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Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove): My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) very generously mentioned in her speech the contributions made by me and other hon. Members in Committee. She also eloquently raised issues about what is still wrong with new clause 5 and the Bill. I should like to do the same.
My hon. Friend made a good point about whether the Government proposals on carers for eight to 14-year-olds are appropriate. Sadly, it is a long time since I was eight or 14. Nevertheless, I believe that being shoved into an institution may not be the most appropriate form of child care. Many mothers who will be able to claim the working families tax credit will have an incentive to do just that, rather than to let their child stay at home, with gran or with anyone else, although that might have been the most appropriate form of care. My hon. Friend made an interesting point on the fact that an incentive-based system of help with child care will create different priorities for families.
Provision for eight to 14-year-olds will be different from that for other age groups precisely because--as Opposition Members pointed out to the Minister and other Labour Members in Committee--there will be an open-ended public expenditure commitment on the child care tax credit. In the sum required for the credit, there is a vast gap between the Government's figure of £200 million--I think that that is their figure, which was so low that I should be forgiven for adding or omitting a zero--and the £4 billion figure that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said, was provided by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as the credit's potential take-up. The Chancellor cannot be very pleased with that £4 billion figure.
Even if new clause 5 is added to the Bill, it is still possible that younger children may be eligible to havea child minder--rather than being pushed into institutionalised care, in the kids' clubs envisaged by the Government. It will be a problem if current informal family child care arrangements are affected.
Dawn Primarolo:
Has the hon. Lady ever been to a nursery or a kids' club, which she consistently calls "an institution"? Does she agree that mothers in her constituency, like those in my constituency, make their choices solely on the basis of what is best for their children?
Miss Kirkbride:
I have been to many of those organisations in my constituency, including pre-schools--which, under the current Government, are closing down in droves, as they can no longer afford to operate. I am very well aware of the arrangements--
Dawn Primarolo:
The hon. Lady calls them institutions.
Miss Kirkbride:
I used the word in its wider definition. The fact is that they are based not in the home, but somewhere else. If the hon. Lady wishes to dispute semantics, Mr. Deputy Speaker will only call us to order. Children would not be at home, but in another building, which--using a wide definition--could be called an institutionalised form of care. It may be more appropriate--[Interruption.] Forgive me, but there seems to be an awful lot of interruptions by Ministers.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I simply tell the hon. Lady that if she does not wish to be distracted by sedentary comments, she should ignore them.
Miss Kirkbride:
It might be even more appropriate if Ministers were to refrain from making sedentary comments. However, as I was saying before the hon. Lady interrupted me--
Dawn Primarolo:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Miss Kirkbride:
No, I shall not. The hon. Lady has already intervened.
Dawn Primarolo:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not make any comment across the Chamber to the hon. Lady except for the one that she--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The Minister knows perfectly well that that is not a point of order but a point of argument. I suggest that the debate settles down and gets back to the substance of the new clause.
Miss Kirkbride:
I was about to close my remarkson the open-ended financial commitment that the Government appear to be making. There is still a problem that the child-minding arrangements for younger children could undermine existing child care arrangements that do not involve the taxpayer. Situations could be created in which people will seek to become registered child minders, creating a commitment and a huge expense for the taxpayer. However much the new clause may be an attempt to reduce the potential financial commitment, we feel that it is not good enough.
Dawn Primarolo:
I have nothing to add to my earlier comments. I have laid out clearly the proposals for the undertakings in the accreditation. Perhaps this is an appropriate time to answer the question of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) about regulation for eight to 14-year-olds and eight to 16-year-olds. Powers are provided for in the Bill. There are no other powers. The Children Act 1989 provides regulation for those up to eight years old. This is the first time that the older age range will be regulated.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Webb:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The previous new clause was hailed as a victory for the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait). I believe that this one is about to be hailed as a victory for the hon. Member for Northavon. When I opened The Guardian on Monday morning, I saw the headline "Housing benefit to become a tax credit". That is the subject of the new clause, which says that an amount for housing costs should be
included in the applicable amounts for the working families tax credit and the disabled persons tax credit. I am confident that the Minister will tell us that the Government accept the new clause and that we can move on.
In case the Minister does not accept the new clause, I should like to explain the purpose of the new clause further. I thank her for giving me access to her officials, with whom I have been able to talk through the ideas. I shall not attribute any views to those officials, but the fact that I saw the story in the newspaper some days later makes me think that my ideas were well received.
The new clause addresses two problems with the existing regime. First, there is an inequity between renters and home buyers, because whereas low-income renters can receive help with the cost of their rent, low-income home buyers receive no such help. The second problem is the overlap between the working families tax credit and housing benefit. We still have the absurd situation in which some people--admittedly fewer--can lose up to 90p in the pound through the combined withdrawal of working families tax credit and housing benefit. The Government could have minimised that absurd overlap through a new clause such as this.
We propose that an amount in the working families tax credit should relate to household size and composition, meeting some proportion of an individual's rent--or imputed rent, in the case of home buyers. It would not relate to their specific rent. There would not be all the bureaucracy of finding out precisely how much rent the person concerned was paying, or how much their mortgage was and how much it changed when interest rates changed. The aim would be to make a contribution towards the typical housing consumption of a household of a given size and composition.
That strategy has two advantages. First, it would provide a work incentive. The Government talk endlessly about welfare to work. The new clause would give unemployed home buyers an improved incentive to take a low-paid job. In my constituency, where unemployment is at only about 1.5 per cent., the only people who tell me that they cannot afford to take a job are those with mortgages, because they would lose all help with their mortgage interest. My proposal would not cover the whole mortgage. We are not trying to help people to acquire valuable assets; all that we are trying to do is meet the cost of housing services at a minimal level. The new clause would give an improved work incentive to one of the groups still in the unemployment trap. For that reason, I hope that the Government will look sympathetically at it.
Secondly, the new clause would minimise the absurd overlap with housing benefit. It is extraordinary that someone could be given the working families tax credit with one hand, but find that the council reduced their housing benefit with the other. Rent levels are already extraordinarily high. If the working families tax credit could be used to make a contribution towards rent, the housing benefit system would not have to cover that portion of the rent. That would float tens of thousands of people off housing benefit, saving on bureaucracy and making the system simpler for the claimant and for the authorities.
We probably differ from the Government in not seeing the inclusion of housing in the working families tax credit as a means of cutting overall housing benefit support.
We do not want to leave people without enough money to pay their rent. We do not want to leave them having to engage in mythical shopping around for smaller rented accommodation, because for social tenants in particular there is often no opportunity to shop around. The Government might be thinking of using the proposals as a way of leaving people short on their rent assistance. That is what I infer from the newspaper reports. If that is not the case, I hope that the Minister will contradict it. We are talking about giving a slice of money, varying only according to household size and composition, to reflect the consumption of housing services and help to float some people off housing benefit.
In its briefing on the Bill, the Chartered Institute of Housing urges the Government to make clear their intentions on housing benefit. I am concerned about the rush in which the Government brought forward the Bill--a rush which we have seen from this afternoon's child care proposals and the fact that there was no mention of housing in the Bill. I am offering the Government a chance to redeem themselves and bring housing into the Bill, as the Prime Minister apparently wants. If we put the measure in this afternoon, when the Government get round to working out exactly what they want, we shall have done them a favour by giving them the provision in primary legislation, so they will be able to get on with the matter without the need for extra primary legislation. This is a long-overdue reform.
5.30 pm
'.--In section 135 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, there shall be inserted--
"(1A) The applicable amount prescribed for a working families' tax credit and a disabled person's tax credit shall include an amount for prescribed housing costs".'.--[Mr. Webb.]
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