Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Freud]

I wish to make it clear that I absolutely do not accept that figure. I have said that we are introducing a lot of measures in advance to make sure that that figure does not arise.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, will the Minister develop a little further the argument as regards Amendment 99C, which concerns the lone parent with a child under the age of five? It seems to me that there needs to be more discussion about the whole question of whether people in those circumstances —this would apply to kinship carers as well—are being encouraged to seek work or to move back into work. It is often argued that they should not be working and that the important thing is that they look after their child under the age of five, or, if they are kinship carers, that they give up work in order to take on that responsibility, which may have suddenly arisen. It seems to me that we ought, therefore, to take much more seriously the possibility that they ought to be exempted because we do not, as a society or a Government, want them to be working.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I hope I made clear my sympathy on the kinship carer point. I am looking at it in the round. On the lone parent point, I am afraid I am reduced to the underlying principle that there is a level of pay for people, which we have set at the equivalent of earnings of £35,000. Do not forget that, by definition, half the households in the country receive less than that amount because it is the median amount, and that is why we have fixed on that figure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I will not make any promises on this but I will have another look at it. That is the weakest of possible promises. In fact, I am trying to say that it is not a promise at all. The signal I am giving is that I will have another look at it, but that is no guarantee of anything happening.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have taken part in this long and detailed debate on this group of amendments. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has engaged with the discussions. I take a certain amount of hope from some of the things that he has said about taking account of the arguments, which we have shared, and about some specifics, such as references to attendance allowance, to childcare costs, repeatedly, and to free school meals, that there will be exemptions which we can see in those areas. I am also encouraged by the beginnings of a discussion on the issue of carers, in particular kinship carers. I very much hope that that can be taken further in our debates. I am rather less encouraged by the comments on housing benefit, but I hope that there can be ways in which, at least in terms of transitional arrangements, we can move forward on those as well.

The area in which I am least encouraged relates to the amendment on child benefit. We still have not got a real answer to the question of why child benefit counts on one side of the scales and not on the other, a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has made several times in this debate. We can only use the figure £35,000 on the basis that we are not comparing like with like, otherwise it does not make sense as a figure to be used. That seems to me to be regrettable and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to have another look at this and to discuss just what the place of child benefit—perhaps the key benefit—is within the whole of our society, over many years, in terms of the cap. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 99ZB withdrawn.