Universal Credit

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am certainly not proud of that, but, as I say, there are a number of reports that have come out, and some that have come out recently. I can only repeat again that we are aware of the pressures involved; some families find it difficult even with where they can find the next meal. We are very aware of and alert to that; I think the noble Baroness will know that we are particularly busy in looking at what more can be done to help those in absolute poverty. She will know from the Autumn Statement the measures we have taken forward, and I can only repeat again that we are very alert to this.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, food inflation remains stubbornly high, at slightly over 10%, although thankfully it is 9 percentage points down from its peak in March this year. On this vital household metric, there is significant risk that prices will stay unaffordably high. What measures will the Government take to encourage the price of essential food items to come down from current levels in retail, local shops and supermarkets?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My noble friend raises another pressure, which we are also aware of. First, tackling inflation is the Government’s number one priority, and that is coming down. The Government monitor consumer food prices using the consumer prices index, as my noble friend will know, and in October 2023 CPI food price inflation reported by the ONS was 10.1%, down from 12.1% in September 2023. I reassure him that, through regular engagement, Defra will continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore the range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food.

Reducing Parental Conflict

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am not going to be tempted into giving an answer to that. I have to tell the noble Lord, as he will expect me to say, that we are fully focused on a major programme of change, including in my particular area. Our aim is to focus on children, and that is the most important thing that we are doing.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is heartening to hear that there is integration going on between departments of government, which has always been a bugbear for us to contend with. I just mention family courts, which post-separation conflict clogs up very expensively, leaving families in destructive limbo. Is my noble friend the Minister taking this area into account to integrate into the policy?

Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Farmer]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister and his officials for their support, all noble Lords who spoke at Second Reading, and my honourable friend Sally-Ann Hart for introducing the Bill in the other place and guiding it through all its stages.

Given my long-standing interest in separated families and the Child Maintenance Service, I am aware that key details of its operation are covered in primary legislation. The Bill amends primary legislation to make the collect and pay service available to victims of domestic abuse regardless of payment history, so that they can decide what is best for their personal circumstances. Evidence of domestic abuse against either parent or children by the other parent involved in the case will be required. Such evidence requirements are expected to be complex, so they will be set out in secondary legislation. My noble friend the Minister will confirm that they will be subject to more detailed policy development, including engagement with stakeholder groups and other government departments to ensure that parents are support appropriately and measures are proportionate for both parents.

It has been a privilege to bring the Bill through its final stages. I hope that it can now receive Royal Assent and be implemented as swiftly as possible. I beg to move.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and congratulate him on having brought the Bill to fruition in this House. I add my thanks to the Minister and his team for having supported it, to the honourable Lady, Sally-Ann Hart, who piloted it through the other place, and to the charities, such as Gingerbread, which put so much work into supporting parents in this area.

Although this is a brief and focused Bill, it achieves one incredibly important task: it enables parents who have experienced domestic abuse to use the Child Maintenance Service without having to communicate directly with the abusive parent. It is a good example of how a Private Member’s Bill can do something quite specific but incredibly important to those affected by it.

We might have considered tabling some amendments to it, to explore some of the issues, but we want to make sure that the Bill reaches the statute book in this Session. I am very conscious that it is six years since Emma Day was murdered by her ex-partner. He threatened her life if she chased him for child support, and when she pursued a claim for child support, he stabbed her to death. I hope that those who still mourn Emma to this day will see the Bill, and the work of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and others, as a small step forward in protecting those who face domestic abuse in our time.

The absence of a Committee stage prevented me from following up on one specific question I asked at Second Reading, which the Minister missed the opportunity to answer. In Committee in the Commons, the Minister, Mims Davies, said:

“Full consideration is being given to exempting victims of domestic abuse from collection charges”.—[Official Report, Commons, Public Bill Committee, 14/12/22; col. 9.]


Can the Minister, either now or in writing, tell the House where that consideration has got to?

For today, we are pleased to offer our support for the Bill, and we wish it fair speed.

