Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-82)
RT HON
ED BALLS
MP, RT HON
YVETTE COOPER
MP, RT HON
BEVERLEY HUGHES
MP, RT HON
JAMES PURNELL
MP AND RT
HON STEPHEN
TIMMS MP
9 JUNE 2008
Q80 Fiona Mactaggart: In the Opportunity
for All report, which I referred to earlier and you helpfully
said that you would consider whether it would be possible to give
that sort of comprehensive information for 2007, there are figures
for the most deprived children, for children in other areas and
for development attainment, including social and emotional aspects
of learning. It seems from those figures, although they are provisional
for 2006, that the gap is not narrowing and may be widening. It
is difficult to work out.
Ed Balls: It is certainly the
case that there are some real issues in terms of children and
young people with mental health issues that need to be addressed,
and we are reviewing that at the moment in the child and adolescent
mental health services review. We have just moved, since last
September, to encourage all secondary schools, with funding for
the provision of social and emotional aspects of learning and
teaching. It is similar to the issue of extended schooling. I
do not think we know at the moment how many primary and secondary
schools are providing such teaching, but we are embarking on measuring,
area by area and school by school, not just standards, but children's
well-being, and that will become part of the Ofsted assessment
and accountability regime, so that we will be able to see, first,
the schools that are playing their part in addressing those wider
well-being issues, and secondly the areas in which other children's
services are not doing enough to support schools or where we do
not have the sort of school parental links that we would like.
The shift into measuring and holding the system to account for
progress in child well-being is exciting. We are at an early stage,
but that is one of the consequences of the children's plan that
we are taking forward.
Q81 Chairman: This has been a
very good session, but I have one final question. We have been
to Merton. We were investigating looked-after children and our
most vulnerable children, and we went to a local authority whose
prime aim is to keep children out of care. It is one of the most
successful in the country, and has an amazingly interesting intervention
system. As soon as a family seems to be breaking up and becoming
dysfunctional, they move in in a very powerful way. It is a very
interesting model. As soon as a child goes into care, on all the
criteria of life chance, they dramatically drop. All the evidence
that I was reading for this particular session suggests that as
soon as you envisage a one-parent family for a child, you have
to consider the likelihood of them being under-achieving and in
poverty. I know that this is a challenging area, but do we do
enough to support families to keep together?
Ed Balls: That is a very interesting
question and, to be honest, we will probably answer that in our
different ways. Beverley is leading a piece of work on the ways
in which our new Department is considering supporting families.
We know that the family, and parental support, have by far the
biggest impact on a child's life chances and that the quality
of relationship within families matters a great deal to children's
outcomes. That is the relationship between the mother and father,
single parent and partner, and grandparents as well. The adult
relationship impacts on children. We have thought a lot about
the way in which we use the work-life balance. For example, we
have considered the right to parental time off for mothers and
fathers, flexible working and the right to ask about such working.
We have thought a lot about giving flexibility and support to
parents. Getting those things right, and the impact that that
can have on the relationship between the parents, can have an
important knock-on impact on outcomes for children. We are considering
what more we can do to support parents and their relationships
because of the benefits that can then accrue to children and their
well-being.
Q82 Chairman: Is it almost politically
incorrect to consider that issue?
Ed Balls: The opposite. We are
considering it at the moment for precisely that reason.
James Purnell: That is right.
Clearly, we have to focus on how we can keep families together.
As Ed has just outlined, there is a huge amount of work under
way on that issue. You will also always want a safety net to help
all families whatever their circumstances. The point that you
make is the very reason why we have had a focus on helping lone
parents as well as other types of families. That is why we are
proud of the fact that there has been a 12.5% increase in the
proportion of lone parents in work. You have to have early intervention
and support—what the state can do—to help families
stay together, and then a safety net that helps everybody, in
particular those in the greatest needs. That underlines my final
point on the inter-relation between welfare reform and child poverty.
You could take an approach in which you say that the way to get
parents into work is to say that they are poor if they are on
benefits—picking up on Paul's point, the way in which to
deal with better-off-in-work issues is to say, "Children
will be poor if their parents are not working." Indeed, that
is what some countries do. We reject that. We say explicitly that
we want to take all families out of poverty, and eradicate child
poverty in that way. Once we have such a generous welfare system,
the opposite mistake is to say that there is no conditionality
in the system. We would have people who end up not being in work,
when being in work would be the best thing for them. There is
a direct relationship between a relatively generous welfare state
and one that has significant conditionality. That is how to make
sure that people get into work and have the advantages of work,
which is why the lone parent changes will lift 70,000 children
out of poverty. It is worth saying that, when people get into
work, they progress and make further strides in respect of their
income. As for the employment retention and advancement pilot
to which I referred, when we consider the incomes of lone parents
who have gone into work a year later or perhaps a bit more, their
incomes make them something like a quarter or fifth better off.
Being in work is good for people's incomes. It is good for child
poverty. It is good for all the points that Stephen made about
self-esteem, too. If we want to tackle child poverty, we have
to put welfare reform alongside it to make a relatively generous
welfare state possible.
Chairman: We have had a good innings.
Thank you very much for your attention. I do not know what a clutch
of Ministers is called, but it has been good on our side. Thank
you for your patience. It has been a long sitting.
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