Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, this is a very strange juxtaposition of amendments, because your Lordships have just had your heartstrings pulled at over children and here is my amendment, which suggests that there should be fewer benefits for children for various reasons that I shall try to explain.

I should like to make two apologies, with qualifications. The first is to the noble Lord McKenzie of Luton, who said that he did not want to hear about this matter again in this Chamber. Well, I am sorry, but he will have to. I would also ask him, with respect, to look at what is going on in Luton, since it forms part of his territorial designation. There are a lot of things to be looked at in Luton and I hope that he will do so.

My other apology is to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, because I mentioned only them in my Second Reading speech. I did not mention many white families or many single mothers; nor did I mention the Somalis. There are people in this country who have many children, and it is innocent to think that they would keep having those children were they not helped by the benefits system. They might not stop having children, but they would certainly not have as many if they were not sure of getting the money to look after them. It is extremely important that children are brought into this world because they are wanted and not because it is convenient, because you get a bigger house and because you get more money, which it is absolute nonsense to think is not happening. Your Lordships are kind but also very innocent if you do not know what is going on in this country.

One of the reasons why I moved this amendment is the support I have received from ordinary working people. I have had so much mail—e-mails and letters—asking me to suggest that benefits should stop after two children, not after the fourth. They say, “We cannot afford to have more than two children; we are working and can just about manage. We care for our children, we care about their education, we care about their future and it upsets us greatly to see others having seven or eight. Would these people continue to have so many children if the state did not provide for them?”. It is a matter that should be seriously considered. The cap will take care of some of that, and I am pleased to say that it is time that it did so. I know there are many noble Lords, especially on the opposition Benches, who are against the cap and believe that we are moving in the wrong direction, but we have made this a country of people who rely on handouts and it is about time we stopped.

I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Freud, talk about role models. There are no role models in families where there are six or seven children. There is no one who has worked and no one is expected to work. A lot of those parents do not even know which school their children go to; they do not know what they are doing at school. We have large numbers of young unskilled people, especially in places such as Yorkshire and Lancashire, and especially the boys. It is the boys we need to worry about; they need to be skilled and to attend courses that will teach them basic skills such as plumbing, electrics or carpentry; they must become skilled at something. They are neither educated nor skilled and they have no future. They will not work, their children will not work either, and it is very important that the cycle is broken at some stage. If we are to listen to people in this country, the sooner this happens the better it will be. Working people are fed up with the way some people manage to live on benefits.

In my Second Reading speech, I pointed to one other area that is not in this amendment: people being given money to pay for their drugs. That is disastrous. If you give money to people for drugs, why would they want to work? They are disabled because they use drugs, but they get money to buy their drugs, so why would they ever want to get off them and return to work? We are talking about getting people into work and I think we should look carefully at every area.

There is also a huge rise in polygamy in some Pakistani families. I was interviewed about this amendment on the radio and during the broadcast one man said that he had three wives. The interviewer asked him how he managed and he said, “On a rota basis”. I am afraid that a lot of men have more than one wife. The latest fashion is to go to southern Spain, cross over to Morocco and bring back girls. They marry according to Sharia law and the wives live as single mothers in homes of their own. We need to look at what we are doing to this country. How do they get away with it? They have three or four wives and they presumably visit them—as this man said—on a rota basis. This should not be happening. We do not need this kind of behaviour in this country.

Some people seem to think they have no choice when having children: that they just have them. Children are a choice and a responsibility. They need to be looked after and they need to be brought up. Not only that, there has to be fairness between those who work and those who live off taxes. This drastic situation calls for action. I hope the Government will take action and discourage people from having large families unless they are in a position to look after them.

I was privileged to receive a letter from the Prime Minister two days ago. I wish it had arrived earlier. It states that this issue will be looked at under the provisions of the cap. I knew the cap was coming but I did not know exactly what was likely to happen. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions but he did not reply. However, I sent a copy to the Prime Minister and he did reply—I felt very privileged by that—and he has put my mind at rest about the issues that are important to the people of this country.

The sooner we tackle this kind of disadvantage—and it is a disadvantage for these children—the better. If you have five children, and even if you get benefits you do not look after them and do not give them education, they are disadvantaged all the way through and they will never work.

I leave your Lordships with two comments that you might like to think about. First, the recent British social attitudes survey is very much against the benefits system. There has never been so much disquiet about the benefits system as there is this time. Secondly, the last time the children being born in this country were counted, 50 per cent were born to mothers born overseas. We need to think about that very seriously if we do not want this country to change totally in its attitudes. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, we are back again to groupings and, like the noble Lord, Lord Newton, I am very much in favour of them. Sadly, in this case it has meant that my amendment has been somewhat delayed. If it had been in the first group of amendments it would have been well and truly dealt with by now. However, I am pleased now to be in a group.

I listened with interest to what my noble friend Lady Flather has said and, although I cannot say that my sympathies are in the same direction, nevertheless it is her view that if you are paid less for the more children you have that will lead to a happier lifestyle. She may be right, but I do not agree with that approach.

[Baroness Flather]

I did not say that. I said that if people know that they will not continuously keep receiving benefits they might decide not to have so many children, and that if the benefit cap was to come, it would not come as a retrospective.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I am grateful for being put right. However, I still have differences of opinion with my noble friend Lady Flather.

