BHS

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Hannah Bardell

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank you for indulging me and hope you will excuse my possible ignorance of the parliamentary process, but I am somewhat confused by the Minister’s responding halfway through the debate, before all Members have had the opportunity to bring forward the concerns of their constituents.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Lady has herself made clear in asking that question that she has not served for very long in this House, so no one would expect her to have a perfect knowledge of procedure. However, this is a Backbench Business Committee debate, so the Minister and the spokesmen for the two main Opposition parties can choose at what point they wish to enter the debate. The spokesman for the Scottish National party has already entered the debate, and the Minister has come into the debate now. The spokesman for the official Opposition will come in at a later stage. It is entirely up to them and to the occupant of the Chair as to when that happens. I want to ensure that there is enough time for the Minister to take on the points that have been made and those that will be made later in the debate.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Hannah Bardell

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell]

I could not agree more. The two- child policy will hit more than 872,000 families who receive support for third and subsequent children. The Government’s own national child poverty strategy recognises that the risk of poverty is much more significant in larger families than in smaller ones. Currently a third of children living in poverty live in families with three or more children. Perhaps that is why the Tory Government seek to airbrush child poverty from the statute books.

It is easy for this Tory Government to espouse theories and claim that reducing financial support to just two children will make poorer families rethink their “financial choices”. That is based on the falsehood that all children are planned and that it is possible to financially plan for children. I am sure we are aware that that is not the case. What if a second pregnancy turns out to be twins or even triplets? What about the many families who are supported or led by kinship carers? Perhaps the Tories need a biology lesson, or a simple lesson in humanity.

Such eventualities cannot be planned for, so are we telling families across these nations to stop having children, just in case? I have raised many times in Committee, and many of my colleagues have raised on the Floor of the House, the sensitive issue of children resulting from rape and the insensitive Government plan to make women justify their children in front of DWP caseworkers. Many domestic abuse charities have expressed grave concerns, and Rape Crisis Scotland has warned that the plan is “inherently unworkable”. It has asked how DWP workers will prove whether someone has or has not been raped, and said that many women would find explaining that situation extremely uncomfortable. Many women do not report to the police that they have been raped, or go years without reporting it or speaking about it, so they cannot be expected to explain it to a DWP worker.

What training will a DWP worker have to deal with rape victims? It is clear that this is an unrealistic, ill thought out and unhelpful proposal. In evidence before the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, stakeholders described it as “unpalatable”, and the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) wrote in The Guardian recently:

“A rape test for welfare is a chilling way to save money”.

I could not agree more. It just goes to show that at the height of the Tories’ insensitivity, they will quite literally leave no vulnerable group untouched in their scramble to, as they put it, balance the books. The policy will ultimately result in a complete abuse of rape victims’ privacy, leading to potentially serious emotional damage for children should they become aware that they are a child resulting from a rape. The SNP amendments would see the policy abolished, and we urge the Government to remove the two-child policy from tax credit and universal credit to ensure that no victim or child goes through the torment associated with having to justify a third child due to such an horrific crime being inflicted—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Lady is about to conclude.

[Hannah Bardell]

If we as parliamentarians are in this place to legislate for those we represent, let us legislate well and with compassion and good conscience. The proposals do not make good legislation. They are wrong for our society and wrong for this generation, so I ask Members to think again and vote with us.