Application of the Family Test

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for bringing forward this debate, and the work of the Centre for Social Justice over many years on this issue. My hon. Friend quite rightly said that it is refreshing not to be speaking about Brexit in a debate, but over many years, many of us—particularly those sitting here—have spoken often about strengthening family life. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that much more needs to be done, and to be done by this Government.

In December 2017, I submitted written questions to every Department—15 of them—asking how they had applied the family test. More than half provided an identical and completely inadequate response:

“The Government is committed to supporting families. To achieve this, in 2014 we introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by Ministers. The Family Test was not designed to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise, and as such there is no requirement for departments to publish the results of assessments made under the Family Test.”

That is very ironic, given that it is something of a ‘tick-box’ reply, and only really restates the importance of the question.

Several other Departments provided equally inadequate replies or replies that lacked any information. I will share some of them. The Attorney General Office’s reply was one line long:

“The AGO has not been the sponsoring department for any legislation in this session.”

Officials must have—or should have—considered the issue during the Session.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said:

“Although not a statutory requirement, the impact on families is considered as part of the Department’s compliance with the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty as specified in the Equality Act 2010.”

That does not tell us anything about what the Department did.

The clear contrast between the duty under equalities legislation and this legislation is interesting. A clear duty is being properly and systematically applied and honoured under equalities legislation by every Department; they look at legislation in that context in a way that they do not in the context of strengthening families.

The Cabinet Office’s reply was three and a half lines long, and we should bear in mind that the Cabinet Office is the responsible Department for having a broad overview of how Departments apply legislation. Its reply was much the same:

“The Government's guidance on the family test is available on Gov.uk and provides that the test should be taken into account, if sensible and proportionate, when considering all new policies that might have an impact on the family, including those set out in legislation.”

It took three months to reply, but it was not the worst. I had to issue a reminder to the Home Office, which took six months to reply to my important question.

As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said, ironically, the Department that provided the best and fullest answer was the Ministry of Defence. I cannot possibly read the whole answer, but it provided the kind of reply that I had hoped to receive from every Department. Among other things, it says:

“We recognise the vital role that their families play...we are developing flexible engagements for those who wish to vary their deployability to better fit their Service career around family life, all of which aims to contribute to increased family stability. A key component of the Families’ Strategy is to ensure that Service families are considered in people policy development, supporting the principles outlined in the Family Test. This is achieved through consideration of the Service family as part of each relevant submission or policy discussion, and through regular engagement with the single Services and the three Families’ Federations who represent the needs and views of Service families. The Department also monitors the development and implementation of policy to assess the impact on families.”

That is the kind of response that we hoped for, and which we deserve, from every Department.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting point about the Ministry of Defence. It is very good that it has policies of that kind, but, in practice, I have a constituent who is looking for flexible working—she is looking to support her poorly mother and a child. She is getting absolutely stonewalled by the Ministry of Defence. Does the hon. Lady agree that policies are good, but they have to be put into practice and they have to work on the ground?

[Fiona Bruce]

Absolutely. I recommend that the hon. Lady points her constituent to that reply and challenges the Department accordingly. That is one of the reasons that we raise such questions.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Having well over 2,000 serving defence personnel based in my constituency, I wanted to comment on my hon. Friend’s important points about the Ministry of Defence. Does she agree that rather than being seen as a kind of hindrance, a pro-family policy is incredibly important for morale, not just for the armed forces but right across the civil service and across the country? It should be looked at as a positive thing, and not as something that somehow gets in the way.

[Fiona Bruce]

As so often, my hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point. We need to ensure that strengthening family life is embedded within our policy making, because it is good for the individuals involved, but also because it is good for the country. I am convinced that our productivity levels, which are lower than they should be compared with many other developed countries, have some connection with the fact that we also have one of the highest levels of family breakdown in the developed world. People need to be supported and secure in their home life, from which they can then go out to work and be fulfilled.