Carers: Financial Support

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

We definitely want to applaud the huge number of unpaid carers who work in our society. Caring for a family member or friend, as we know, can be enormously hard work but it can also be incredibly rewarding. To pick up on the noble Baroness’s point, means testing comes into this and this can increase weekly income and act as a passport to other support, including help with fuel costs through schemes such as the warm home discount and cold weather payments, and more recently payments to help with increases in the cost of living.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, as an officer of the APPG on 22q—a genetic syndrome that is half as prevalent as Down’s syndrome, with similarly far-reaching effects—I know carers who are parents of disabled children who can suddenly find that they have to be in hospital with their child for several days. They also attend far more medical appointments than normal. Do the Government perceive a need to encourage and enable employers to show greater flexibility in these unavoidable circumstances, and how might they do that?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. As I said earlier, we are committed to supporting unpaid carers to balance the care they may give alongside work, if they are able to do so. Some caring responsibilities are extremely demanding. My noble friend may know that the Carer’s Leave Bill is currently going through Parliament. This will introduce a new leave entitlement as a right from day one to those being employed, available to all employees who are providing care to a dependant with a long-term care or support need.

Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st April 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Farmer]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to introduce the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill to this House. After it gathered significant cross-party support in the other place, I hope noble Lords will continue this and back these important measures.

As noble Lords may be aware, I have a long-standing interest in separated families. I co-founded the Family Hubs Network Ltd alongside Dr Samantha Callan, my parliamentary adviser. I declare my interest as director and controlling shareholder of the Family Hubs Network Ltd, which advocates for family hubs and advises local authorities on how to establish them. Our work with local authorities includes help to improve the relationship between separated parents, for their and their children’s benefit.

This has contributed to my interest in the Child Maintenance Service, the CMS. I was also pleased to bring forward a debate in this House in 2021 on reforms to the CMS. The CMS has made progress in improving its service for parents since I called the debate, which needs acknowledgement. I know my noble friend the Minister is committed to making the CMS the best it can be, to ensure that separated parents get the support they need. One area in particular is how the CMS operates for victims of domestic abuse. In autumn 2021, the department commissioned an independent review of the ways in which the CMS supports victims of domestic abuse, conducted by Dr Callan. I was pleased to see the review published in January. Before moving on to the details of the Bill, I should like to provide some background to the CMS.

As my noble friend the Minister will confirm, the purpose of the CMS is to encourage parents to work together wherever possible and make their own private family-based arrangements, as these types of arrangements tend to be better for children. However, some parents find it impossible to make their own arrangements, which is why the CMS offers a statutory scheme for those parents who need it. Notwithstanding concerns raised by the Social Security Advisory Committee about low-income paying parents’ liabilities, the CMS aims to operate fairly for both receiving and paying parents by ensuring that the maintenance liability appropriately reflects the paying parent’s income, while recognising the overall responsibility of the primary carer, the receiving parent.

Once parents are in the scheme, the CMS manages cases through one of two service types: direct pay and collect and pay. For direct pay, CMS provides a calculation and a payment schedule, but payments are arranged privately between the two parents. For collect and pay, CMS calculates how much maintenance should be paid, collects the money from the paying parent and pays it to the receiving parent. Under current legislation, direct pay is the default option unless both parents agree to collect and pay, or the paying parent demonstrates an unwillingness to pay their liability.

This Bill would amend Section 4 of the Child Support Act 1991 to extend the collect and pay service to victims of domestic abuse regardless of the payment history. Although I am aware that the CMS can act as intermediary for parents in direct pay, any situation where former partners have to co-operate will always be difficult for some people. This is particularly the case where there has been a history of domestic abuse in the relationship. These proposals are about giving victims of domestic abuse the choice to use collect and pay if they decide that is best for their personal circumstances, avoiding entirely any need to transact with the other parent in a case where that is appropriate, and helping them feel as safe as possible using the CMS.

The Bill will amend primary legislation to allow victims of domestic abuse to use the collect and pay service where there is evidence of domestic abuse against the requesting parent. This could be abuse of the paying or receiving parent, or even children in their household, by the other parent involved in the case; the CMS recognises that abuse can be suffered by either parent, or children, in the household.

The evidence requirements for domestic abuse will be set out in secondary legislation. The requirements are expected to be complex, which is why they need to be set out in regulations rather than in primary legislation. As my noble friend the Minister will confirm, they will be subject to more detailed policy development, including engagement with stakeholder groups and other government departments, to ensure that parents are supported appropriately and that the measures are proportionate for both parents.

