Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Seventh sitting)

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. Welcome to our continued line-by-line scrutiny of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. We have some new Committee members at our proceedings—a warm welcome to you.

Before we begin proceedings, I wish to clarify the procedure on combining questions before the Committee. The usual practice is that, with the leave of the Committee, successive questions on which the Committee agrees—for example, a series of non-contentious amendments—can be combined and taken as one question. However, that does not apply if Members want to divide on the amendments. If the Committee wants to vote on a particular amendment or series of amendments, the questions will have to be put separately and individual Divisions held for each question.

I understand that in my absence at the last sitting you were all very naughty. That is trying to put things right. I hope it is clear and helpful to Committee members in today’s proceedings.

Clause 11

Changes to child tax credit

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 11, page 12, line 39, leave out “2017” and insert “2022”.

This amendment would see current arrangements for child tax credit remaining in place for children born before 6 April 2022.

I hope Committee members have all had an enjoyable recess and a successful conference. Unfortunately, the Scottish National party has to juggle a week of Bill Committees and conference, so the week will no doubt be a busy one for us.

From the outset I want to make it clear that the SNP wholeheartedly condemns the intentions behind the clause, which will exclude many of the poorest children in society from the support of our social security system, against the very principles on which that system was set up. The two-child policy, which has been much discussed, will affect more than 872,000 families who receive support for third and subsequent children. I cannot understand how anyone in Committee could say that that was fair, just or necessary.

The stark reality is that the Government’s national child poverty strategy recognises that the risk of poverty is much more significant in larger families than in smaller ones. A third of the children living in poverty live in families with three or more children. Perhaps it is for that reason that the Government are seeking to airbrush child poverty from the statute books. It is easy for the Government to come in with a clean page, to spout theories without evidence and to claim that reducing financial support to only two children will make poorer families rethink their financial choices, but that is based on the falsehood that all children are planned and that it is possible to plan financially for children. As I am sure we all know, that is not possible.

What if someone’s second pregnancy turns out to be twins, or even triplets? We still have no real clarity on how multiple births will be treated. Will the Minister concede that such eventualities simply cannot be planned for? Perhaps he needs a biology lesson. Are we telling families to stop having children just in case? The scenarios are not that simple.

I have raised many times in Committee and on the Floor of the House, as have my SNP colleagues, the very sensitive issue of children resulting from rape and the even more insensitive plan of the Minister and the Government to make women justify their children in front of a caseworker from the Department for Work and Pensions. Many organisations have stated clearly that their staff have to train for a considerable amount of time to support women who have been raped, so I cannot understand how the Government’s proposed system and policy will work.

I therefore ask, clearly and specifically, for the Minister to keep in place the existing arrangements for children born before 2022 and to tell the Committee, before we vote on the amendment, exactly what his Department’s plans are for that. We all have to deal with constituency cases, but I am interested to know how any Government Members would deal with a woman coming to them who cannot seek benefit because she has been raped and therefore has to justify herself to the DWP. Even in evidence to the Committee, stakeholders described the policy as “unpalatable”. Does it simply show, at the height of Tory insensitivity, how out of touch the party is with reality? My view and that of my colleagues is that the Government have simply not thought things through.

When the Minister responds, will he tell me just how a woman would prove that her child was a result of rape? We all know the difficulties involved in securing a criminal conviction in that respect, as well as the high burden of proof, never mind the devastating emotional impact on the victim. What exactly will be the Government’s standard? Why did the Minister, and the Conservatives generally, think it appropriate to include the issue? The policy will ultimately result in a complete abuse of rape victims’ privacy, leading to serious emotional damage of the child should he or she become aware through the social security system that they are the result of rape. Imagine someone finding that out purely because their parents seek benefits.

Let me be clear: discussing this matter is not something I do lightly, but the SNP feels, as I hope others on the Opposition side of the Committee feel, that we must speak up. Amendment 44 would kick the policy into the long grass. Even campaigners Women Against Rape have called the policy “disgusting”, saying it will have “appalling consequences”. The SNP stands firm with that position and urges the Government to remove the two-child policy from child tax credit and universal credit provisions to ensure that no victim or child should go through the torment associated with justifying a third child, given the horrific crime inflicted on them.