As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay who introduced this debate said, we all pay the price if we do not have strong families. There is pressure on housing, because families are divided. There is also addiction, underachievement at school, mental health problems among young people, pressure on GPs’ surgeries because of depression, and, as I have said, underperformance at work. All that adds up to far more than the £51 billion cited in one assessment—I think it was by the Relationships Foundation. We need to look much more closely at underproductivity; it will cost our country dearly if we do not. Clearly, those who are responsible for safeguarding the security of our nation—working in defence—deserve that to be addressed more than anyone.

The Government Equalities Office sent an amusing reply:

“The family test was not formally applied to any of our regulations, as they do not have a direct or demonstrable impact on family relationships.”

It quoted three such regulations, including the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 and the Equality Act 2010 (Equal Pay Audits) Regulations 2014. If they do not have an impact on families, what does?

I will pass over the Department for Exiting the European Union’s tick-box response. I am sure that we all agree that Brexit will affect every family in the land, if it does not already. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave a one-and-a-half-line reply:

“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not applied the family test to date, as it applies to domestic policy only.”

The Department of Health and Social Care replied with only four and a half lines, stating:

“The Department does not keep a formal record of the legislation to which the family test was applied.”

That is really important, because it is the exact point we are making: given that there is no requirement to record any assessment, there is no evidence of it being done, which is not satisfactory.

As I said, the Home Office—after a reminder—sent a reply six months later, which was three and a half lines long. It said:

“The Government’s guidance on the family test is available on gov.uk…The Home Office will apply the family test if sensible and proportionate.”

It gives no further information at all. I could go on, but I think colleagues get the gist.

What do we do about this? We need to ask the Government not just to take action, but to take on board the Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill. It is a draft Bill that was introduced in the Lords by Lord Farmer, and which I introduced in the Commons in May 2018. I would like the Minister to explain why nothing has happened about the Bill. It addresses the concerns that we are talking about today. The Bill would require

“public bodies to accompany any proposal for a change in public expenditure, administration or policy with a family impact assessment”.

We felt that “family test” was perhaps not the best term, because it implies a pass or fail. By contrast, a “family impact assessment” is a broader exercise. The Bill would also:

“require the Secretary of State to report on the costs and benefits of extending family impact assessments to local authorities”

within six months of passing the legislation. We wanted to press for that because local authorities keep virtually no data on the extent of family breakdown in their areas. If we do not have the information, how can we start to address an issue?

It is very interesting that a number of local authorities are actively addressing this issue in a way that those of us who work on strengthening family life have recommended to Government in our policy paper, “A Manifesto to Strengthen Families”. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the document, but I never miss an opportunity to pass a copy to a Minister in such a debate. The document is now supported by about 70 Members of Parliament and contains several policies to strengthen family life.

It is disappointing that the Government have not collectively embraced the policies in the manifesto. Ideally, we would like to see that done through the leadership of a Cabinet Minister for families. That is not in any way to denigrate the work or enthusiasm of the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). I know that he is interested in this subject, because he has told me so. However, if we are to make real headway on this issue, we need to have a Secretary of State who is responsible for strengthening families. Once again, I ask the Minister to take that message back—it is a key ask in the manifesto.

Another key ask is the development of local family hubs. These would not be Sure Start centres, which are just for pre-school children. The Minister might tell us something about the working group on young children, of which he is a member, and we support that. However, in each community we need a family hub where people can go if they have family difficulties and challenges regarding children of all ages, couple relationship problems or problems caring for an elderly relative. People need somewhere to go to get support on all those issues.

It is very interesting—this will bring me back to talking about the Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill—that many local authorities are setting up family hubs, despite the national Government not providing any particularly strong incentive for them to do so. Across the country, we are getting such hubs set up. In fact, we will hold a family hubs fair in the Jubilee Room on 5 June, and I invite the Minister to attend. There will be examples from all over the country of local authorities that aim to strengthen family life. As I said, without the requirement for data to be produced by local authorities so that they can understand the extent of the issue in their area, how can they address it? That is why the requirement is in the draft legislation.

We also state in the Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill that we want there to be proper evaluation of “progress towards family stability”. The Secretary of State in each Department should publish an annual report on progress towards stabilising families within the Department: what action have they taken? The family impact assessment would then begin to gather together information, recording how policies ultimately have a negative or positive impact on families.