Noble Lords may have questions on the issue of charging. For the use of the collect and pay service, paying parents are charged 20% on top of their maintenance liability while receiving parents are charged 4% of the maintenance received. I know my noble friend will touch on this in more detail, but I can say that the charging structure will be looked at as the secondary legislation is developed.

Finally, I will add that this Bill extends to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I am pleased that its provisions will apply throughout the United Kingdom, ensuring that victims of domestic abuse throughout the devolved Administrations benefit from the Bill.

In conclusion, I am privileged to present this Bill before the House and I hope that noble Lords agree that it will provide victims of domestic abuse with an additional layer of support, which many of them may need when using the CMS. I look forward to working with my noble friend the Minister as we aim to secure its swift passage through the House. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who contributed to this important debate, which underlined the complexity of the closest human relationships we have, the complex abuse that can take place within them, and how difficult it is for government to legislate and work its best for the common good. Regarding what my noble friend Lady Berridge put forward on the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, I certainly feel that the Child Maintenance Service is responding to this area. Of course, as she alluded to, a huge number of areas will have to respond to that Act, as our whole knowledge of domestic abuse evolves and as we understand it.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt and Lady Sherlock, and my noble friend Lady Berridge for their constructive questions and a good debate. I also thank my noble friend the Minister for his answers, which showed his clear commitment to this area. I am reassured by the commitment that he has shown to me so far and that I think will continue, as the Bill moves through the House. I am also aware of the time and will not rattle on. I thank everyone for their contributions.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Charitable Sector: Food Provision

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I would certainly be very pleased to join the noble Baroness to look at social supermarkets. She will be aware that the main supermarkets do offer some help in this respect. For example, Morrisons offers an average 13% price cut on more than 500 goods, including eggs, beef and rice. Children get a free meal at Morrisons cafés when their parent buys an adult meal worth £4.99.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, how convinced are the Government that the data on food bank use reflects the number of those who would genuinely go hungry without them? About one-third of all food is wasted, with the UK a leading culprit internationally. Increased use of food banks therefore also underlines the need to cut food waste, which we have heard already. How can we better redistribute food that is reaching its sell-by date to those most in need?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The figures that have just come out help us with a regional focus. For example, 4% of households in the north-east and north-west use a food bank, which is 1% higher than the average for households in England. To answer my noble friend’s question on food waste, we support a broad and holistic approach, with £2.7 million per annum grant funding to the Waste and Resources Action Programme. Crucially included in this programme is the food waste reduction road map and the push for food businesses to follow this tool to target, measure and act on waste, including to redistribute more. It is very important to make the connection between where there might be waste, particularly with foods at their sell-by date, and distributing to those most in need.

Disabled People: Impact from Policies and Spending Cuts

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The first thing to say is that there are no plans for impact assessments. What I can say to reassure the noble Baroness and the House is that much work has been done to take account of the extra costs that are required for those who are disabled. The extra-cost disability benefits have been uprated every year since their introduction, in line with inflation; these benefits were also exempt from the recent benefits freeze. Over 1.3 million more people of working age are in receipt of an extra-cost disability benefit since May 2013. On her final point about transport. we have done a lot of work on the transport issues. For example, we have enacted the Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Disabled Persons) Act 2022 and published guidance on inclusive mobility and tactile paving, and there is more that I could say.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, my understanding is that Access to Work grants for disabled people are beset with significant delays. For example, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People says that many are waiting close to four months for initial claims to be processed or renewals to be approved. This has a knock- on effect on the support workers they rely on, who understandably may refuse to take bookings from them as they will not get paid. Will my noble friend the Minister say what the Government are doing to cut delays?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that there have been delays, and perhaps I can give a little thought to this. One matter to note is that the Access to Work systems are currently receiving an increased level of applications for support—for example, there are 24,677 cases. On what we are doing about this, DWP has taken a number of actions: all applications for a job to start in the next four weeks are prioritised, renewal applications are also prioritised where possible, and support is approved using a new streamlined process. We have also increased the number of staff working on Access to Work. We are very aware of the delays and are taking some action.

