Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

3rd reading (Minutes of Proceedings): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks and congratulations to all concerned in this area. We now have within the objectives the reference in paragraph (d) to,

“the needs of people in vulnerable circumstances”.

That is hugely relevant. As chair of the former Lords Select Committee on Financial Exclusion, I know that we spent a lot of our time looking at the problems faced by people in vulnerable circumstances. We focused particularly on the needs of people with mental health problems and disabilities and the vulnerable elderly. We received a lot of evidence on that point, and I know that many people will be very glad to see these words included.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations; this has been a very good outcome. The Minister has done a splendid job in reflecting the concerns. The Bill is now much better as a result, and she deserves some of the credit for that. I am interested particularly in Amendment 3, because vulnerable people are now much better cared for. It will put more work, pressure and responsibility in the direction of the new body. I begin to wonder whether it will be expected realistically to carry the weight of some of these new, important duties with the financial envelope that we have—we will have time to discuss that afterwards—but the shape and framework that the body now has is a lot better for serving the needs of the most vulnerable and distressed.

I hope that consideration of people with vulnerabilities will also include signposting to the official social security benefits that exist so that they are taken up—universal credit will obviously increase take-up automatically, but a lot of other residual benefits still sit outside universal credit. Signposting under Amendment 3 would add value to having the power in the Bill. I look forward to seeing how this works out. It is a much better provision than was previously the case, and the Minister deserves credit for that.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Monday 28th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, just for completeness I shall speak to Amendment 113E. I will be grateful if the Minister will respond to the prospect of, if everything else fails, having a waiver system for low-income families facing some of these fees. I want to know whether the Government have thought about this carefully and looked at the operational and other implementation arrangements that might be necessary. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I would like briefly to add a few comments to those that have been made so powerfully around this Committee. We have heard some moving quotes today, but the one I want to give is not from someone who has been part of this process as an end user but from Sir David Henshaw who, back in 2006, came up with the report that is often cited as being the genesis of the idea of charging. We have heard his name referred to on a number of occasions as his policy has been explained. Sir David Henshaw himself recognised the limits to charging when he said:

“I do not want to create a disincentive to use the service for those parents who have no other option for agreeing maintenance”.

We know, because DWP estimates tell us, that about half of all eligible families have no child maintenance arrangements at all. The danger is that even more children in poorer families will go without child maintenance as a result of the proposal to charge the parent with care. This is my final point, which I want to link to the one I made on the previous group of amendments. Not only will the children be worse off—we have heard some graphic and moving accounts of the real hardship that some children could be in—but more will grow up without a role model of a father who contributes, however modestly, to the cost of raising his own children.