Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 5 and 6. I remind noble Lords that the terms of reference of the health and well-being boards, established through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, require them to report on local efforts in reducing health inequalities and improving the well-being of their population, so it should not be too difficult to find a way to report on health and well-being, as suggested by my noble friend. On Amendment 3, the evidence is enormous that the nutritional status of women both before and during pregnancy can have an important influence on foetal, infant and maternal health outcomes. I remind noble Lords of the enormous parliamentary and public interest in the manifesto The 1001 Critical Days and the work that goes on in thinking about the first two years from conception to age two, and how nutrition is such a key part of improving the life chances of children and young people.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an interesting group of amendments. If I heard correctly from each of the speakers, the thrust of it is that government should be entitled to a whole range of information that will best inform it across the piece as to how to tackle a range of issues. Specifically, the group of amendments seeks to add to the reporting requirements to Parliament: the progress of children at five in areas of cognitive, personal, social, emotional and physical development—likewise for children living in disadvantaged households; the health and well-being of children living in workless and long-term workless households; and maternal nutrition in workless and long-term workless households.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to a range of matters. In particular he spoke about the collection of disadvantage that you get: homelessness, mental health, fuel poverty and low income—it is that collection of issues which makes more difficult the life chances of individuals. A number of speakers emphasised the importance of education—the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, picked up again the point she made in Committee about key stage 1 for education, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, spoke about the importance of health and well-being boards. I understand that the Office for National Statistics produces data on national well-being and on the well-being of children; I think it reported in 2014 and again just last year. It is interesting that a whole range of data goes into those measures. It is said with regard to children that there are something like seven domains and 30-odd measures of children’s well-being, which is a whole collection of stuff to have to handle and deal with.

At the end of the day, government ought to welcome the information that this collection of amendments seeks to be reported on, which is a range of information across the piece. The key issue that flows from it is what you do with it, or what strategies or interventions will flow from that collection of data which will make a difference to the life chances of young people—which is the thrust of this.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made the point that we do not have a collective figure for the consequences of all the changes in the tax and benefit system in recent times. I know that the IFS did a calculation of what had happened under the coalition Government with regard to tax and benefit changes and concluded that if you look at those changes—the percentage of the income of various groups of people—the lowest two percentiles bore the greatest burden. If you look at it in terms of absolute amounts, the top 10% bore the most, but if you look at it as a percentage of income, the poorest have had the worst outcome from all these changes the Government have introduced—and that is before we get into ones that are reflected in the Bill we have debated to date.

When we talk about health and well-being, we need to be clearer about our distinctions. We have the national statistics data and the background to that, which is a very broad measure. The issue around health and well-being boards’ and local authorities’ responsibility is a slightly different focus, but important nevertheless. So far as we are concerned, we can see the benefits of this range of amendments, which try to encourage the bringing-forward of data to underline just what the consequences of these policies are. I think the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked a moment ago about how it is all too easy for us in this Chamber to see this in perhaps rather abstract terms and not the reality. People out there have to face the reality of what these policies mean, and the collection of data of which noble Lords speak will help bring that home to government as well as to campaigners generally, so that those who bear the largest burden feel that that is understood, reflected and challenged—which is our job here.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments on Clause 4 have been grouped together quite widely. I will start by making a general point about adding to the reporting duties that the Government have already set out. The best way of securing progress by government is to have a focused set of measures. I echo the implication of what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said. The more you have, the more likely you are to have a diluted effort and distraction from the key issues, which in this case the evidence tells us are worklessness and educational attainment. Of course many factors contribute to these headline measures. For example, we know that children’s health is an important factor in their educational attainment. Tackling health at work will help ensure that more adults are able to work. Therefore delivering on worklessness and educational attainment calls for a wide set of actions. However, it is important that we focus government on its core objectives that will tackle the root causes of child poverty.