When Lord Farmer introduced the Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill in the Lords, he quite rightly said we need it because there is no systematic way that policies are developed to support family relationships; there are only individual Ministers doing this. It is interesting that the Department of Justice gave a tick-box reply, because it has actually taken up strengthening family life with great gusto. It indicates that the dots are still not being joined up within Departments regarding officials’ work on this issue. I commend the Department of Justice for the way it is developing the Farmer review, but we need to do more.

Our Bill would put family impact assessments and their publication on a statutory footing and, as I have said, require the Secretary of State to report annually on progress. The Government need to do much better. Some of us have been speaking in this place about the matter since this Government came to varying forms of power. It is now almost a decade. We will shortly enter our tenth year—that is half a generation that we have now lost, when we could have taken action to help children who are growing up in dysfunctional families.

We talk about how we will be held to account for the way that we address Brexit, but those children are not able to hold us to account. They cannot go to the ballot box next year or the year after, but they are being dreadfully impacted by the fact that we are failing them and failing to look at how we can strengthen family life in this country. If I am right, there are now 27,000 children involved in gangs. What are gangs if not substitute families? Those children are looking for somewhere to belong, and we must do something urgently to address that. The Government must get a grip on this issue. The responses to our questions about the family test show that that is simply not happening.

The Government should adopt our draft Bill and get on with it. Will the Minister please explain why that has not happened? The whole point is to highlight the importance of the family perspective in policy making. Perhaps one of the problems is that officials and Ministers need training. Perhaps we need to help them assess the impact of policies on family life. We expect them to do it, but perhaps we need to help them by giving them training. As a comparison, we all agree that antisemitism is a concern. Officials are rightly being given training in how to address it, and I believe that the Government have allocated more than £14 million for that. That is positive, but how much is being put in to strengthen family life holistically? Which Departments have sent anyone on courses to train them in how to assess family impact? If that has happened, who was sent, where did they go and what was the outcome? If it has not, why not?

Please let me know if I am speaking for too long, Sir David. I will conclude shortly, but I would like to turn to the loneliness strategy.

[Sir David Crausby (in the Chair)]

We have until 11 o’clock. I will call the Front Benchers at 10.30 am.

[Fiona Bruce]

And I believe there is just one other speaker.

[Sir David Crausby (in the Chair)]

Yes.

[Fiona Bruce]

Plus the Front Benchers, obviously.

The loneliness strategy, published in October 2018, states:

“Family wellbeing is crucial for preventing loneliness.”

It continues:

“Government’s intention is to embed consideration of loneliness and relationships throughout the policy-making process. Government will explore various mechanisms for doing this and will, for example, include it in guidance for the Family Test.”

We are six months on. Will the Minister tell the House what action has been taken to fulfil that commitment? If he cannot do so today, will he write to us? The strategy also commits to a cross-Government approach to be led by the Minister for Sport and Civil Society. What steps have been taken across Government to fulfil the Government’s commitment to

“developing and improving its approach”?

The Minister is from the Department for Work and Pensions. Is this on his desk? I believe that he has families in his job description. If not, could he find out what stage this is at? The fact that this is on the desk of the Minister for Sport and Civil Society shows that this issue ends up being split into silos if we are not careful. There is not an overarching senior Minister responsible for it. Whose desk is this on, given that the Minister is from DWP? Could he find that out and ascertain how the Cabinet Office is ensuring that this issue is being taken forward in a cross-departmental way? How many Departments have highlighted the progress they are making on addressing loneliness through their 2019-20 departmental plans? I hope they have them now. Any efficient small business would. How many have published an annual progress report on the loneliness agenda, as set out in the strategy?

The strategy says:

“More research is needed in this area. But current evidence suggests that frequent loneliness and its wider impacts are costly for society as a whole as well as for individuals. Supporting people in this situation to become more connected to their families, friends and wider community also links to government’s aim to promote a more integrated and productive society.”

That is very interesting. I refer back to my question about the connection between family breakdown and productivity. If more research is done on that, we might be able to persuade the Treasury that investment in strengthening family life would be well made.

