Benefit Cap: Child and Family Well-being

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I beg to differ from the noble Baroness. I would call it not “imposing” but “empowering”. Our research shows that the best way to lift children out of poverty is by supporting parents into work. Record numbers of lone parents are now working: 1.2 million, with 1 million fewer people living in absolute poverty compared to 2010, including 300,000 children. We know that 75% of children in poverty leave poverty altogether when their parents move into full employment. We have doubled free childcare to 30 hours a week for nearly 400,000 working parents of three and four year-olds, and a parent need work only one hour a month to be eligible for childcare costs.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has not responded to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who was referring particularly to mothers of infants. There is no special nursery care for those, and mothers should be with their infants in the early stages.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I respond to the noble Countess by saying that many women, however young their children are, want to work. We are encouraging jobcentre staff to help people to find work that fits around their caring responsibilities. We are also giving those people extra discretionary housing payments. I add that those who are not working at all are still in receipt of what amounts to a gross salary outside London of £23,000 a year and in London £29,000 a year.