Application of the Family Test

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for bringing forward this debate, and the work of the Centre for Social Justice over many years on this issue. My hon. Friend quite rightly said that it is refreshing not to be speaking about Brexit in a debate, but over many years, many of us—particularly those sitting here—have spoken often about strengthening family life. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that much more needs to be done, and to be done by this Government.

In December 2017, I submitted written questions to every Department—15 of them—asking how they had applied the family test. More than half provided an identical and completely inadequate response:

“The Government is committed to supporting families. To achieve this, in 2014 we introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by Ministers. The Family Test was not designed to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise, and as such there is no requirement for departments to publish the results of assessments made under the Family Test.”

That is very ironic, given that it is something of a ‘tick-box’ reply, and only really restates the importance of the question.

Several other Departments provided equally inadequate replies or replies that lacked any information. I will share some of them. The Attorney General Office’s reply was one line long:

“The AGO has not been the sponsoring department for any legislation in this session.”

Officials must have—or should have—considered the issue during the Session.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said:

“Although not a statutory requirement, the impact on families is considered as part of the Department’s compliance with the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty as specified in the Equality Act 2010.”

That does not tell us anything about what the Department did.

The clear contrast between the duty under equalities legislation and this legislation is interesting. A clear duty is being properly and systematically applied and honoured under equalities legislation by every Department; they look at legislation in that context in a way that they do not in the context of strengthening families.

The Cabinet Office’s reply was three and a half lines long, and we should bear in mind that the Cabinet Office is the responsible Department for having a broad overview of how Departments apply legislation. Its reply was much the same:

“The Government's guidance on the family test is available on Gov.uk and provides that the test should be taken into account, if sensible and proportionate, when considering all new policies that might have an impact on the family, including those set out in legislation.”

It took three months to reply, but it was not the worst. I had to issue a reminder to the Home Office, which took six months to reply to my important question.

As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said, ironically, the Department that provided the best and fullest answer was the Ministry of Defence. I cannot possibly read the whole answer, but it provided the kind of reply that I had hoped to receive from every Department. Among other things, it says:

“We recognise the vital role that their families play...we are developing flexible engagements for those who wish to vary their deployability to better fit their Service career around family life, all of which aims to contribute to increased family stability. A key component of the Families’ Strategy is to ensure that Service families are considered in people policy development, supporting the principles outlined in the Family Test. This is achieved through consideration of the Service family as part of each relevant submission or policy discussion, and through regular engagement with the single Services and the three Families’ Federations who represent the needs and views of Service families. The Department also monitors the development and implementation of policy to assess the impact on families.”

That is the kind of response that we hoped for, and which we deserve, from every Department.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting point about the Ministry of Defence. It is very good that it has policies of that kind, but, in practice, I have a constituent who is looking for flexible working—she is looking to support her poorly mother and a child. She is getting absolutely stonewalled by the Ministry of Defence. Does the hon. Lady agree that policies are good, but they have to be put into practice and they have to work on the ground?

[Fiona Bruce]

Absolutely. I recommend that the hon. Lady points her constituent to that reply and challenges the Department accordingly. That is one of the reasons that we raise such questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir David. I am glad to be able to sum up for the SNP this morning.

I give credit to the hon. Members for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and for St Ives (Derek Thomas), who secured the debate. Their commitment is honourable, but the reality of the family test is that it is barely worth the paper that it is written on. The answers that the hon. Member for Congleton received from all the different parties indicate that. The Government say that the test is not designed to be a tick-box exercise, but in reality it is no kind of exercise at all. It is perfectly clear from cases that I deal with in my constituency that the Government are not applying the test to the policies that they come up with, either in theory or in practice.

On 30 January last year, in a debate on marriage in Government policy—hon. Members may have been there—the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), speaking from the Conservative Benches just there, said this of the time before he left Government:

“I was nominated to construct the family test against which everything was going to be measured. When I finally left—of my own volition, by the way—at no stage had I managed to get agreement from any of the key players about what it would consist of. While there was a principle, which was that the Prime Minister wanted a test that all decisions would be set against, the reality was that the Treasury in particular was not keen on any of it. I urge the Minister to press for a definition of the family test, by which all the effects of policy decisions could be looked at to see whether they would damage the family or make things more difficult. That would make logical sense.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 271-272WH.]

That was last year, and nothing has changed. The policy might exist in some form somewhere, but it is perfectly clear that its application is non-existent. It is utter escapism, and full of contradictions.

I have campaigned on a lot on the first issues that I will discuss, which are to do with child poverty and austerity. The family test has no relevance at all to the two-child policy; I know because I asked Ministers about that when they were talking about bringing the policy in. I have raised the policy at least 60 times in this Chamber and the main Chamber, asking questions about it and campaigning on it. It is completely destructive of families for many different reasons, not least because it moves children into poverty, making it far more difficult for their families to cope and survive.

