Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Jeremy Lefroy

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. She will know—I was asked this question in a Westminster Hall debate last week—that we have attempted to deal with this issue with some sensitivity. The undertaking I have given to her hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central is that if she believes there are particular issues with the system in place for dealing with this, we are more than happy to look at them. I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady as well to discuss it.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give an example of a policy that has been strengthened, or indeed dropped, as a result of being subject to the family test?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point, and one with which I have been grappling since I was appointed to this position. He will know that a number of programmes across the Government are aimed at strengthening families, not least the troubled families programme, which has seen an investment of something like £982 million. On new initiatives, he may have heard me mention in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) that we are investing—newly announced in the Budget last year—£39 million in a programme designed to reduce parental conflict. That has been done on the basis of looking for parenting programmes that will create more stability and therefore happier outcomes for families.