Given the current economic climate, families simply cannot plan for a third child, or subsequent children. What if their first or second child was the result of rape, and they went on to have further children, but their economic circumstances changed? The Government’s failure to secure a strong, thriving economy with stable employment opportunities means that, although the members of a family may have stable and reliable jobs, there is, as we have seen, no guarantee that someone who decides to have a child will be employed for the next 18 years. To deny assistance to families who fall on hard times completely flies in the face of what the welfare system was built for.

Working people will ask why they pay their taxes when they can no longer receive support in our social security system. Will they be made to feel that their third child was a bad choice because the company they worked for made them redundant? Does the Minister have an answer for the parents of twins or other children? Could he, or any Government member of the Committee, look into a constituent’s eyes and say with a clear conscience that that constituent’s bad financial planning means they deserve no support from the Government?

The provisions in the Bill are nothing more than a move to socially engineer society into a form the Tory Government have dreamt up—one where the right to have a third child is a luxury reserved for the rich. That is not a society that I, any of my colleagues or, I believe, anybody in this country wants to live in. That is why the SNP are standing up for the poor, for hard-working folk and for children. We want to protect them when they fall on challenging times.

Child Poverty Action Group research shows that many families in receipt of tax credits are already struggling to meet their children’s most basic needs. Current levels of entitlement cover only between 73% and 85% of the cost of raising a child. Removing tax credit entitlements will only widen that gap further. Ultimately, the provision in the Bill could sink more families below the breadline, leaving children at risk of ill health and lower educational attainment.

From the heart, and using my head, I can only urge all Members to unite with the SNP today and to think of the constituents who will come to them—those with three or more children and those struggling to get more hours at work to make ends meet. Members should think of what rejecting the policy will do for those people: they will be able to look their constituents in the eye and say they did everything they could to stop the policy. If we, as parliamentarians, are here to legislate for those we represent, let us legislate properly and with our consciences. The provisions in the Bill do not make good law, so I ask Members to please think again and vote with us.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to return to the Committee, Mr Streeter.

The two-child policy—there is a list of political regimes that begins with the Vietnamese communists and the Iranian theocrats—is not going to end well. We are debating a proposal that would see the current Administration join that inauspicious rank of people who at one time or other have imposed state-sanctioned limits on the number of children a family can have. Even the ayatollahs backed away from it in recent years.

Of course, there is a caveat in the Bill that adds a layer of unpleasantness to the proceedings. The Government will impose a limit on family size that applies only to poor families. At least the other countries tried to stop all families from having more children. This Government seem to focus only on the poor. They seem to be trying to limit the number of children that the poor have.

We are not all poor always. Some of us might begin life by being quite well off and comfortable and able to make decisions. We would know we could be completely confident that we could be independent, but then things happen. That is what the social security system has always been about. I speak from personal experience. My parents were allegedly, supposedly happily married. They had three children and then one day, when I was seven and my younger brother was five and my other brother was three, my father left—he left the country and abandoned us. I remember the bailiffs came round. They were wearing bowler hats—this was the ’60s—and they threw us out of our house. We had nowhere to go and we had no money and the welfare state picked us up and gave us accommodation. They gave us a house. Nobody said, “How many children have you got? You’ve been very reckless, Mrs Thornberry, I’m sorry we can’t give you any money for the third child. Young Ben Thornberry is going to have to starve.” There was none of that thinking. It was tough, but we were looked after. Nobody looked down on my mother for having made a decision with my father to have three children. That was a long time ago, but I feel that that is the sort of Britain we ought to want to be involved in.

We ought to be able to have a Britain where we have a safety net that looks after people when they find themselves in difficult circumstances. We do not want to have a Government that tells people, “Now listen here, you look a bit rough round the edges. We don’t want you to have any more than two children. Lord knows what they will be like and you won’t even be able to look after them. Sorry, but no, that’s it.” Where will it end?

Frankly, this is an extraordinary piece of legislation. It is shockingly bad and it flies in the face of a British value of which I have always been very proud—that we look after the weakest and poorest and have a safety net. If things happen, people will not starve. We should not say, “I’m sorry, we are now in a world where people must make choices.” The third or fourth child does not make a choice to live. The third, fourth or fifth child is not to be blamed for their existence. The sixth child is not to have no shoes because of a reckless mother who cannot keep her legs crossed. It is not the sixth child’s fault that he is the sixth child. Why should he starve? How will it make a difference? What is the evidence that the Government want to put before us that will tell us that a change to the benefits system in that way will stop people having more children?