The two-child policy has been condemned by Professor Philip Alston in a recent UN report, and just this week by CEDAW—the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women—which recommended scrapping it. On Monday, I met a range of organisations, including the Church of England, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, representatives of Scottish Churches, the Child Poverty Action Group, Turn2us, Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis—I have heard from the Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland equivalent organisations—and Refuge; all of them, as well as the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing, condemn the policy, because they know that it is damaging to families and meets no aspect of the family test. It means that families will be at least £2,780 worse off per year, which makes it far more difficult for them to survive.

The first element of the family test is:

“What kinds of impact might the policy have on family formation?”

The two-child policy deliberately encourages families to have fewer children—that is its stated purpose and aim. That is inimical to family formation. The policy also discriminates against families who wish to come together from two previous relationships. In blended families, where someone has two children from one family and wants to marry and have a third child, or another child comes from the other family, the impact is that families lose out. The policy does not meet that aspect of the test.

The second question of the test is:

“What kind of impact will the policy have on families going through key transitions such as becoming parents, getting married, fostering or adopting, bereavement, redundancy, new caring responsibilities, or the onset of a long-term health condition?”

The UK Government had to be taken to court, and an element had to be added. A woman who had taken on caring responsibilities for her two siblings lost out when she had a child, so the Government were taken to court—and lost, because the policy is unfair; they had not taken into account the impact on those with caring responsibilities.

There is also an impact on bereavement. Say a family had three children, and everything was fine because they could well afford those children—the Tories often say that people should only have the children they can afford. All of a sudden, one of the partners dies; the other has to claim universal credit and reduce their hours worked. The two-child policy does not meet the second aspect of the test, because it deliberately punishes people who end up in those circumstances, which they could not reasonably have predicted.

The third question of the test is:

“What impacts will the policy have on all family members’ ability to play a full role in family life, including with respect to parenting and other caring responsibilities?”

Again, the two-child policy means that anyone who has three children but whose circumstances change will struggle to play a full role in family life. They would not have enough money coming in, or would have to work longer hours and so would have less time with their children, who, as the hon. Member for Congleton suggested, might look to other sources of support, such as gangs. There is a huge impact on the ability to play a full role in family life, not least because of the poverty aspect.

“How does the policy impact families before, during and after couple separation?”

The two-child policy has an impact on that as well, because it creates a perverse incentive: people with three children will get more money if they separate their family, becoming two single parents—a family with two children over here and a family with one child over there. That is the incentive under the policy; the Government cannot deny that.

The final question is:

“How does the policy impact those families most at risk of deterioration of relationship quality and breakdown?”

As I say, families are incentivised to stay apart, rather than to stay together. The Government have not recognised that in any part of the two-child policy.

As Conservative Members present will know well, the policy also has a disproportionate impact on people of religious faith—those who will not use contraception or do not believe in abortion. People who have four children and are affected by the policy lose out, and that disproportionately affects those of religious faith, including the Jewish community, who have spoken out against the policy—as has the Church of England—and those of Muslim faith. That is out-and-out despicable. The Government do not accept that, but it is absolutely true. Furthermore, the two-child policy will have a chilling effect as it impacts on thousands of families throughout the country. People will lose out on their entitlement and on their ability to support their family, which is ridiculous.

In my constituency, I have many cases of families affected by Home Office issues and by Government policy on how they can live their lives. There are people who cannot afford to live as a family, because of the £18,600 threshold that has to be met before someone can bring a spouse over to this country. People who desperately want their partner to come here and to be reunited with their children cannot do that because of an arbitrary figure. I have constituents who lost out by a couple of pounds, and so were not allowed to bring family members into the country. What impact does that have on family life? Where does that fit with the family test?

The minimum income threshold also puts huge pressure on earners in the family. I have a constituent who works two jobs. He works as a bank clerk—a mortgage adviser—and at night, stacking shelves in a supermarket, so that he can bring his family here. That has a huge impact on his mental health and wellbeing; he has to work all the hours he can to get his family in. The Home Office is still making that incredibly difficult for him.

The Government policy of no recourse to public funds also has an impact. People have come to this country and been granted their status, but the Government have decided that they are not entitled to any working-age benefits at all. I have a constituent, case No. 3 in my books—the third from when I was elected in 2015—who still has no recourse to public funds. She is almost destitute. Every year, she has come to my office, looking for support for school uniforms or Christmas presents for her children, because despite the fact that she is working, she cannot afford them. She is working all the hours that she can, but under this Government’s cruel policy of allowing no recourse to public funds, she cannot earn enough to live on. It is heartbreaking. I had her and her daughter in my office at Christmas time, and her daughter came back into my office after she and her mum had left and said, “Alison, why have we not got any money?” I cannot answer that question. It is for the Minister to answer why he wants to put families in a position in which their children are heartbroken and in poverty, and are judged by their friends, and do not have any kind of a life because of the Government’s cruel policies.

Home Office policies such as the hostile environment make it very difficult for people to carry on family life. There is the impact of policies that prevent people from staying in this country. I will give an example. At my surgery one Friday, the first of a number of people to see me were a couple. The wife was a British citizen and the husband was from another country. They had been told by the Home Office that they both had to leave and go to the country where the husband was from because they had no family ties here. They did not have any children, so they could go and live there, and that would be just as easy for them as staying in the UK—there would be no problems there. They asked me, “Alison, would it make any difference if we had children? Would we be able to stay if we had children in this country?” I said, “Probably not. This is just the way the Home Office does things,” and I offered them support.