When the loneliness strategy was launched, I asked the then responsible Minister whether she agreed that one of the greatest antidotes to loneliness is stronger families. She agreed and said:

“We recognise the importance of families in tackling loneliness…we can quite often forget members of our family, so all that is at the heart of the strategy.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 460.]

The Government have a poor history of applying the family test. I will give a specific example, which I thought was an affront. The first family test published was on the Enterprise Bill and the issue of Sunday trading. Several of us had to press Ministers to get it published, despite the fact that the Bill would surely affect every family in the country. In the end, it was begrudgingly published on the day that the debate was taking place in the House of Commons, and the piece of paper was brought into the Chamber. That was completely unacceptable.

Subsequently, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who was the responsible Minister, said that she would encourage Departments to publish family tests. That was in response to a question from our former colleague David Burrowes, who is now executive director for the manifesto for strengthening families and still works on this issue continuously. We very much hope we will see him back in this place very soon so he can continue his excellent work in the House.

This is not just a tick-box exercise. It is not just about keeping bureaucrats in their jobs or creating red tape for the sake of it. It matters. It is about people’s lives. It is about saving relationships. It is about preventing addiction. It is about reducing loneliness. It is about addressing mental health problems. It is about improving life chances. It is about improving education and employment opportunities. It is about tackling homelessness. It is about poverty. It is about productivity. Why has this important exercise never been properly embedded in the Government’s thinking or procedures? What is the Minister’s answer to all that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this debate. He rightly pointed out the importance of families and parenting. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) told us that the Government have a poor history of applying the family test. She spoke of the impact of family life on productivity; I wonder whether she would support Labour’s policy of ending zero-hour contracts, to improve the quality of family life. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) spoke thoughtfully about a number of areas where policy is failing families, and particularly about the impact of natural migration to universal credit, which is causing hardship for many families. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke passionately about poverty and austerity, and the impact of the two-child policy.

The family test has admirable aims, but this Government have not quite followed through on it in full. It is not clear whether the initiative has made a significant impact. When it was introduced, it was not made mandatory to publish the outcomes of the test; to date, few have been published. Could the Minister tell us how many tests have been carried out or are under way? Will he commit to publishing them in full?

In 2015, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), said that the Social Justice Cabinet Committee would take the lead in ensuring that the family test was properly applied across Government Departments. Will the Minister confirm whether the committee still exists, and when it last met?

The family test was introduced to provide a family perspective in the policy making process. While that is a laudable objective, it is clear that Government policy since 2010 has completely undermined that aim. Families across the country have suffered the impact of this Government’s austerity measures, particularly through cuts to social security. One only has to think of the upheaval and misery caused by the bedroom tax to see that; families were uprooted from their community because of an ill-considered and heartless policy.

The test includes five questions to consider when making policy, including assessing what kind of impact the policy might have on family formation, families going through key transitions such as becoming parents, and all family members’ ability to play a full role in family life, yet Government policy appears almost designed to disrupt and interrupt family life. Indeed, they have made it much harder for parents to secure a safe and happy upbringing for their children. When Professor Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, visited the UK last year, he lifted the lid on a national crisis. He said:

“People I spoke with told me they have to choose between eating and heating their homes, or eating and feeding their children. One person said, ‘I would rather feed my kids than pay my rent, but that could get us all kicked out.’ Children are showing up at school with empty stomachs, and schools are collecting food on an ad hoc basis and sending it home because teachers know that their students will otherwise go hungry.”

There is no use speaking about the family test while ignoring the growing stark reality of people’s lives. More than 14 million people in the UK are in poverty, including more than 4 million children. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that figure will rise to more than 5 million by 2022. No child should have to go to school hungry, or go without heating or clothing, but the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported last year that more than 300,000 children had to do just that. Its report found that 365,000 children experienced destitution in 2017. Shockingly, 131,000 children woke up homeless on Christmas day last year, according to Shelter. Most people would consider that completely unacceptable in 21st-century Britain.

The Library recently analysed the extent of the cuts to working-age social security, and found that £36 billion has been cut from that budget since 2010, including nearly £5 billion from social security. That has made it extremely difficult for many families to pay the bills. Two years ago, we asked the Government for an impact assessment of the cuts on women, after we published Library analysis showing that 86% of the impact of austerity had been shouldered by women, yet despite their supposed commitment to the family test, the Government still refuse to publish an impact assessment of the cuts on women.