It is interesting that there is not going to be an equality impact assessment. The Government have learned their lesson. The last welfare Bill had 20 equality impact assessments, which the Opposition revelled in, as did all the people opposing that previous piece of pernicious legislation, because the assessments showed what the effect of welfare legislation would be. I may be quoting roughly—I will be corrected if I am wrong—but one of the equality impact statements produced for the previous Bill, which the Government have unfortunately not produced for this one, said that black and Asian families were three times as likely to have more than two children. It is interesting that the Government decided not to have an equality impact assessment on clause 11. Perhaps nobody will notice that the legislation affects black and Asian families that much more.

We all know whom the Bill will affect: women—black, Asian, white or whatever. Women will be adversely affected by the Bill and will struggle to work out how they are going to afford a pair of shoes that winter for the fourth child. Mr Streeter, you may be surprised to hear this, but yes, we are against this particularly nasty piece of legislation. I do not know at this point if you wish me to speak to new clauses 5 and 6.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Thank you, Mr Streeter.

Let me be clear, lest there be any doubt, that this is not about limiting the number of children that people have. It is about financial support in the form of child tax credit. Child benefit, for example, will continue to go up in line with the number of children. The hon. Gentleman says, and he is right, that individual families are not responsible for the financial mess that our country found itself in as a result of the unholy combination of the financial crisis and the previous Labour Government. That is correct, but we do have a shared future, and it is the responsibility of a Government, on behalf of all their citizens, particularly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, to make sure that we have sound finances, that we can continue to afford to pay for our public services, that we can continue to afford to invest in our national health service and that we can give people the support that they need.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I think I will have to move on a little.

Last year the Government spent almost £30 billion on tax credits—more than three and a half times what we spent on military personnel. That level of spending on tax credits is unfair on those who foot the bill, who are, of course, other taxpayers. That is why the Government took steps in the summer Budget to put tax credit spending on a more—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley want to intervene?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I do not recall referring to the hon. Lady’s specific case or the case of anybody else on the Opposition Benches. Nor did I say that anybody should feel bad for supporting others, but there is a case for balance. It is just a statement of fact that, in any tax and benefits system, benefits paid to one group or person have to be paid for by others, and we have to make sure that that system is fair.

As the hon. Lady will recall, we had a great reforming Budget with a set of measures to move us from a low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare society to a lower-tax, higher-wage, less welfare-reliant society, including measures such as the national living wage, with which we seek permanently to reform the structure of the economy and the way the system works.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I will give way one last time to the hon. Lady, and then I must progress.

[Hannah Bardell]

On the point that the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury made about families in work who are on tax credits, the Institute for Fiscal Studies—which the Government have quoted on a number of occasions—has said that the increase in the minimum wage, which is not a true living wage, will not compensate for the cuts that are coming to tax credits, which will hit the poorest hardest and is a regressive policy. What does the Minister say to the IFS?

[Damian Hinds]

I say that these are major structural changes. I think you would admonish me, Mr Streeter, if I went too far down this road, because we had this debate on the Floor of the House and there will be other opportunities to discuss the matter.

We are talking about helping people through the national living wage and increases in the income tax personal allowance, but also through measures such as childcare support and, most important of all, the general strength of the economy. We see real wages rising very strongly at the moment, and we have very low inflation and very strong economic growth. Those are the things that most help families with their budgets and living standards.

In the summer Budget, the Government took steps to put tax credit spending on a more sustainable path, including by limiting the individual element of child tax credit to two children and by removing the family element of child tax credit for those who are not responsible for a child or qualifying young person before 6 April 2017. The average family size in this country has decreased over recent decades. The average number of dependent children in families in the UK in 2012 was 1.7.

[Damian Hinds]

I will not, if the hon. Lady will forgive me.

The Government believe that it is fair and proportionate to limit support through tax credits and universal credit to two children per family. The measures in clause 11 will ensure that there is greater fairness between those receiving benefits and those paying for them, and will ensure that, in the future, families in receipt of benefits face the same sorts of financial decisions when they consider having children as those supporting themselves solely through work. The Government decided to implement the measures from April 2017 to give families time to make decisions about having more children. That provides sufficient time for those considering whether to have more children to make plans, while at the same time putting tax credits on a more sustainable footing.

