Living Wage

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the—

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think any of the Minister’s replies have explained how his strategy will take out of poverty the millions of children who have just been illustrated in the report of one of the Government’s own commissions. It recognises that many families where there is childhood poverty, even though someone in the household is employed, are not being helped. What strategy do the Government therefore have to reach the jointly agreed target to take children out of poverty in the next decade?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Several strategies are in place, but above all the main point is to encourage more jobs. We have created many millions of jobs and encouraged apprenticeships over the past few years since 2010. That is the way forward: to increase employment and job security for all in the UK.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I am glad of the opportunity to return to this important issue on Report. The noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, has spoken passionately about this matter at Second Reading, in Grand Committee and again this evening. I have been deeply moved and saddened by the distressing accounts that I have heard of employees not receiving the support from their employers that they needed at such a difficult time. We have heard more tragic examples this evening from the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight.

Losing a loved one is always a difficult experience. Losing a child must cause a grief that is beyond words. It is of course right that employees are able and feel comfortable to take time off to grieve in those awful circumstances. Grief is extremely personal, and everybody copes with the challenges that it brings in different ways. Individual employers are best placed to respond to the varied needs of grieving employees in a sensitive and appropriate way. Fortunately, as has been pointed out this evening, many employers are understanding and compassionate, enabling individuals to take all the time off that they need when they need it. However, as I acknowledged during Grand Committee, this is sadly not always the case.

At present, there is very little advice and support available to employers to help them to develop company policies or approaches to time off for bereaved employees. This lack of advice can mean that employers, particularly small employers who have no experience of bereavement in the workplace, are confronted with a situation that they do not know how to deal with. As a result, they may inadvertently fail to give their employees the compassion and support that they need at what is, we can all agree, a particularly vulnerable time.

The Government are committed to ensuring that employers have access to the right advice and information to facilitate good employment relationships with all their employees. When this issue was debated during Grand Committee, I gave a commitment that the Government would bring forward comprehensive guidance to support employers in meeting the needs of bereaved employees in the workplace. I am pleased to be able to announce today that ACAS has agreed to draw on its wealth of experience in workplace relations to develop guidance that will support employers in delivering their approach to bereavement. It is, of course, essential that we harness the knowledge and experience of expert organisations to get this guidance right so that it can support employers and employees in the most effective way. For this reason, ACAS will work in close partnership with Cruse, the leading national charity for bereaved people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and other expert organisations during the development and refinement of the guidance. The first round-table meeting with these organisations is scheduled for as soon as 5 February.

ACAS intends to road-test the draft guidance in a series of seminars with employers around the regions to ensure that the guidance is relevant and adds value. We expect the guidance to be published this summer and I encourage noble Lords who are in touch with organisations that have experience of these issues, and who would like to be involved in reviewing the draft guidance, to get in touch with my officials. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and I had conversations about this last week. This guidance will be comprehensive, covering the existing statutory entitlement to time off for dependants as well as providing advice and support about what is best practice in this area. It is essential that employers, as well as employees, are aware of the statutory provisions that are available. This will be made clear in the guidance.

As I mentioned, I recently met the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to discuss the Government’s approach to this issue and to understand better whether there is additional support that we could offer. I felt that we had a very productive discussion, during which he brought to my attention the fact that many of the parents who had reported being treated unsympathetically by their employers were, in fact, employed in the public sector. Since then, my department has made contact with employer groups in this sector, including NHS Employers and those in Civil Service employee policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, will be pleased to hear. We plan to work with them to develop and find ways of promoting the best practice guidance that ACAS will produce. We also intend to work with business stakeholders such as the CBI and the CIPD to ensure that this guidance reaches businesses and to encourage them to review their company policies accordingly.

Bereavement is a particularly sensitive issue and to be comprehensive, this guidance will need to cover a broad range of issues and situations. I am confident that the guidance produced by ACAS will be of excellent quality. I hope that this is some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. It is, however, essential that we keep the effectiveness of guidance and how it is being applied in the workplace under review. This is what the Government fully intend to do. I understand the sentiment behind this amendment, and I believe that it is important that all individuals are able to take time off to grieve when they suffer the loss of a loved one. However, I think that a flexible and sensitive approach, tailored to the needs of individual employees, is what is needed at such a difficult time. It is not feasible to legislate to accommodate the vastly different needs of individuals, which are often the result of different personal circumstances, family relationships and religious observations. For this reason I believe that guidance, combined with working with our key partners to encourage employers to adopt best practice in their workplaces, is the best approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, raised a number of questions and I will endeavour to write to him with answers, including the question that he raised on the linkage with the DWP. In the mean time, I hope that noble Lords are reassured by these commitments and will agree to withdraw their amendment.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I believe we are deeply reassured and very grateful to the Minister. I am only sorry that I was not able to take part in the earlier discussions. As he knows, there were clashes with other discussions about other parts of the children Bill at which I had to be present. I have been in close touch with the noble Lord, Lord Knight. We are very reassured, indeed grateful, that this matter has moved at such speed. I am just grateful that I will be able to take back the news to the families I work with that something will happen and that we will not hear such tragic stories about families receiving no compassion at some of the most difficult times of their lives. I beg to withdraw the amendment.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to make two points. First, as the noble Baroness indicated, this is both a short-term and long-term financial issue. The previous Government and the present one, I fear, have taken the same position, which is that paying kinship carers in the short term would be too expensive. However, as many noble Lords have pointed out, it has tremendous value and advantage in the longer term. I only wish that a Government could, if not introduce the whole package, at least take one step.

