Application of the Family Test

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this debate. He rightly pointed out the importance of families and parenting. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) told us that the Government have a poor history of applying the family test. She spoke of the impact of family life on productivity; I wonder whether she would support Labour’s policy of ending zero-hour contracts, to improve the quality of family life. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) spoke thoughtfully about a number of areas where policy is failing families, and particularly about the impact of natural migration to universal credit, which is causing hardship for many families. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke passionately about poverty and austerity, and the impact of the two-child policy.

The family test has admirable aims, but this Government have not quite followed through on it in full. It is not clear whether the initiative has made a significant impact. When it was introduced, it was not made mandatory to publish the outcomes of the test; to date, few have been published. Could the Minister tell us how many tests have been carried out or are under way? Will he commit to publishing them in full?

In 2015, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), said that the Social Justice Cabinet Committee would take the lead in ensuring that the family test was properly applied across Government Departments. Will the Minister confirm whether the committee still exists, and when it last met?

The family test was introduced to provide a family perspective in the policy making process. While that is a laudable objective, it is clear that Government policy since 2010 has completely undermined that aim. Families across the country have suffered the impact of this Government’s austerity measures, particularly through cuts to social security. One only has to think of the upheaval and misery caused by the bedroom tax to see that; families were uprooted from their community because of an ill-considered and heartless policy.

The test includes five questions to consider when making policy, including assessing what kind of impact the policy might have on family formation, families going through key transitions such as becoming parents, and all family members’ ability to play a full role in family life, yet Government policy appears almost designed to disrupt and interrupt family life. Indeed, they have made it much harder for parents to secure a safe and happy upbringing for their children. When Professor Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, visited the UK last year, he lifted the lid on a national crisis. He said:

“People I spoke with told me they have to choose between eating and heating their homes, or eating and feeding their children. One person said, ‘I would rather feed my kids than pay my rent, but that could get us all kicked out.’ Children are showing up at school with empty stomachs, and schools are collecting food on an ad hoc basis and sending it home because teachers know that their students will otherwise go hungry.”

There is no use speaking about the family test while ignoring the growing stark reality of people’s lives. More than 14 million people in the UK are in poverty, including more than 4 million children. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that figure will rise to more than 5 million by 2022. No child should have to go to school hungry, or go without heating or clothing, but the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported last year that more than 300,000 children had to do just that. Its report found that 365,000 children experienced destitution in 2017. Shockingly, 131,000 children woke up homeless on Christmas day last year, according to Shelter. Most people would consider that completely unacceptable in 21st-century Britain.

The Library recently analysed the extent of the cuts to working-age social security, and found that £36 billion has been cut from that budget since 2010, including nearly £5 billion from social security. That has made it extremely difficult for many families to pay the bills. Two years ago, we asked the Government for an impact assessment of the cuts on women, after we published Library analysis showing that 86% of the impact of austerity had been shouldered by women, yet despite their supposed commitment to the family test, the Government still refuse to publish an impact assessment of the cuts on women.

The family test was introduced in 2014. I take this opportunity to examine the policies introduced since then and their effect on families. The two-child limit, which has been mentioned, is expected to push 200,000 additional children into poverty by the time universal credit is fully rolled out. The policy breaks the vital link between what families require to meet their daily needs and their entitlement. The Child Poverty Action Group says that the policy means that

“some children are held to be less deserving of a decent standard of living than others, simply because they have more siblings—a circumstance which they cannot control.”

It was described as “fundamentally anti-family” by the UK’s foremost religious leaders.

The family test asks policy makers to assess the impact of policy on family formation. The Child Poverty Action Group says the two-child limit

“risks creating incentives for larger families to separate, and could discourage single parents from forming new ‘blended’ families. It could also penalise children in separated families who switch the parent they live with—for example to be with siblings, or to remain in their school if one parent moves away.”

It goes on to say that the policy

“may also leave women who become pregnant with a third child, for example through contraception failure, with a difficult choice between moving into poverty and having an abortion.”

Clearly, that is extremely shocking. The two-child limit completely undermines the aims of the family test and the fabric of family life. Can the Minister confirm that it was subjected to the family test? Will he make that assessment public and explain how the policy passed all five tests?

Another policy introduced in 2015 was the freeze on social security, which quite simply increases poverty. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, almost half a million more people will be driven into poverty by 2020 as a result of the freeze, which it says is the single biggest driver behind rising poverty. The Secretary of State sought to reassure the public that the benefits freeze would not be extended beyond next year, but that is not soon enough. The value of working-age benefits is expected to be cut by £1.5 billion over the next year. We have repeatedly called on the Government to end the benefits freeze immediately. Ahead of today’s spring Budget, we say it is not too late for the Government to stop the freeze. The Government have the opportunity to lift 200,000 people out of poverty altogether by ending the freeze, so will they take action?