Universal Credit: Benefit Cap and Two Child Limit

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Absolutely. There are a number of initiatives on housing, which I am sure the noble Baroness will be aware of. One example is the discretionary housing payment, which can be paid to those entitled to housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit, particularly those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs. It is certainly a matter that I am aware of, and I know that my noble friend Lady Scott will be very much on top of that. We are working across government on this issue.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend reassure me that universal credit still makes work pay despite childcare costs when there is more than one child? Of course, an at-home parent conscientiously doing their own childcare in the early years is, in fact, working. What expectation is placed on claimants to work when parental care is their strong preference?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Yes, my noble friend makes an important point. I should say at the outset that the Government firmly believe that, where possible, it is in the best interests of children to be in working households. That is why the department has continually provided support to help move people into work. To further that, this sort of support in making people financially resilient by moving them into work and also ensuring that they are progressing in work is important; up to 85% of the registered childcare costs each month is paid regardless of the number of hours that they work, compared with 70% for tax credits.

Universal Credit

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for securing this debate and focusing on impacts.

It has been said that the national insurance increases announced this week will hit the poorest and younger workers hardest, and these categories will often include UC claimants moving into employment, so not maintaining the uplift could be a double whammy for those cohorts. Can my noble friend the Minister give us an indication as to the impact of the interaction of these two measures? If a claimant is paying increased national insurance on their earned income, does that mean that there is now, effectively, an even higher taper rate and they lose more than 63p of every £1 they earn? I am sure my noble friend will put me right if I am misunderstanding how UC and NI work together.

Much has been written about a decade of underfunded reform, but the focus should be on adequately resourcing the principles of UC, which promised to make work pay. I am particularly interested in the impact on work incentives of not maintaining the uplift. Instinctively, it can be argued both ways. Has modelling been done to establish whether its retention is a marginal disincentive to moving into work or, in fact, a security blanket that keeps morale high and makes moving into work less daunting?

As the Government are rightly very exercised by job vacancies and skills shortages are very high, work incentives are of paramount importance. Strengthening these would make better use of any ongoing increase in the welfare budget than this emergency blunt instrument, which boosted the incomes of almost all claimants regardless of circumstances. If the Government decide against maintaining the uplift, they should decrease the taper rate so that it is closer to the 55% level mooted in early design of UC in 2009-10.

My noble friend Lord Freud was unable to establish properly the system of universal support to run alongside universal credit to help those who will always struggle to get into work, with all the advantages to well-being for them and their children this entails. What progress is being made to help those furthest from the labour market to overcome barriers of addiction, mental ill health, poor education and family relationship problems which a more generous basic welfare payment would barely touch?

Child Maintenance Service

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reform the Child Maintenance Service.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, in the few days since I secured this debate, I have been contacted by a large number of organisations and individuals expressing strong views based on very difficult experiences as either paying or receiving parents in the child maintenance system. The parliamentary digital engagement team did sterling work to publicise this debate and elicit testimony from the public to inform it. I am very grateful to every one of the 1,524 people who took the time to respond and I hope to do some justice to their stories in my remarks.

That the number using the Child Maintenance Service across Great Britain is high is unsurprising, given that an estimated third of all children grow up in separated families. In December 2020, the Department for Work and Pensions reported that 756,500 children—roughly equivalent to the whole populations of Bristol and Newcastle cities combined—were covered by CMS arrangements. This fairly small cohort of speakers today does not represent the importance of child maintenance reform to those directly involved, their extended families and wider society. At least we will have longer to unpack properly our concerns in this highly contested area of policy. To quote Professor Patrick Parkinson, a key architect of the Australian child support reforms, it

“involves making compromises between the conflicting interests of mothers, fathers, children and the state … A win for one interest group … is a loss for another. Child support policy is a complex and contentious area involving zero sum calculations in political terms.”

No pressure then, Minister.

The contention is wholly understandable: the process of separation, however amicably achieved, is usually emotionally and financially stressful. A once-intimate relationship undergoes significant change, sometimes at the behest of one partner and strenuously resisted by the other. The indissolubility of parenthood and the important shift away from clean break divorce mean that both parents will still need to co-operate, at the very least around money and contact.

History has taught us there are no silver bullets and a whole host of potential unintended consequences when it comes to reforming child maintenance. Nearly 40 years ago, the seminal Finer report proposed a dedicated agency for administering maintenance payments. The ground lay fallow until 1993, when the Child Support Agency first opened its doors following the Child Support Act 1991. Just two years later, more legislation was required to fix its considerable problems, setting the tone for the sporadic reforms that produced the current system, in place since 2012.

