Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Southwark and Baroness Drake

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I rise to express my support for the intention behind the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, which makes sound social and economic sense. If a child can be cared for within the family network, and that is not to be parents or step-parents, that is in most cases preferable for the emotional, physical and spiritual well-being of the child. Churches have watched and participated for centuries in the patterns of such relationships and know that while they can hide dangers, they provide in the main the best setting for the formation of life. Better that than the anxiety, grief and hardship imposed by benefit rules not designed for such scenarios, and that a proportion of such children be an economic charge on local authorities and reap the emotional deficit that will all too often occur.

We have heard that there are an estimated 200,000 children raised by kinship carers across the UK. Some 50% are grandparents and a little under a quarter are siblings bringing up younger brothers and sisters. If 95% of children living in kinship care arrangements are not looked after by the local authority, can we imagine what the cost would be if there were any sort of shift in that figure—yet we expect the carer to bear that cost? It is a cost often undertaken at short notice and in an emergency. Kinship carers face significant additional costs in terms of both equipment needed and maintenance costs. Their family size increases and can even double overnight. Unlike adopters, they are not entitled to a period of paid leave for the children to settle in. The largest survey of kinship carers in the UK, conducted by the Kinship Care Alliance, found that 49% of respondents had to give up work permanently as a result of taking on the kin children, a further 18% had to give up work temporarily, and 23% had to reduce their hours temporarily or permanently. In many cases, this plunged the household into poverty and debt. One grandmother carer responding to the survey said:

“We are struggling to buy food and pay our bills. We have to get food vouchers every three months”.

The Kinship Care Alliance survey found that 30% of kinship carers’ households were currently receiving housing benefit. The figure rose to 36% among larger kinship care households with three or more children—kinship care households such as that headed by Rachel, a grandmother in her 50s who lives near my diocese in south London. She took on the care of her three young grandchildren when her daughter died in a car accident last year. The children’s father is in prison. She has had to give up work to raise the oldest grandson, who is six years old and her two youngest granddaughters, who are three and one years old. She is also grieving the loss of her daughter, just as the children are grieving the loss of their mother.

I would be grateful to the Minister if he could tell me whether the Department for Work and Pensions has undertaken an assessment of the likely impact of this measure on kinship care households and, if so, whether he could provide the detailed figures. Furthermore, if the Government do not favour this amendment, will they bring forward their own amendment to address the points I have raised? Is the Minister not concerned—as I am—that the numbers in care may rise if action is not taken?

Many of the children arrive to live with kinship carers following a crisis and are deeply traumatised. Many have severe needs and some have suffered prior abuse. The survey to which I have referred found that kinship carers reported that a staggering 43% of the children had emotional and behavioural problems. Forcing carers into work cannot always be a just and appropriate response.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, who spoke earlier in these debates, dearly wished that he could have spoken today, and I pay tribute to his endeavours in this regard. I welcome the focus of the Government’s own family test on stable and strong family relationships and the explicit reference to kinship carers in the test. This amendment is entirely consistent with the application of the family test and I hope that the Minister will accept it.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 90B, which seeks to exclude kinship carers from the benefit cap. The amendment is, indeed, a logical extension of our discussion on the first day of Committee on kinship carers and their exemption from the two-child limit. To reiterate, care proceedings cost an average of £25,000 and foster care £40,000 a year, yet most kinship care arrangements can be fixed without recourse to the courts, with dramatic savings to the public purse as well as significantly improving outcomes for the children. However, much of the financial cost of raising the child typically falls directly on the carers themselves.

When we discussed this issue on 7 December, I found the Minister’s response on kinship care profoundly worrying. He was pressed on his failure to acknowledge that a family taking in other people’s children is not doing so through some concept of voluntary freedom of choice, as normally understood, but is choosing to take on the responsibility of vulnerable children rather than abandon them. The Minister responded:

“Clearly there is a difference between the voluntary and involuntary taking on of children, whether they are your own or anyone else’s. That is what our exemptions are for. We are seeking to try to draw the line between where it is involuntary, as in the case of rape, and where it is not”.—[Official Report, 7/12/15; col. 1332.]

That statement shocked many in this House because in effect the Minister was saying that if a kinship carer takes on responsibility for vulnerable and distressed children, that decision is voluntary and therefore not worthy of state support if it means that there are more than two children in the household. I find that reasoning quite extraordinary and, indeed, quite dreadful.