Child Poverty Act 2010 (Persistent Poverty Target) Regulations 2014

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Grand Committee

It would not have cost the Government anything to have a more ambitious target—I think it should be 5%. If the Government do not reach that no one is going to jail, are they? Perhaps Ministers do go to jail; but I do not recall that being in the 2010 Act. A more ambitious target would have been better. I would respond positively to a clearer programme of new activity, as would other colleagues. We need a sense of urgency about the Government being across departments. I know that my noble friend works his socks off—I keep telling him that he is working too hard—but the cross-departmental response does not indicate to me that the whole of the coalition Government are urgently addressing this problem to the extent needed. I hope that the targets which will be adopted this afternoon will act as a new spur to action in future, because this is a very important part of future public policy.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that it is important to acknowledge that poverty rates, and persistent poverty in particular, will not be beaten down to the small number of 7% that we are talking about today—which is, rightly, the Government’s target—by means of financial assistance alone. The root causes need to be addressed in the total war against poverty that it is morally and pragmatically necessary to fight. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which my noble friend mentioned, and others have made the persuasive and well evidenced case that no country can afford to keep paying the costs of poverty, not least in terms of lost human potential. Therefore, I encourage the Government, in their various policies for tackling persistent poverty in children and adults, to come at this problem from as many angles as research has shown are necessary.

The 2014 social justice progress report, which has just been published, led on the recognition that family breakdown, divorce and separation, father absence, and dysfunction are drivers of poverty, not just a result of it. The report says that,

“family breakdown and other risk factors—worklessness, educational failure, mental health or drug and alcohol dependency—can feed off one another, compounding their effects, and leading to outcomes that can be very damaging for those affected and costly to society as a whole”.

Yesterday, the front page of the Times revealed that almost two-thirds of children felt that their parents’ break-up affected their GCSEs. One in eight had turned to drugs and alcohol to ease the stress, while almost a third were at risk of developing mental health problems in the form of eating disorders. Put that alongside the fact that two-thirds of 12 to 16 year-olds in the poorest households have seen their parents separate, and it becomes clear that the full effects of family breakdown will hit the poorest the hardest. Poor family functioning also gives children a very poor start in life, so this Government are to be applauded for their investment in the troubled families programme, about which we have just heard, as well as the Family Nurse Partnership Programme and other approaches aiming for the transformation of children’s life chances. This is the much bigger prize to be won, as opposed to merely moving their parents’ income across a somewhat arbitrary line.

However, we must not mistake the battle for the war. This Government have been courageous in putting family breakdown on the policy agenda for the first time ever but 40 years of negative family trends cannot be reversed in one term and with the somewhat restrained approach which we have seen to date. Divorce and separation carry a £46 billion price tag, yet only £7.5 million is spent on prevention. This is 0.02%, or less than one five-thousandth, of the costs that the policy is trying to save. Marriage is the far more stable family form yet the transferable tax allowance for married couples is worth a meagre £200 per family per year. This is a vital form of assistance to single-earner families who are not eligible for any childcare subsidy. It should be at least doubled for families with young children, so that they have a little more choice about mum and dad staying at home for the few short years of infancy. I believe that this would cost an additional £480 million per annum—money well spent.

Finally, the Government’s groundbreaking family stability review is deemed to warrant only a scant couple of pages in the social justice progress report. It must be published in full because of its fundamental importance for local authorities. They have to construct their own local child poverty strategies and urgently need to commission on the basis of the evidence contained in that review. I urge my noble friend to look again at the policy base for tackling family breakdown and consider strengthening it in the interests of hitting the persistent poverty target that he has set through these regulations.