The hon. Member for Livingston quite rightly raised some of the difficult issues. We have already been clear about multiple births, and there will be more detail forthcoming on that. We will also have a chance discuss that in debates on further amendments. The Government have been absolutely clear that if parents have twins or triplets and previously there were fewer than two children in the household, that will be treated as a single birth. In the most difficult circumstance—a child conceived as a result of rape—it is right that the Government take a careful and sensitive approach to working out how best to deal with those circumstances and support women through that situation in relation to the tax credit system. There will be more detail in due course.

[Hannah Bardell]

Should the Government not have thought that through before they put the policy in place?

[Damian Hinds]

It is not at all uncommon for a Government to say that particular aspects of the implementation of a policy are delicate and sensitive and require careful thought with external stakeholders who are experts in the field. That is what will happen in this case. I do not feel the need to defend that. It is the right thing to do because there are people who have expertise, and it is absolutely right that they should have the opportunity to be consulted.

[Damian Hinds]

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

The Government will continue to support larger families through child benefit, which is paid for all qualifying children in a household. There are 15 hours of childcare available to the 40% least advantaged families. Families will continue to receive 15 hours a week of free childcare for all three and four-year-olds, and the Government have announced that from September 2017 that will be extended to 30 hours for parents who are in work. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Livingston to withdraw the amendment.

[Hannah Bardell]

I will be brief, because I and my colleagues covered the points in our initial remarks. From what the Minister has said, it is clear that there was no consultation and consideration on the most serious parts of the Bill, including the issue of the third child and the matter of rape. We have no details, and many organisations have said that those provisions were a great surprise to them.

I cannot believe that a Government would be so insensitive as to put a clause such as this one in a Bill. On the day of the Budget, when the policy was announced and we saw it in black and white, it seemed like an afterthought. To treat people as an afterthought—particularly women who are vulnerable and who have been raped—is nothing short of a disgrace.

The IFS has been very clear that the Budget and these policies will hit the poorest in society hardest. In Scotland, the Daily Record recently reported that the

“poorest households could be more than £500 a year worse off in 2020 as a result of changes made in Chancellor George Osborne’s budget...800,000 households north of the border will have less cash as a result”,

and that the

“IPPR Scotland think-tank found there would be more winners than losers, with some 1.3 million households expected to be better off. But while the richest 20 per cent of households will gain £110 a year by...2020/21, the impact of tax and benefit changes on the poorest 20 per cent of households will see them lose an average of £520 a year.”

Getting our finances into a surplus cannot come at the cost of people’s lives, including children’s lives, and at the cost of making the poorest even poorer.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

Yes, indeed. From speaking to people who have spent many years devoted to this sector and who have tried to make our safety net as good as it possibly can be in difficult times, the attacks are coming from so many different angles, at so many different levels and so fast, that for many of us it is very difficult to know where to start. The changes are fundamental and very frightening. We know that what will happen in two or three years’ time will become manifest, and it will become increasingly obvious that the poor have got much poorer and that people have got much more desperate. That will affect children, and those born now will be disproportionately affected.

I hope that at that point, the Government will finally realise that, because I do not think that many of those on the Government Benches are heartless, but they have not thought this through. The difficulty is that their policy is based entirely on rhetoric. That is clear from some of the lines in their manifesto that are now appearing in proposed legislation. Look at the Childcare Bill, which says very little more than what was in the manifesto. The difficulty is that if you do not make policy on the basis of evidence but on the basis of rhetoric—what sounds right and what you think will work well with your focus groups—that will not work when it comes to ruling the country.

This is yet another ill-thought-out cut and change to the most vulnerable and most hard-working families, to the families in the most difficulty. Imagine spending time bringing up a child with disabilities and the continued worry of that. Those families have enough worry in terms of their child’s welfare without worrying about why the Government are taking away yet more funding and making life that much more difficult.

[Hannah Bardell]

It is a pleasure to speak again, Mr Streeter. I will keep my remarks brief and start by saying that we are more than happy to support Labour’s amendments. We offer that hand of friendship across the Benches as a form of compromise.

