goals and in providing basic services such as health, water and sanitation.

I hope that the Minister will be able to comment on how we can have a more transparent picture of the way in which the extractives industry affects relationships with some of the poorest countries of the world and ways in which aid can be directed so that it can provide support and encouragement in the development of those countries.

The condition of the Dalits and of others discriminated against by work or descent must be a wake-up call for all those who believe in fundamental human rights. I am grateful for the stance of successive Governments in the crucial use of international aid to promote the care of the poorest in our world and I look forward to a renewed expression of the Government’s commitment to the breaking of those chains which bind not just those who are themselves in a situation of poverty but all of us in the worldwide culture in which we share.

Violence Against Women

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful for the permission, and the nudge, to speak in the gap in this debate. I apologise to the House for not having been present for the opening speeches. Had I been able to be here I would have put my name down to speak in this crucial debate on the place of women in our society and on violence against them.

I want to make three cultural points. The first is to emphasise, as a number of noble Lords have come to do, the danger of secrecy in all this debate and the unwillingness of people to speak about violence against women—that is, those who are the direct victims of violence and those who know about that violence. There needs to be within our culture a much greater willingness to challenge violence against women than I detect at the moment.

Secondly, religious groups need to be encouraged to be quite clear about their opposition to violence against women and to their willingness to act where there is violence against women. I believe that the record of faiths in this area is not as good as it should be. I should like to encourage all of us, but particularly those with responsibilities within the faith communities of our country, to be still clearer about our opposition to all violence against women.

One way in which this can happen is through an increasing use of marriage preparation. A large number of young, and not so young, people come to marriage through the offices of the churches and other faith organisations. Our marriage preparation needs to make it still clearer that violence is completely wrong within a marriage relationship.

On the third of my cultural points, I support strongly what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said about the need to prevent violence in our homes from the earliest ages of children. I am among those, as many of your Lordships will be, who have signed documents and have been part of the various coalitions under the Children are Unbeatable! tag. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester is another who has signed and has been a part of that movement. I believe that we need to do more in law to stop any form of violence in our homes. I would hope that there might be support from the Minister in pursuing that.

This is a crucial area. I am pleased to have been given permission to contribute to it, and I look forward very much to the closing speeches and to a sense of direction and purpose in all that has been said today.

Women: Public Bodies and Listed Companies

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord takes me into very dangerous territory. I shall reflect and get back to him.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, will the Minister welcome the decision of the Church of England General Synod over the weekend to move towards the ordination of women as bishops, which will be the first step towards their appearance in this House?

[Baroness Verma]

Yes, my Lords.