The family test was introduced in 2014. I take this opportunity to examine the policies introduced since then and their effect on families. The two-child limit, which has been mentioned, is expected to push 200,000 additional children into poverty by the time universal credit is fully rolled out. The policy breaks the vital link between what families require to meet their daily needs and their entitlement. The Child Poverty Action Group says that the policy means that

“some children are held to be less deserving of a decent standard of living than others, simply because they have more siblings—a circumstance which they cannot control.”

It was described as “fundamentally anti-family” by the UK’s foremost religious leaders.

The family test asks policy makers to assess the impact of policy on family formation. The Child Poverty Action Group says the two-child limit

“risks creating incentives for larger families to separate, and could discourage single parents from forming new ‘blended’ families. It could also penalise children in separated families who switch the parent they live with—for example to be with siblings, or to remain in their school if one parent moves away.”

It goes on to say that the policy

“may also leave women who become pregnant with a third child, for example through contraception failure, with a difficult choice between moving into poverty and having an abortion.”

Clearly, that is extremely shocking. The two-child limit completely undermines the aims of the family test and the fabric of family life. Can the Minister confirm that it was subjected to the family test? Will he make that assessment public and explain how the policy passed all five tests?

Another policy introduced in 2015 was the freeze on social security, which quite simply increases poverty. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, almost half a million more people will be driven into poverty by 2020 as a result of the freeze, which it says is the single biggest driver behind rising poverty. The Secretary of State sought to reassure the public that the benefits freeze would not be extended beyond next year, but that is not soon enough. The value of working-age benefits is expected to be cut by £1.5 billion over the next year. We have repeatedly called on the Government to end the benefits freeze immediately. Ahead of today’s spring Budget, we say it is not too late for the Government to stop the freeze. The Government have the opportunity to lift 200,000 people out of poverty altogether by ending the freeze, so will they take action?

Since its introduction by a Labour Government, child benefit has been a vital means of supporting families. It is now frozen, having been cut repeatedly since 2010. According to Unison, a family with two children is £450 a year, or £8.67 a week, worse off than it would have been in 2010. Unison analysis shows that, at current prices, that would buy 1 litre of skimmed milk, 15 medium eggs, a Warburtons medium white sliced loaf, a bag of straight-cut chips, washing-up liquid, pork loin medallions and eight sausages—clearly, all things that families could do with. Again, can the Minister confirm that the social security freeze was subjected to the family test, and will he make that assessment public and explain how the policy passed all five tests?

Universal credit has undergone rapid expansion in recent years. However, its roll-out has been chaotic and hampered by cuts—especially those made in the 2015 summer Budget. Universal credit is not working for families, and it is driving many people into poverty, debt and rent arrears. The five-week wait, which was originally a six-week wait, is unrealistic for low-income families. It is difficult to see how families are supposed to survive for five or six weeks without any payment at all when children need to be fed and clothed. The Government say universal credit is linked to food bank use, yet they have failed to address that issue competently and have offered people loans instead. Once again, can the Minister confirm that universal credit—in particular the 2015 cuts and the five-week wait—has been subjected to the family test, and will he make that assessment public and explain how the policy passed all five tests?

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Margaret Greenwood]

I am very short of time, so I will continue.

Sadly, Government policy is putting intolerable strain on some families. Under this Government, mixed-age couples will be denied pension credit and forced to claim universal credit instead. What is more, younger partners will potentially be subject to the sanctions regime, too. Some families are set to lose as much as £7,000 a year. There have been reports of couples who have been together for more than 20 years considering separation as a result. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of that policy on families? Does the Minister believe it meets the five tests?

There are many more areas that betray how Government policies have undermined the interests of families. Cuts to local government are forcing councils to overspend on their children’s services and social care budgets and run a huge deficit in their reserves for schools. As many as 1,000 Sure Start centres may have closed because of Government funding cuts, and the Government’s change to the threshold for free school meal entitlements could leave 1 million children without a hot meal at school.