The amendments support the same policy intentions—although not quite as strongly—as our amendments that we have already discussed, so I will not go on too much. We support the intentions of protecting those who are fostering or adopting, households with disabled children and also, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley mentioned, kinship carers. That is something which the SNP in the Scottish Government have done a lot on in recent years. These are some of the most vulnerable children in society. We must do everything we can to protect them. Please, Minister, you must concede that we need to protect at least some of these children from the cuts. Will you back the advice of the Social Security Advisory Commission which said that there has to be a review? Will you take that into consideration in your closing remarks?

[The Chair]

Just before I call Debbie Abrahams, a number of colleagues have been using the word “you”, which of course refers to the Chair, when they really mean the hon. Gentleman or the Government. I say that to all my colleagues, both experienced and inexperienced. It is an easy mistake to make.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady’s points are very interesting. Does she agree that we also have to take cognisance of religious groups across the divide? In many cases, such as those of Catholics, who consciously do not use contraception—[Interruption]—these policies could well be an infringement of their human rights.

[Emily Thornberry]

The Minister says from a sedentary position that, in the 21st century, we should not pay attention to the Catholic view of contraception and decisions made within Catholic families. I am surprised. I say no more.

As I was saying, the Government have not provided details about what might be considered exceptional circumstances, so new clause 16 has suggested a few examples, such as multiple births, adoptions or kinship care arrangements. I recommend to the Minister an article in The Guardian today, written by Patrick Butler, about kinship adoption and related difficulties. One difficulty, among the many difficulties that people who put themselves forward to adopt children face, will be a potential cut in tax credits. If someone adopts a child who has a little brother, and the little brother then needs to go up for adoption, will that person say, “No, I can’t do it, because I can’t get the tax credits”? Are they really going to say that? Is that right? No, it is not, so will the Minister please do something about that, and will Government Members pay attention to our arguments and vote with us on new clause 16? It is entirely sensible and fleshes out the exceptional circumstances, which we think are glaring.

Those exceptional circumstances are: multiple births, adoptions, kinship care arrangements, relationship breakdowns, including, but not limited to, cases of domestic violence, and the death of a partner. The Minister says, “We are doing this in order to make sure that people make the correct choices.” I have spoken from my own personal circumstances. Frankly, my example is out of date, but unfortunately, in the last 40 or 50 years, these things have continued. People die unexpectedly and people leave unexpectedly. It is not as though someone can make a “bad choice”—in the Minister’s words—to have a third child and then take it back because their partner has died. That seems exceptionally harsh to us.

The new clause also proposes an exemption for those who become unemployed. The point here is to emphasise that, even if we accept the Government’s suggestion that families should make their family planning decisions based on the Government’s welfare reform legislation—that is a tall order in itself, although I suppose having to sit up and read the Government’s legislation on welfare reform might be some form of contraception—and even if the Government are right that people will realise welfare reform means it will be a bad idea for them to have a third child, people in work will not see that as relevant. They will make decisions because they can afford to have their children, but something may then happen, such as their becoming unemployed, and they will be hit that much harder. Therefore, even if the Government are right, which they are not, that people will make decisions on how big their family should be based on welfare reform, those people who are in work at the moment, making decisions frivolously to have four children, will find themselves in great difficulties if they suddenly become unemployed. That is unfair, as I am sure the Minister will recognise. We need to acknowledge the realities of life, particularly in the 21st century job market. People work in an insecure market. People can lose their jobs. Hopefully, they will get back into work, but it is unrealistic to expect parents to make decisions about their jobs and income with 100% certainty over an 18-year period. It is just not right. There are also abusive relationships. Women should not be expected to make decisions based on the possibility that they might become victims of domestic violence.

The new clause raises the serious issue of a couple’s penalty. Couples with more than two children will be given an incentive to separate just to continue receiving the support that they need to feed their children. That will happen. It is especially ironic that measures of child poverty are being replaced by measures of family breakdown, among other things. The Government are to measure child poverty on the basis of family breakdown, yet their social policy seems to pressure families into a form of breakdown so that they can continue to receive the benefits and tax credits that they need. The Tory party used to be the party of family and marriage. Why is its social policy dividing people? The irony is especially acute given the Secretary of State’s claim at the Conservative party conference that this Government’s reforms are

“all about making families stronger”.

Clearly, they are not.