Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

I, too, oppose Clause 57. I have not got a great deal to say on it. I agree very much with what the noble Baroness has just said. We have had debates about this on various Bills in the past, but you cannot discuss this without also considering what arrangements are made for child support. It is all very well to get women back into the workforce, and many women would like to go back into the workforce as soon as they feel that their children are able to be looked after, but you cannot look at one thing without also looking at child support, and I am not certain that this Bill in any way makes sufficient arrangements with regard to child support. Leaving out Clause 57 will give us time to think again. There is quite obviously a difference between seven and five. It gives a little more time to think about it in the way that the noble Baroness has just indicated.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I am reminded of an article recently published on the BBC website reporting on a survey about children reading with their parents. It reported that:

“For the majority (71%) reading with their child is one of the highlights of their day. But the poll of over 1,000 parents found 18% felt too stressed to do so. Two-fifths (41%) said that a child's tiredness stopped reading together being fun, while 30% cited their own tiredness as a problem. More than a third (36%) of the 1,011 survey participants said they were too tired to spend longer reading”.

Teachers were also surveyed:

“Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed (72%) attributed developed language skills and more advanced reading levels to those children who regularly enjoyed a shared book time with parents at home”.

The evidence is very clear that the home environment is the key experience for children in getting the best outcomes for their education, so we need to think about parents not having the energy after a long day’s work to spend that important time, particularly, perhaps, at the ages of five, six and seven, reading with their child.

I refer to an e-mail sent to me today by a primary school teacher. She wrote:

“Commuting up to ninety minutes a day would mean that I would have to leave my son in childcare and school from 7.30 am to 6.30 pm everyday … I am a primary school teacher in London and I see the affects of long term childcare on children. Some only see their parents for an hour each day or only at weekends!”.

The last time I worked with children—in a summer play scheme five years ago—what was particularly striking was that there were children who arrived early at the play scheme for breakfast and there were those who stayed until the end. These children in particular seemed a bit tired, a bit down and flat, so I can understand the concern that as the Government are implementing this, the adviser should very much keep in mind not only whether the parent is working but whether the parent will have a long commute there and back and the child will have a very long day at school, starting early and finishing late. Advisers should keep this in mind when they are considering whether a person has to take a job.

I am sorry to take so long, but to round up, I share the concerns. If there is anything that can be done to mitigate the impact on lone parents with children of this age, I would welcome it. There is a real question about the quality of childcare available. Research has shown that parents have traded quality off against affordability. They have understandably been so desperate to find childcare that the pressure to raise standards has not been as high as it might have been. In the current economic climate, with the great need for childcare, the Government have understandably been lowering the requirements for the education and training of managers of children’s centres, for instance. There is this constant pressure: we need more childcare places, so there is pressure to lower standards. One should listen very carefully to parents who say to their adviser, “I don’t have faith in the childcare in my locality”. One needs to give that weight, particularly in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where the Childcare Act 2006 does not apply and they have not necessarily got the push on greater provision that we would want. I hope that the Minister can give some reassurance on these points, and I look forward to his reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the call by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, to introduce ring-fencing or at least to allow ring-fencing for some time while we go through this huge transition with the introduction of this Bill. I do so for a number of reasons. Listening to the debate I am again reminded of the speech made by the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith at the Conservative Party Conference this year. He highlighted the great amount of debt that this country carries and, in particular, the debt of unsecured loans that people have taken upon themselves. Will the Minister say whether he is concerned that individuals who currently benefit from the Social Fund might turn to loan sharks or take out unsecured loans and expose themselves and their families to risk and threat because there is nowhere else where they can get the support they need?

I have been meeting chief executives, and indeed I recently met a deputy chief executive of a metropolitan authority. After spending the evening with him, what really struck me was the immense burden that he carried. He had to make choices with limited resources. I asked him whether he found himself having to cut back in the areas of child protection and child and family social workers. He said that he and his colleagues were definitely not taking money out of those pots. Then, on meeting a group of chief executives and directors of children’s services in the Palace of Westminster to discuss children’s centres, again we heard that the money was definitely not being taken out of children’s centres and they were really trying to support those as far as possible.

My point is that there are so many calls on the limited resources of chief executives and directors of children’s services in local authorities. The risk is that this money, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has said, will be diverted into other very important provision, but that those families who need this ultimate safety net will lose out under the new arrangements. I look for an assurance from the Minister that this will not be the case. I should say that Barnardo’s, which has so much experience in this area has raised these concerns with me. One should also pay tribute to the Conservative Administration that set this up in the first place and the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, because from what I have heard, it has made a very positive impact on the lives of some of our most vulnerable citizens and families.

The issue of accountability, of how this money is spent, has been aired and needs to be addressed. Should there be minimum standards that local authorities have to meet before they are allowed to use this money as they see fit? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

I have very little to add to what has been said by a number of speakers this afternoon because they have covered the ground extensively. I was particularly interested in Amendment 86ZZZD because it refers to,

“financial support for applicants fleeing domestic violence”.

We shall shortly be considering domestic violence in another context, that of legal aid, which has some reference to domestic violence. The important thing about this in the local government context is that domestic violence frequently takes place within a family environment. Therefore, the individual against whom it is practised has to find some way of getting out. I am interested that this amendment refers to “applicants fleeing domestic violence”. Very often these women and girls simply have nowhere to go. Therefore, this amendment places a responsibility on local authorities, if money is made available, to provide the necessary financial support for people fleeing domestic violence.

That is very important in the current situation. I have recently attended other meetings in that connection. It appears that probably about one in four women has suffered from domestic violence at one time or another. Very often, of course, it is practised in families against very young people, very young girls. It is very important that there should be some authority and resources given to enable this to be dealt with. It is dealt with quite adequately in this amendment and I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about it.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, this is an unexpected, generic intervention. Although the Committee seems to be making real progress, I reassure my noble friend the Whip that I shall be brief. It relates to a period even earlier than 1986 and to a different and extreme subject, but there is a moral to what I am going to say, to which I gather Her Majesty’s Government in the Commons is responsive.

Twenty-eight years ago I became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Higher Education. I inherited quite considerable cuts to the higher education budget and I decided that my time as Parliamentary Under-Secretary was going to be spent going round the country, available to any higher education institution that chose to invite me, and I would be St Sebastian responding to their observations about the cuts. I had two and a half years of pure joy because they made it extremely attractive to me to come and gave me a marvellous experience of seeing what they were up to. The experience of St Sebastian was cheap at the price.