The next couple, who came in straight after, had quite a young baby and a toddler. They were in much the same circumstances: they had been told by the Home Office to go back to some other country to live, and that it would not make any difference because their children were young and would not know any better. They asked, “What can we do? We have family ties here.” The Home Office computer still said no. That is a huge insult to people who want to come here and do us the honour of choosing to live in this country. We tell them, “No, go and contribute to some other country, because we do not want you here.” That is despicable; it is against everything that the family test ought to stand for.

The family test is not worth the paper it is written on. I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Congleton says that it took the Home Office six months to reply. She is lucky; in many of my cases, it has taken much longer. The Home Office does not care how it treats people. A family with three children who were due to report to Brand Street as part of their obligations under the Home Office’s hostile environment policy had to take one child out of nursery and the other two out of school, and did not know if they would be able to go back afterwards. They did not know if they would be removed and sent to Dungavel. What kind of family test is that? What kind of impact will that have on family life—the stress, the distress and the indignity of being forced to report to Brand Street without knowing if they would go home afterwards? It is utterly despicable.

I talked about the impact of people living on low wages having no recourse to public funds; I would like to talk about the Government’s pretendy living wage. They know that it is not enough for people to live on. That has an impact on family life. People who are working away without enough to live on will struggle to maintain a family life, to do all the things they would like to do with their family, such as going places, and to pay for things such as schools trips or books, which would make for a better family life. It is worse for parents under 25, because they are not entitled to the Chancellor’s pretendy living wage. There is a growing gap for those under the age of 25, who are entitled to much less but may have exactly the same obligations. They may have children to support. They have different lives to lead, and they do not get a discount on their rent for being under the age of 25. The Government need to recognise that and ensure that a fair day’s pay is earned for a fair day’s work, which is not the case in this country.

Under the family test, there is no protection for families when people reach old age. I refer to the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign; those women have worked their whole life, and sacrificed their time with their family, only to find their retirement cruelly stolen from them. That has an impact on the family; often they are expected to look after their grandchildren, but cannot, because they have to keep working, and the mums have to keep working to pay the nursery fees. That has a detrimental impact on family life.

I want to talk about Brexit. The hon. Member for Congleton mentioned it briefly, but it will have a hugely detrimental impact on family life. Those people who have chosen to come and live in this country now feel that they have very little option. Some are leaving the place that they called home because they no longer feel welcome. They are giving up the links that they made here, and they are disrupting their family life. There is probably nothing that covers that in the family test, but Brexit has a real impact on families right across these islands. It is hugely sad that the Government are pursuing it, and it will mean that EU nationals in this country will be forced into the same kind of hostile environment that the Home Office applies to everybody else, causing the problems I have outlined.

In Scotland we are doing our best; we are trying to provide baby boxes, and grants for families to support children in the early years, so that they have the best place in the world to grow up in, but we are hampered by the policies of this Tory Government and by the decisions of Westminster. I firmly believe that if we were an independent country, we would make it true for everybody that Scotland was the best place in the world to grow up in. Proper family tests—not something that is barely worth the paper it is written on—would be applied to all our policies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is spot on. It was clear from my colleagues’ speeches that they have a constructive, proactive and real focus on the absolute principles of the family test, and I shall now turn to that.

Many hon. Members have underlined the importance of the family test, and I am pleased to see sustained interest in that test among colleagues. I restate the Government’s commitment to the family test, which was introduced in 2014 to help put families at the heart of policy making. In designing the test, alongside the Relationships Alliance, we wanted to help policy makers understand how policies might, positively or negatively, affect families.

We want potential impacts on families to be considered early so that they can shape proposals, rather than at the end of the process when we are preparing to announce and implement any changes. That point is key, and the test helps to ensure that potential impacts are properly considered in the advice that Ministers receive. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay was spot on when he said that such issues must be embedded into that early thinking.

[Alison Thewliss]

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will respond to the thrust of the debate. We want the family test to be broad and flexible, reflecting the nature of 21st-century families. The test already encourages policy makers to consider a wide range of impacts, including on family formation, families going through key transitions, the ability of all family members—dads, mums, and the extended family—to play a full role in family life, families who have separated or who are undergoing separation, and those families most at risk of a deterioration in relationship quality and breakdown.

I acknowledge that some would like the family test to be a statutory obligation, but feedback from policy makers, and points highlighted in speeches today, suggest that a statutory test could risk becoming a box-ticking exercise at the end of a policy process, with pass or fail outcomes, rather than something embedded at the beginning of the process, which is key. A legislative test would also risk losing the flexibility to adapt and change.

I welcome the review of the family test by the Centre for Social Justice, and I thank it for highlighting these important issues, many of which my officials have been working to address with the relevant Departments. There is a strong alignment between the report’s recommendations and our approach to strengthening practice in the use of the test. I agree that individual Departments should take responsibility and ownership of their application of the family test—interestingly, the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton highlighted both good and bad practice.