However, my amendment was very much part, alas, of all the other amendments that have been debated. I have listened very carefully and, having had the benefit of being in the Chamber the entire time, I have been fully appraised before deciding which amendment to support and which not. The general impression that I have got from these debates is that there is a great feeling about families and about doing the best for children whatever household they are in. It is for that reason that I was happy to table the amendment for London—London Councils kindly provided me with the material—because London is such an obvious area where you have extremes of very expensive accommodation and fairly poor areas where it is not as easy to survive if you are living on benefits and are among some of the more disadvantaged and disabled.

All three of my amendments relate to the same issue which is why it is better to address them all together. If the Government want a benefit cap that fairly reflects average earnings, it would be logical and just for the cap to reflect geographical variations, not only in wages but in other important living costs such as those related to accommodation and childcare. The amendments would require the Secretary of State to take account of these variations: the average weekly cost of private rented accommodation, the average weekly cost of childcare and average weekly earnings.

By way of background, the most recent evidence regarding these factors shows that, as regards accommodation, London has the highest average private sector rents in the country at £222 per week. That is more than 36 per cent higher than the national average. Childcare in London and the south-east is at least 20 per cent higher than the national average. For example, a nursery place for a child costs an average of £113 per week in London and the south-east compared with the national average of £94 per week. Earnings in London are £31,935 compared with £26,133, a 20 per cent difference.

What would be the impact of the Government’s proposals on the benefit cap? Independent research by Navigant Consulting, commissioned by London Councils—I should emphasise that London Councils is a cross-party organisation speaking on behalf of all London boroughs and the City of London—has estimated that the impact on London of the proposed universal credit cap would be as follows. A total of 73,000 workless households would experience a shortfall in their benefits against living and housing costs. In aggregate, the cap would produce a loss of £8.2 million per week for workless households and more than £427 million per annum across London. There would be a significant impact on families with children and on larger families in particular. While less than 3 per cent of households without children will find their accommodation unaffordable, that rises to more than 30 per cent for families with children. The average weekly loss across London for households affected by the cap is £105.

The majority of the London boroughs are already reporting that a significant number of households are having to move home as a result of changes to housing benefit caps. That has led to an increase in the number of homeless households placed by boroughs in bed-and-breakfast temporary accommodation. The use of temporary accommodation recently reached a three-year high after 25 quarters of reduction since 2003. Now almost 1,500 families are living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation in London. That effect will be replicated elsewhere and will undermine efforts to retain and build sustainable mixed communities, a point that has been made very effectively by others in other debates. There is a genuine concern that reductions in benefit entitlements for workless households may lead to an increase in child poverty and safeguarding issues. With children and young people's services already stretched, the fear is that vulnerable children might slip through the net.

The Government have argued that they need to cap household benefit entitlement in order to reduce the £20 billion deficit bill and to return fairness to the welfare state. Of course, both of those objectives are laudable and entirely understandable. However, simply fixing a national limit and attempting to apply it across all households, regardless of variation in individual circumstances, is not only unfair but it is also likely to usher in a host of unintended consequences. We have heard about many of them in previous debates so I shall not go into the detail of those.

The cost of life's essentials varies from place to place and family to family. One does not expect to pay the same to rent a two-bedroomed home as a four-bedroomed home. One does not expect to pay the same to rent a home in the south-east as one might in the north-west. If the welfare system is genuinely to support people and households, surely it is only fair that any support matches, in so far as it is possible, the scale of the challenges facing households, which, so often, through no fault of their own, find themselves in high-cost areas. I hope that the Government will agree to these very reasonable amendments.

I would like to stress that I hope that the Minister will agree to meet London Councils and go through some of its real concerns about this issue. That would reflect on whether I might wish to bring this matter back at Third Reading

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I would like to add some of my concerns about the impact of the benefit cap in London. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, has set out very clearly and eloquently all the facts and figures and I certainly do not wish to repeat them. I shall pick out one which is particularly relevant to me.

The level of rents in London means that families with just two children will be subject to the cap in many parts of inner London and also in some parts of outer London, including Newham, Haringey, where I live, and Hounslow. I am concerned about the impact of this on mixed communities, or looking at it the other way, one might refer to social segregation as poorer families are moved out of expensive areas. This is a very particular issue in London in terms of social cohesion. It also puts pressure on public services. I think that London Boroughs is right to be worried. The migration and concentrations of workless households in some areas will potentially have significant implications for the full range of local authority services. Boroughs with an inward migration of households are likely to face significantly increased service pressures very quickly and with very little time to plan for them in relation to unemployment, poverty, housing and so on. On the other side of the coin, boroughs that experience reduced demand for such services—again very quickly and without time for planning to adjust—will certainly face challenges and costs in adapting to different, if reduced, demands.

Families, particularly larger families, will be very much affected. In London it will also affect families with two children. I share the concerns that have already been voiced by the noble Baroness opposite. I also hope that there will be an opportunity to meet the Minister and London Councils to discuss further the sort of measures that could be put in place to mitigate some of the harsher implications that I have just set out.