Welfare: Cost of Family Breakdown

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the Government place the importance of sustaining relationships and families high up on their agenda and have a number of programmes to encourage that, which include extending childcare, tax-free childcare, and flexible working for both parents. We have worked on support for relationships and for parenting and have introduced a marriage tax break. We are looking at this whole area in our family stability review, which will be published later this year.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to turn the Question around and ask the Minister of his estimate of the cost to family relationships of cuts to social security, which are forcing some families to move, breaking up their family and social relationships, and of the cost to them of ever increasing punitive sanctions, which are driving more and more families to food banks. Both these trends are leaving families under more and more stress, leading, potentially, to the break-up of relationships.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, on the issue of food banks raised by the noble Baroness, which we have discussed several times in this House, clearly nobody goes to a food bank willingly. However, it is very hard to know why people go to them. The Defra report said that there was a lack of systematic peer-reviewed research from the UK on the reasons or immediate circumstances that lead people to turn to food aid.