Since its introduction by a Labour Government, child benefit has been a vital means of supporting families. It is now frozen, having been cut repeatedly since 2010. According to Unison, a family with two children is £450 a year, or £8.67 a week, worse off than it would have been in 2010. Unison analysis shows that, at current prices, that would buy 1 litre of skimmed milk, 15 medium eggs, a Warburtons medium white sliced loaf, a bag of straight-cut chips, washing-up liquid, pork loin medallions and eight sausages—clearly, all things that families could do with. Again, can the Minister confirm that the social security freeze was subjected to the family test, and will he make that assessment public and explain how the policy passed all five tests?

Universal credit has undergone rapid expansion in recent years. However, its roll-out has been chaotic and hampered by cuts—especially those made in the 2015 summer Budget. Universal credit is not working for families, and it is driving many people into poverty, debt and rent arrears. The five-week wait, which was originally a six-week wait, is unrealistic for low-income families. It is difficult to see how families are supposed to survive for five or six weeks without any payment at all when children need to be fed and clothed. The Government say universal credit is linked to food bank use, yet they have failed to address that issue competently and have offered people loans instead. Once again, can the Minister confirm that universal credit—in particular the 2015 cuts and the five-week wait—has been subjected to the family test, and will he make that assessment public and explain how the policy passed all five tests?

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Margaret Greenwood]

I am very short of time, so I will continue.

Sadly, Government policy is putting intolerable strain on some families. Under this Government, mixed-age couples will be denied pension credit and forced to claim universal credit instead. What is more, younger partners will potentially be subject to the sanctions regime, too. Some families are set to lose as much as £7,000 a year. There have been reports of couples who have been together for more than 20 years considering separation as a result. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of that policy on families? Does the Minister believe it meets the five tests?

There are many more areas that betray how Government policies have undermined the interests of families. Cuts to local government are forcing councils to overspend on their children’s services and social care budgets and run a huge deficit in their reserves for schools. As many as 1,000 Sure Start centres may have closed because of Government funding cuts, and the Government’s change to the threshold for free school meal entitlements could leave 1 million children without a hot meal at school.

We believe that when we all get old or sick, or we have a family, our public services should step in—they should help families remain secure and avoid poverty—but austerity is making that much more difficult to achieve. Indeed, the policies I have mentioned would, in my opinion, demonstrably fail the family test. I hope the Government listen to the points I have made, end austerity and develop policies in line with the stated aims of the family test.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, in this very calm and sensible week for Parliament. I am sure all eyes will be focused on this very important debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for securing the debate. He has an exceptional track record in this important area; it is a real credit to the work he has done that he has so much support from the colleagues who attended the debate. I pay tribute to his work alongside the noble Baroness Eaton with the Centre for Social Justice, which culminated in its recent report on the family test. That excellent piece of work was a really good way to focus minds—not just in my Department, but across Government. I will go into more detail about that.

I also thank all the other Members who contributed, in particular my hon. Friends the Members for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I will cover many of the questions raised, but let me say two quick things before I forget. I would be delighted, diary and parliamentary duties permitting, to attend the family hub event, so I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton to make sure I have all the details of that.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives has done fantastic work as an MP to support those with special educational needs, using his wealth of experience from his work prior to arriving in the House. I recognise his point about supporting families with special educational needs children.

I pay tribute to one of my local special educational needs schools, the Uplands School, which has made a very small change that could easily be adopted by all schools and is making a huge difference. Like all schools, it has parental support classes, which offer peer-to-peer support—parents get together over cups of tea and talk about the challenges they are facing and how they can support one another. The headteacher, Jackie Smith, has ensured that parents get an invite to those support classes once they know their children will end up at the school, rather than having to wait until the day they come. That ensures that peer support is provided from the very early days, which is making a huge difference.

We also had a contribution from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who perhaps stretched the intention of the debate—most of her comments were probably better suited to a Home Office debate. I am sure there will be opportunities for Home Office Ministers to respond in the future.

I thank the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for welcoming the principle of the family test. I appreciate that, but she then applied a series of political statements loosely to the principles of the family test. It would be remiss of me not to correct some of the points she made. For example, under this Government there are now 500,000 fewer families on the housing waiting list. Food affordability—the measure of whether families can afford the basics in terms of food—has almost halved in just under five years and is 2.5% lower than the EU average. Material deprivation has never been lower. Income inequality has fallen under this Government, having risen under the last Labour Government. There are now 300,000 fewer children in absolute poverty. Welfare spending under the last Labour Government—

[Margaret Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady was not willing to take interventions from colleagues who actually stuck to the principles of the debate, so I will not.

Under the last Labour Government, welfare spending rose on average by £3,000 per house. Imagine the impact on hard-working families.