We appear overdue for another wave of change, especially as universal credit is now a much more mature welfare system. The interaction of benefits with child support payments is a particularly salient issue. A reformed child maintenance system must do even more to ensure that paying and receiving parents, and the children both are raising, albeit not under the same roof, are not living in financial poverty as a result of its operation.

Looking briefly at how the current system works, many separated parents agree and adhere to private family-based arrangements. The Child Maintenance Service, which replaced the Child Support Agency, is for parents who have been unable to do this. Around two-thirds of children are covered through direct-pay arrangements, where the CMS calculates maintenance liabilities and parents arrange payments between themselves. A third are covered through collect-and-pay arrangements, where the CMS collects and manages payment between parents. Paying and receiving parents experience this system very differently, as evidenced in responses to the parliamentary survey. Almost half were from paying fathers and almost all the receiving parents, 40% of respondents, were mothers.

Emerging themes from this exercise map on to those in the academic literature and other cases I was sent. First, paying parents highlighted how the nature of CMS calculations could lead to financial hardship, which was unalleviable by working longer hours, as any additional money would be directed towards child maintenance. The Social Security Advisory Committee recently asked the DWP to examine ways of improving the child maintenance formula and its link with earning thresholds to address such concerns. My first question to the Minister is this: has there been any progress on this issue, given the DWP’s commitment to inform future policy development with the views expressed in SSAC’s consultation?

Secondly, as the receiving parent obtains less money if children stay overnight, this can disincentivise sharing care. Thirdly, and correlating with these previous two themes, paying parents reported impacts on their mental health, suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts. Fourthly, many reported issues with customer service, errors in calculations and inconsistencies, as did many receiving parents.

Three other areas stood out among receiving parents’ responses. First, they were dissatisfied with the effectiveness of action taken to collect payments. Secondly, they felt inadequately safeguarded in situations involving domestic abuse; for example, the continuation of control by withholding payment. Finally, self-employment and zero-hours contracts were deemed to create loopholes, so paying parents could hide income. I hope other noble Lords will go into more detail on this wide range of issues, which I have been able only to touch on, and suggest solutions to the Minister.

Paying and receiving parents diverge in what they perceive to be acceptable ways of resolving systemic difficulties. For example, internationally, many child support systems now rely on both parents’ income when determining liabilities, where most women work. In the parliamentary survey, 93% of paying parents said both parents’ incomes should be included, compared to 18% of receiving parents. Admittedly, counting mothers’ income can reduce incentives for workforce participation, but changes in Australia actually increased incentives for more qualified mothers, such as nurses and teachers, to return to work or increase hours. Their reforms, which have helped diminish the extent to which child support is a source of mass grievance, required designing a markedly complex formula, which had to be fair across a broad cross-section of circumstances. This took an expert committee eight months and significant research. A similarly intense process would be required here.

The other health warning is that, as child support systems interact with a country’s welfare system, translating ideas from one jurisdiction to another is always problematic. However, can my noble friend say whether the Government have any plans to consult on the merits of aligning Great Britain to other child support systems by including both parents’ incomes?

Finally, one theme that did not emerge in the survey but was raised by the Social Security Advisory Committee in 2019 was whether separated parents are getting the support that they need through a challenging and stressful time in their lives. The committee pointed to the need for an overarching, joined-up government strategy for separated parents, covering all relevant departments and child maintenance. Necessary, but not sufficient, is the commendable cross-departmental work to reduce parental conflict.

I declare my interest as a director of the Family Hubs Network and say that access points to services offering far more holistic support could be provided in the family hubs that the Government have promised to champion. Such access was instrumental to the progress made in Australia: family relationship centres, integral to its 2006 family law reforms, provide a gateway to the many different kinds of advice and support that parents need. The germ of such an idea was in our own landmark Children Act 1989, which specified that local authorities should provide family centres, where families could get help to overcome difficulties, including when parents separate. Can my noble friend the Minister inform the House how different departments of government are working together, including to deliver family hubs?

In conclusion, child maintenance will always be a system under scrutiny or being “reformed”, but state action must also be accompanied by a cultural shift in attitudes towards parental responsibility. We need to get to a place where there is a strong and pervasive expectation that, first, both parents will always share the cost of raising children, and, secondly, with the holistic support that I have described, they will sort out the thorny post-separation issues that stem the flow of child maintenance.