We believe that when we all get old or sick, or we have a family, our public services should step in—they should help families remain secure and avoid poverty—but austerity is making that much more difficult to achieve. Indeed, the policies I have mentioned would, in my opinion, demonstrably fail the family test. I hope the Government listen to the points I have made, end austerity and develop policies in line with the stated aims of the family test.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady was not willing to take interventions from colleagues who actually stuck to the principles of the debate, so I will not.

Under the last Labour Government, welfare spending rose on average by £3,000 per house. Imagine the impact on hard-working families.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will shortly. The Opposition voted against income tax threshold changes that have given families an additional £1,200 a year. Our spending on childcare will have risen from £4 billion in 2010 to £6 billion by 2020—a 50% increase—and we are delivering record employment in all regions of the UK, yet again supporting families. I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Fiona Bruce]

The Minister has actually made my point for me. The speech by the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) highlighted the fundamental difference in the way we approach this issue. The Opposition’s solution to so many social problems is throwing more money at them. There was no money left when they finished in government.

We are saying that if we strengthen family lives, just like the teacher the Minister mentioned, we will prevent those problems—mental health problems in school, addiction, people going to GP surgeries with depression and losing work days, and so on—from arising in the first place. That is the fundamental difference. That is why we are pressing for the Government to strengthen family life: because we believe that prevention is far better and cheaper than attempted cure.

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is spot on. It was clear from my colleagues’ speeches that they have a constructive, proactive and real focus on the absolute principles of the family test, and I shall now turn to that.

Many hon. Members have underlined the importance of the family test, and I am pleased to see sustained interest in that test among colleagues. I restate the Government’s commitment to the family test, which was introduced in 2014 to help put families at the heart of policy making. In designing the test, alongside the Relationships Alliance, we wanted to help policy makers understand how policies might, positively or negatively, affect families.

We want potential impacts on families to be considered early so that they can shape proposals, rather than at the end of the process when we are preparing to announce and implement any changes. That point is key, and the test helps to ensure that potential impacts are properly considered in the advice that Ministers receive. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay was spot on when he said that such issues must be embedded into that early thinking.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will respond to the thrust of the debate. We want the family test to be broad and flexible, reflecting the nature of 21st-century families. The test already encourages policy makers to consider a wide range of impacts, including on family formation, families going through key transitions, the ability of all family members—dads, mums, and the extended family—to play a full role in family life, families who have separated or who are undergoing separation, and those families most at risk of a deterioration in relationship quality and breakdown.

I acknowledge that some would like the family test to be a statutory obligation, but feedback from policy makers, and points highlighted in speeches today, suggest that a statutory test could risk becoming a box-ticking exercise at the end of a policy process, with pass or fail outcomes, rather than something embedded at the beginning of the process, which is key. A legislative test would also risk losing the flexibility to adapt and change.

I welcome the review of the family test by the Centre for Social Justice, and I thank it for highlighting these important issues, many of which my officials have been working to address with the relevant Departments. There is a strong alignment between the report’s recommendations and our approach to strengthening practice in the use of the test. I agree that individual Departments should take responsibility and ownership of their application of the family test—interestingly, the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton highlighted both good and bad practice.

[Fiona Bruce]

Yes.

[Justin Tomlinson]

There we are—it is on the record, and those Departments will no doubt be held to account. The Attorney General’s response is probably the shortest that I have heard from any Department, and I know my hon. Friend will scrutinise it carefully.

We are working with a network of representatives from all domestic policy Departments to develop tailored resources to help officials apply the test in their unique policy contexts, and ensure that advice to Ministers reflects the impact on families. That will be underpinned by refreshed central guidance for officials, which we expect to publish this summer—I will return to that important work at the end of my remarks, with a request for those Members who have demonstrated passion about this issue to ensure that we get it right. My Department will actively consider including the family test in the DWP business plan.

I am pleased to be part of the inter-ministerial group that is focusing on how to improve support for families in the first 1,001 days. Another of the report’s recommendations is for Ministers to take a more active role in ensuring that the family test is applied in their Departments. I have raised the family test with that inter-ministerial group, and I will ask Ministers actively to consider whether the test has been considered in all the advice they receive, on any topic, in their Departments.

