Pensions Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rix (CB)]

My Lords, I cannot claim to be either a young widow or to have young children. My children are actually middle-aged but my wife died a year ago last week and I know perfectly well that a year is really not sufficient time to put to one side all the problems which arise from the death of a partner. I was married for 64 years and, both for my children—middle-aged as they may be—and for me, the grief continues. I know perfectly well that if you are a young widow with young children, to be asked to change your life or to look at the possibility of going into work after six months is absolutely absurd. I support both these amendments with all my heart.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that the House will want to reach a conclusion on this debate as soon as possible, but as treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children I would like to express my strong support for Amendment 21, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I also pay tribute to the Minister for the care with which he has clearly been considering this very sensitive matter. That does not surprise me given that his great-aunt, Anna Freud, set up the Hampstead War Nurseries towards the end of the Second World War. She dealt with children who had been separated from their parents and provided them with much needed care. She also made forensic observations of what happens when a child is separated from the parent, looking at the different sequelae of those changes. What she discovered was that while she could feed the children well and provide exercise so that they were healthier, the emotional damage done to them as a result of being separated from their parents was simply huge. The concern must be that if widowed parents are not well supported and given all necessary consideration they may emotionally withdraw from their children, with all the adverse consequences highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord German, in Grand Committee.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, having been one of the signatories, along with 26 other Anglican bishops, to the letter that went to the Daily Mirror last week, I am loath to speak too much about amendments to government legislation. However, on this particular occasion, because bereavement support is such a notable part of our business and ministry, I am very bothered about the direction in which the legislation is going.

I should like to reinforce what was said earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about cost. It seems to me that it is not a question of cost but of how long support is given to people. What many clergy learn and what people often forget is that, as the noble Baroness said, it is not just the first three months which are difficult—the problems continue throughout the whole of the first year. More than that, it is a matter of showing support for people over the whole period of time that the emotional pain of bereavement continues to be very severe. The issue of supporting people financially has an impact on that emotional pain.

Speaking on behalf of a group of people who spend so much of their time trying to support those who have been bereaved and who need to understand how they can be helped, we might take good note of these amendments. They will not cost more money. They have been tabled simply to try to offer more support over a longer period of time—not only in the raw first year, but over the first three or four years, and particularly where young children are involved and the emotional impact is even greater.