I remind noble Lords that the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, which I was part of, pointed out that there was very little difference in outcomes— indeed there might be better outcomes—for children who were in special guardianship orders compared to those who were adopted. However, we treat those two groups in a totally different way. That is irrational. If we could just make a start with special guardianship, where there is an order and it is quite clear that the care is going to continue, we would feel we were taking a step forward.

Overall, we spend very little these days. The news today is that we are almost unable to meet our commitments to protect children with child protection procedures and that social workers are under tremendous pressure. I notice that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, glanced at me, because I am a social worker by background, when she said that social workers are actually insisting that people take the time off—of course they are, because, as the noble Baroness pointed out, they have a responsibility to make sure that these children are properly cared for. Most of those social workers would be delighted if they could recommend that they were paid for that. The old Section 1 of the 1963 Act, which used to help with this, has long gone, and there are very few provisions now to help these families get through even the initial difficult times, never mind the longer period of caring for a child who is not their own, with all the pressures that such a child brings.

Being the unlikely founder of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Grandparents and Extended Kin—which is another story—I am concerned for grandparents, because they have reached a point where they thought life was going to be easier and they were going to be financially secure. However, they then find themselves bringing up children in their family—as they would wish to rather than let anyone else take over the care of the children—and somehow the state does not see it in its purview to give help to these families. With the changes in the benefits system, these families are finding it more and more difficult to survive. Consequently, as noble Lords know, more children will come into care. These situations will break down as families can no longer manage or social services think that it is inappropriate for them to do so.

I am quite sure that these amendments will not be accepted, as they have not been accepted in the past. However, I wish that there could be some thought, and some work undertaken, to see whether there is a step change that can move forward, through the various groups, to make it easier, particularly when a family has a legal order and responsibility for the children concerned.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I welcome this debate on another important issue. As has been said, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, alluded to, the Government recognise the extremely valuable contribution made by family and friends in caring for children who cannot live with their parents. Noble Lords have spoken passionately about this issue today and I am struck by the depth and breadth of expertise on this matter in this Committee.

The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised the important issue of kinship carers dropping out of the labour market. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, is not in his place, but I hope that I can go a little way to restoring my reputation as a listening Minister by saying that we agree that it is important that kinship carers can remain in the labour market. The evidence that we have about this issue is limited, but I hope that noble Lords will be reassured if I explain that we are actively researching this issue. I shall say more about that in a moment.

During the debate on support for family and friend carers, my noble friend Lady Northover described the financial support with which local authorities are encouraged to provide families to help them to cope with the strain that caring for an additional child may put on household budgets.

The type of care arrangement that kinship and friendship carers provide varies a great deal. Some families care for children who need support during a short-term crisis, such as a parental illness. Other individuals take on care of a child on a long-term basis. My noble friend Lady Tyler, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Drake, highlighted some other examples, including some statistics provided by Grandparents Plus, parents’ rights groups and other groups.

Given the variety of arrangements that exist, the Government believe that it is right to assess the needs of each family at the local level. Local authorities are best placed to establish relationships with these families and appraise their financial needs on an individual basis. This enables them to provide targeted support to the right people at the right time.

Special guardianship orders provide a more formalised and legally secure foundation on which a child can build a permanent relationship with his or her carer. In many cases, the child may already be living with the family when they make an application for a special guardianship order. However, this will not be the case for all families and some may have to adapt quickly to significant changes in circumstances—a point that was made earlier.

Special guardianship orders are an increasingly popular “permanence” option for children. However, they remain a relatively new legal status and special guardians are a group about which the Government have limited data. In particular, there is insufficient information about the way in which special guardians adjust to their new caring arrangements and how this may impact on an individual’s ability to remain in the labour market. I hope that I can reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Drake, by saying that we believe that it is essential to understand the issues that are faced by this group in order to ensure that they receive the support that is appropriate to address their needs. For this reason, my department, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, will undertake research into kinship and friendship carers and special guardians, and their participation in the labour market. We have already started to scope this, liaising with the Department for Education.

I recognise that research is not the same as support, but it is the first crucial step towards understanding what policy interventions would be most appropriate to meet the needs of these individuals. I hope that this reassures the noble Baroness and I ask her to withdraw her amendment.