The excellent report by the Centre for Social Justice builds on important issues raised by colleagues who published the “Manifesto to Strengthen Families”. It also highlights examples of where Departments have used the family test, and where that has made a difference to the policy making process. We recognise, however, that more progress can be made to ensure that the test is robustly applied to all domestic policy. That is why my Department, which has the cross-Government lead on the test, has been taking action to strengthen its implementation across Government.

Each Department has a nominated representative on the new family test network—my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay highlighted the importance of that—and the network is identifying, developing and sharing best practice on applying the family test. That helps us to deepen our understanding of how the test is applied across Government, and what further support officials need to embed it fully as part of any considerations made when formulating policy.

The network pays particular attention to the need highlighted in the report to build evidence, and we are currently exploring ways to support Departments in that. We will continue to encourage and support Departments to apply the family test, and to make their own judgments on whether and when publishing assessments is appropriate. We will consider whether more can be done to improve transparency, which includes reflecting on the report’s recommendations. It is unclear, however, whether knowing how many family tests a certain Department has applied would bring much greater or more meaningful transparency.

I am keen to avoid introducing layers of unnecessary bureaucracy to the policy making process, but I understand the thrust of the point being made. Insights from the family test network are driving our review of family test guidance, published on gov.uk, which helps officials to understand why, when, and how they should apply the test. Revised guidance planned for summer 2019 will better reflect the needs of users.

We are helping Departments to develop a toolkit of resources for officials to improve consistent and meaningful family test application across Government. Given that effective implementation of the test is fundamentally an issue of capability, we are also working with Civil Service Learning and the Policy Profession unit, to consider how best to support policy makers to apply the family test effectively.

Let me share some examples of how the Government are actively working to make lives better for families, and how our policies are responding to the key questions and evidence set out by the family test. My Department is currently implementing the Reducing Parental Conflict programme, which is backed by £39 million. That programme helps councils across England to recognise the evidence about the damage that parental conflict can do to children’s long-term outcomes. It will soon provide evidence-based, face-to-face support for parents in 31 English local authorities. I attended an important roundtable with those local authorities, and there is real enthusiasm to deliver this programme and build that tangible constructive evidence.

[Fiona Bruce]

I welcome this programme, but an integral part of it needs to be a focus on strengthening couple relationships, not just parent-child relationships. Will the Minister look into that?

[Justin Tomlinson]

We are digesting all the successful bids for the various strands of that programme, and I am sure that many organisations will have a proven track record in that area. I am happy to consider that specific issue in greater detail in a meeting on the programme.

We want face-to-face support to be available to those families who need it most. This is why we will prioritise help for workless and disadvantaged families, and why we are exploring how to ensure that those eligible parents with whom we are already working, through Jobcentre Plus and the Child Maintenance Group, are able to access such support as early as possible.

All local authorities can access funding to increase their strategic capability to address parental conflict, as well as training for frontline staff. We are funding even more innovation through our joint work with the Department of Health and Social Care to support children of alcohol-dependent parents, and with our new £2.7 million Reducing Parental Conflict challenge fund. A number of Departments have highlighted that fund to their stakeholders to ensure good engagement.

The principles of the family test are visible across the Government. The Department for Education recently announced that all children and young people will soon be taught about the importance of healthy relationships, including marriage and family relationships. I welcome the positive comments from my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay about the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Ministry of Justice is also considering how we can reduce conflict in families that are going through a divorce. The Troubled Families programme is driving better ways of working around complex families, improving outcomes for individuals and reducing their dependency on services, and delivering better value for taxpayers. That programme aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for up to 400,000 families with multiple high-cost problems by 2020—something I passionately support.

In conclusion, I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the thrust of this debate—particularly my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay, who has been a real champion in this area. We welcome the continued constructive work by the Centre for Social Justice, and its review of the family test, and we are actively considering its recommendations.

The importance to our society of strong families cannot be understated, and we look forward to working with all hon. Members as we continue to strengthen our use of the family test and make a difference for families. I would greatly welcome the opportunity to meet my hon. Friends from the Centre for Social Justice and have a deep-dive look at the recommendations in their respective speeches and the recent report.