Lord Farmer
Main Page: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Farmer's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Baroness that our policies are doing that; in fact, they are doing precisely the opposite. We have increased in an enormous number of ways the support—not just financial but practical—we give to children in low-income families. Indeed, the previous Question illustrates that. On how we measure poverty, the noble Baroness is right: we should debate, and have debated, looking at how we measure poverty. That is why on 17 May the Minister for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance announced that new experimental statistics to measure poverty will be developed, working with the Social Metrics Commission and published by DWP in 2020. We are looking to rethink the measures of poverty.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, while the survey findings are challenging, there are clearly additional factors at play—not simply a lack of money. A comment highlighted in the report and likely representative of many others is that:
“Their social and emotional needs are not being met and this is having detrimental effects on their learning and behaviour”.
We cannot assume that this is wholly due to long working hours. What are HM Government doing to ensure that parents struggling to nurture their children are given early help?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Farmer for the enormous amount of work he has done and continues to do so selflessly in this area. He is absolutely right: this is not just about money. The truth is that support for the family structure is critical. Parents play a critical role in giving children the experiences and skills they need to succeed. Children exposed to parental conflict can suffer long-term harm. That is why we have introduced a new Reducing Parental Conflict programme, backed by up to £30 million. This programme will encourage councils across England to integrate services and approaches that address parental conflict into their local services for families.