Application of the Family Test

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[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.