Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, if I were the Minister, I would grasp with alacrity the olive branch—or is it fig leaf?—that was offered by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope. Personally, I oppose the principle of these clauses, but I will talk about that later. I will speak only very briefly now in support of all the amendments in the group. We have heard some very powerful speeches that show the unintended and undesirable social policy consequences of these clauses, which I cannot believe the Government wish to happen. I hope that the Minister will reflect very carefully on these speeches.

At Second Reading, the Minister gave a little hint that, at least on kinship carers, he might be willing to consider an exemption, although I understand that nothing has been taken forward on that. He also said that the Government,

“will look at the important issues around exemption through secondary legislation and will provide more detail in due course”.—[Official Report, 17/11/15; col. 125.]

As well as adding my support to these amendments, I simply want to ask the Minister what he means by “due course”. We really have to have these details before Report. We should not go to Report until we have these details about exemptions.

I remind the Minister that on the previous Welfare Reform Bill the Joint Committee on Human Rights made very clear how important it is that, even if we cannot have the regulations themselves—I can quite understand why that is not possible—from a human rights perspective we should have full details of what will be in the regulations. I hope that, at the very least, the Minister can give us that assurance today and that he will think hard about the arguments that have been made already.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I want to speak extremely briefly because the speech I might have made has already been made by other noble Lords in terms of detail.

Having listened to the Minister talk in various venues about wanting to ensure that there are no unintended consequences from this legislation, I want him to think carefully on the speeches that have been made and about what basis of philosophy or principle the Government have underlying this legislation. I know the basic tenet is that they want to make sure that parents can work and that all children are able to achieve the best educational outcomes—those are the Government’s own words. But some of these measures will undermine that and take families into greater financial hardship. I am particularly interested in the children, because taking those families into greater financial hardship will reduce the life chances of those children. Those of us who have worked with children down the years have seen the consequences of that, not only the emotional consequences but the financial consequences.

All the arguments around larger families, kinship care, adoption and the very many informal arrangements that families make to ensure that their children are emotionally cared for have been made. Again, I hope that the Minister will reflect on that in the context of his own Government’s policy and objectives.

We are a nation that should care. Indeed, the Minister’s party described itself as a “caring party”. I also admire the Government’s objective of ensuring that children make their own way and are not left in poverty because of parental behaviour. However, we know that you can affect that behaviour, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and others have said, by the kind of care that they receive themselves and are able to reflect with their children. Therefore, will the Minister tell us how he intends to ensure that the Government’s philosophy and principles are reflected in the way that they deal with large families, particularly those from disadvantaged groups?

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[Lord Freud]

That is the point of these amendments, which I am in the process of dealing with, so I will provide the government response to those exemptions.

Turning to the amendments themselves, these are intended to specify circumstances in which the policy to limit child tax credit and the child element in universal credit would not apply. Amendments 1, 9 and 17 are intended to allow exemptions where the child is a member of the household through kinship care or a private fostering arrangement, and Amendment 16 where the child is a member of the household through being adopted. Amendment 10 is an enabling amendment to allow for exemptions to be made in relation to Clause 12.

Amendments 1 and 9 are intended to provide an exemption for particular children who are,

“in the household as a result of a kinship care or private fostering arrangement”.

Amendments 16 and 17 would not apply to particular children or young persons but would exempt households from the limit of two children in child tax credit and universal credit where the specified circumstances applied to,

“a third (or subsequent) child”.

Thus a household with three children, limited to two children, who adopted a fourth child would then receive the child element for the four children. By limiting support to two children in child tax credit and in universal credit, the Government are ensuring that the system is fair to those taxpayers who fund it, as well as those who benefit from it.

The Government do recognise the vital role that kinship carers play. For example, in universal credit, kinship carers will have to attend periodic interviews only for the first year after a child joins their household, which enables the carer to focus on helping the child through this difficult period. To pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, about the Government’s attitude to adoption, the Government take the importance of adoption very seriously. In the summer Budget, the Government provided £30 million to support the creation of regional adoption agencies to help speed the adoption process.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned the exemptions outlined at Second Reading. The Government have been consistent since the summer Budget in saying that we will exempt a third or subsequent child or young person who is one of a multiple birth where the multiple birth takes the number of children or young persons in a household above two, and that we will exempt a third or subsequent child born as the result of rape. Those are the exemptions that we have spelled out. We have also been clear that the exemptions will be dealt with in secondary legislation and we will provide more detailed information on those exemptions to noble Lords ahead of the next stage of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked about the assessment that we have done in terms of the policy deterring adoption and the taking on of sibling groups. That was contained in the impact assessment of 20 July. We have considered the impacts, which in effect meet our obligations set out in the public sector equality duty.

Amendment 10 is unnecessary as regards recognising the need for exemptions to apply in certain circumstances. We have the power in Clause 12(4) to specify exemptions to the limit. As I said, as was set in the summer Budget, we will make those particular exemptions.

Amendments 16 and 17 propose to establish an appeals process. Comprehensive appeals arrangements already exist in relation to social security and tax credits, and these arrangements will apply to any decisions made under the provisions in the Bill, as well as to exemptions set out in regulations. There is therefore no need to establish a new appeals process. For the reasons I have set out, I urge noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

At Second Reading, when the Minister talked about the exemptions that the Government have made clear will be included, he said:

“The situation with kinship carers is similar”.—[Official Report, 17/11/15; col. 125.]

Why is he today saying that he is now not prepared even to consider the situation of kinship carers? What has changed?

[Lord Freud]

If I misspoke at Second Reading, I apologise to the Committee. I was saying that they were a similarly important group; I was not trying to say that there would be an exemption. I did not make that statement.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I hate to intervene, but I point out that the evidence to which my noble friend referred was the Department for Work and Pensions’ own evidence. However, at this point I will go back to the amendments, which I support, as we will have another chance to talk about the principle of these nasty clauses later. I just want to ask a couple of questions.

In the impact assessment and elsewhere the phrase is used:

“The Government will develop protections for women who have a third child as the result of rape, or other exceptional circumstances”.

We have not yet had any clue as to what those “other exceptional circumstances” might be. My noble friend Lady Sherlock has suggested that domestic violence should perhaps be one of them because of the coercion that can be involved in domestic violence and abuse, which are not just about physical abuse but emotional and financial abuse—a kind of controlling which is very relevant in this situation.

Points have already been made about the potential intrusiveness of the questioning that might be required to decide whether a woman has had a child as the result of rape. Can the Minister assure us that there will be no requirement either for a conviction or evidence of a police report for the claim to be accepted? As I understand it, according to Rape Crisis only 15% of victims of sexual violence make a police report, and we have already heard about the potential intrusiveness of any questioning there might be. I hope that the Minister might be able to tell us a bit more about what will happen.

Can he assure us that Jobcentre Plus staff will be trained to handle any such conversations sensitively and to provide women who report that they have been raped or assaulted with information about available support services? Will lessons be learned from the experience of women who were subject to very intrusive and deeply personal questioning about the paternity of their children when the requirement to co-operate was enforced under the Child Support Act 1991? As I understand it, extensive guidance was developed at the time but this rule was subsequently abandoned as unworkable. I suspect that the same will apply now.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I thought the House might just like an issue to be clarified. I have the document with me which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, referred to. While nobody in the Committee would want any child to be brought up in poverty, the evidence clearly displays that the two key main drivers for poverty in the UK are, first, long-term worklessness and low earning and, secondly, low parental qualifications. Therefore the first key driver is current poverty and the second is a clear indicator of future poverty.