Pensions Bill

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that the House will want to reach a conclusion on this debate as soon as possible, but as treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children I would like to express my strong support for Amendment 21, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I also pay tribute to the Minister for the care with which he has clearly been considering this very sensitive matter. That does not surprise me given that his great-aunt, Anna Freud, set up the Hampstead War Nurseries towards the end of the Second World War. She dealt with children who had been separated from their parents and provided them with much needed care. She also made forensic observations of what happens when a child is separated from the parent, looking at the different sequelae of those changes. What she discovered was that while she could feed the children well and provide exercise so that they were healthier, the emotional damage done to them as a result of being separated from their parents was simply huge. The concern must be that if widowed parents are not well supported and given all necessary consideration they may emotionally withdraw from their children, with all the adverse consequences highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord German, in Grand Committee.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, having been one of the signatories, along with 26 other Anglican bishops, to the letter that went to the Daily Mirror last week, I am loath to speak too much about amendments to government legislation. However, on this particular occasion, because bereavement support is such a notable part of our business and ministry, I am very bothered about the direction in which the legislation is going.

I should like to reinforce what was said earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about cost. It seems to me that it is not a question of cost but of how long support is given to people. What many clergy learn and what people often forget is that, as the noble Baroness said, it is not just the first three months which are difficult—the problems continue throughout the whole of the first year. More than that, it is a matter of showing support for people over the whole period of time that the emotional pain of bereavement continues to be very severe. The issue of supporting people financially has an impact on that emotional pain.

Speaking on behalf of a group of people who spend so much of their time trying to support those who have been bereaved and who need to understand how they can be helped, we might take good note of these amendments. They will not cost more money. They have been tabled simply to try to offer more support over a longer period of time—not only in the raw first year, but over the first three or four years, and particularly where young children are involved and the emotional impact is even greater.

[Lord German]

My Lords, these are delicate and sensitive issues. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for using her ingenuity to make sure that these issues are right at the forefront of our discussion on Report. The major issues have already been raised and were expressed from these Benches both at Second Reading and in Committee. The evidence I quoted from the research literature on these matters identifies absolutely clearly that one needs to be extremely careful when dealing with these very difficult times for families. Indeed, what we should recognise is that some people may be able to regain a sense of normality more rapidly than others. You cannot make a distinction or see clear lines between one family and another. It seems that this is very much about the circumstances in which people find themselves and how those positions are managed and handled. The issues raised by these amendments have to be a source of major concern to Members on these Benches, and as I say, they were raised earlier.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Freud for giving us an opportunity to discuss these matters in considerable detail between the Committee stage and today, and to help shape a Government response which adequately meets the concerns expressed. An adequate response from the Government has to satisfy the discussion we had in Committee and be highly relevant to the issues already raised today in this Chamber about these sensitive matters, particularly relationships within families. I want to see a process that meets the issues and was raised in that evidence. This is what I want to challenge and talk to my noble friend about.