First, with regard to additional statutory reporting duties, I turn to Amendment 3. With this amendment the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, seeks to introduce an additional reporting duty on the Secretary of State. The report must contain data on maternal nutrition in workless and long-term workless households in England. I have already set out that our evidence review published in 2014 makes it clear that worklessness and educational attainment are the factors that have the biggest impact on child poverty and children’s life chances. We are committed to supporting families at the earliest stage and to helping parents move into work and earn more through universal credit or investment in childcare, the national living wage and increases to the personal allowance in the tax system. This is the best way to secure children’s life chances and ensure that parents are able to care for themselves, too.

I cannot overstate the importance of ensuring that we focus on measures that tackle the root causes of child poverty and not be distracted by others that do not do so. Of course, the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is important. The Government take action. They provide advice for parents on maternal and infant nutrition via NHS Choices and Start4Life. Government also operates the Healthy Start vouchers scheme, which provides low-income people with vouchers that can be spent on milk, plain fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, and infant formula. It already publishes the results from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, which includes results by age and gender. There are a variety of reasons why adults have poor diets, and it is important that we look at the whole picture, which gives us valuable information and helps shape interventions. I therefore cannot support this amendment.

Through Amendment 4, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, seeks to expand the duty placed on the Secretary of State to include a duty to report on the progress of children and disadvantaged children living in England at age five in their cognitive, personal, social, emotional and physical development. It is vital that all pupils thrive and develop in their early years. Monitoring children’s personal development is already a core function of every education setting. This monitoring then enables teachers to tailor their support based on how each individual is progressing. I assure your Lordships that we do not take this issue lightly. As the Prime Minister said during his speech about children’s life chances—quoted by noble Lords—we want,

“stable families and good parenting, because we know the importance of those early years in setting children up for a good life”.

There are two key issues at the heart of the life chances reforms—action on work and action on education. Lives can be transformed by focusing on these two most significant drivers of poverty. The Bill will start to realise the vision set out by the Prime Minister when he said that,

“we can rescue a generation from poverty and extend life chances right across our country”.

We all know that the end of key stage 4 is a vital juncture in a young person’s education. It represents the culmination of primary and secondary schooling and provides a consistent point at which to measure attainment across all young people. Pupils who fail to achieve at the end of key stage 4 are at high risk of not being in employment, education or training, so the Secretary of State is committed, through the life chances measures in the Bill—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

In listening to this debate, I find myself sympathetic to the notion of social mobility but I also think of the play “Macbeth” and of Macbeth and his wife. There is a risk, I suppose, if one puts too much weight on social mobility, of a society which is red in tooth and claw. The addition of the words “Life Chances” balances that. Your Lordships may also remember the series “Seven Up!”, which I think started in the 1970s and followed 10 children through their lives into adulthood. To my mind, the happiest life in the group was that of a young black boy who grew up in foster care and then went on to become a butcher, marry and have a family. He seemed the most contented of the lot. To be able to achieve a stable and loving family is also important to society, so it would also be helpful to measure that.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, this amendment has been moved very comprehensively by my noble friend Lady Lister and spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, to whom I should say that the closest I got to Oxford on Sunday night was watching “Endeavour” on television. This is a re-run of an amendment moved in Committee as part of a wider group covering life-chances strategies. The Minister’s response then, as reported in col. 1598 of Hansard on 9 December 2015, was clear on a commitment to publish a life-chances strategy, as well as the annual report as set out in the Clause 4 obligations, but there was no commitment to make this a statutory obligation. As my noble friend Lady Lister has argued, the concern which has been expressed about the commission is that, for the future, it has no obligation explicitly to promote the tackling of child poverty. Although there is a commitment to report on life-chances data, and a statement on the record that there will be a life-chances strategy, the role of the Social Mobility Commission seems somewhat removed from this.

As my noble friend Lady Lister pointed out in Committee, promoting social mobility is a narrower ambition than tackling poverty and promoting life chances: it is not a substitute. It is, of course, a not unreasonable ambition, but a commission focused on life chances would naturally encompass the prospects of social mobility. The reverse is not the case. We therefore support my noble friend’s amendment. It seems odd that the Government are keen to have a commission reporting on progress on improving social mobility but not on life chances.