Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly support what my noble friend and the right reverend Prelate said, because there is research that bears out what my noble friend has just said. It was carried out at the University of Bath by Professor Jane Millar and Tess Ridge. They talked to both the children and the parents— lone mothers who had gone back to work. We are talking about slightly older children, of course. They said that for many families, the lone parent moving back into paid work did make life better. They got more money, the children felt better and so forth. But the findings also showed that,

“lone mothers’ aspirations for financial security were not always congruent with the reality of employment in low-paid, sometimes insecure work … For some children the challenges and costs of their mothers being in work were thrown into sharp relief by the accompanying low pay, uncertainty and insecurity of work. For these children work had held out the promise of something better and that promise had not been kept, so they experienced disappointment, and for some, an apparent loss of confidence in the value of work”.

I am sure that that is not what the Government are trying to achieve.

The report went on to say:

“Mothers’ experiences of establishing themselves as working families were marked in many cases by continuing low income and financial insecurity … Enhanced in-work support; increased reward from work coupled with adequate support when employment fails; flexible employment conditions and improved childcare options based on children’s own identified needs and preferences, are important prerequisites for successful lone mother employment and work-life balance. Otherwise increasing compulsion to work may result in greater uncertainty, stress and instability for children and their families”.

[Baroness Drake (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I am concerned, having heard noble Lords articulating their concerns, that a particular omission is not missed. My noble friend Lady Sherlock and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and all other noble Lords, have articulated very clearly the concerns about balancing the needs of the child and the need for employment, and the importance of appropriate childcare. I just want to return once again to kinship carers.

Although the Welfare Reform Act 2012 exempts kinship carers from work conditionality requirements for a year after they take on the care of a child, ongoing, the young children that these kinship carers take on may still have very severe needs and insecure attachments such that suitable and appropriate childcare is really quite difficult to find. I just want to make sure that, in the Minister’s considerations, the need for kinship carers not to be sanctioned in those circumstances is not omitted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Is the noble Baroness saying that she will put some of the points that have been raised into regulations? I think noble Lords would see that as a step forward, but is that what she is saying?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

No, I am afraid I am not making that commitment. I am saying that there are further opportunities for discussion. I apologise for taking so long to explain and respond to these amendments.