Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460
- 467)
TUESDAY 13 MARCH 2007
MR DOUGLAS
HAMILTON, MS
CLAIRE TELFER
AND MR
JASON STRELITZ
Q460 Mr Davidson:
Middle class parents.
Mr Hamilton: Parents are a key
issue, absolutely, and that is going to be one key thing. The
other key thing is that ability to be successful in something,
to try new things and to be successful. One example we are exploring
just now is around young enterprise schemes, for example, which
have been very successful in relatively middle class schools.
If you look at the list of schools that come up with these schemes,
could we not be doing more to try and encourage such children
in lower income households to access these things at an early
stage in their lives and show how they can come up with an idea,
how it can be developed and how they can make some money from
it and what they can then achieve in the future. The challenge
for us within that is actually reaching the kids to get them involved.
These are the sorts of things we can do to try and help raise
the level of aspiration.
Q461 Mr Davidson:
We have also been looking at the question of role models, so you
might say to a school in this area "Did you know that X,
Y and Z have come from here and managed this, that and the other";
we find that not unsuccessful. The third point I want to ask relates
to your paper where in 5.6 you are basically saying more money
for large families. It seemed to me that there was perhaps a perverse
incentive in that in that the assumption there is that if you
give them more benefits, the argument would be from a lot of my
constituents is that that is simply encouraging fecklessness,
and if you are giving more money to people who either cannot or
will not control their fertility then you are not only making
it more difficult for them to move into employment because the
hurdle to be jumped is higher, you are providing an alternative
lifestyle and all the rest of it and that that is something that
is likely to undermine support for the benefits system as a whole,
if that is how it is seen to operate. How do you respond to that?
Mr Strelitz: I would challenge
your constituents as to whether that is how most people operate
and that is how most people live. I do not think people generally
have more children so that they can have more benefits, the levels
of benefits that people in large families subsist on are very
low and it is an incredible struggle to make ends meet. We are
talking about large numbers of people who do have large families
really struggling and there is a great need to support their incomes
further. There is a lot of prejudice around groups living in poverty
and disadvantage; many large families experiencing poverty are
from ethnic minority backgrounds where they have a tradition of
large families and that is not about fecklessness, that is about
the kinds of cultures and traditions that they come from. We need
to support those kinds of families' incomes.
Q462 Mr Walker:
Just picking up on what Ian said, of course there is a role for
the state to play in supporting people but actually there is a
role for personal responsibility as well somewhere in this equation,
surely, because we cannot have a victim society, we actually have
to demonstrate to them that they can impact and change their circumstances.
That can be very difficult and I am not diminishing the fact that
if you are in some of these places where everything around you
is in decay it is very difficult to change your circumstances,
but we must provide people with hope that changing their circumstances
is and does remain within their power as well.
Mr Hamilton: I would totally agree,
the personal responsibility is within them. What we are trying
to advocate is that we should provide the circumstances and the
support structures where people can exercise that personal responsibility
for the benefit of their children. Looking at some of the parents
that we talked to as part of our research on the seasonal grants,
all of the people we spoke to were parents who could be described
as living in poverty and that level of personal responsibility
was very, very keenly demonstrated in the responses to our questions.
Q463 Mr Davidson:
I understand that, but there are those in my community who would
say to me that if people have two children and they are finding
financial difficulty in maintaining their children and keeping
themselves, is it responsible for them to go on and have another
three when all that does is exacerbate the financial problems
that they have? If they decide that they are going to have another
three, is that then the responsibility of the rest of us to meet
the costs of that? How do you respond to that?
Mr Strelitz: I just do not think
that that is the core issue that we are facing in terms of tackling
poverty. Large numbers of families living in poverty have small
numbers of children, 50% of children—
Q464 Mr Davidson:
I understand all that, I was addressing in particular your point
in 5.6 where you are saying extra money for bigger families.
Mr Hamilton: Hopefully around
that point the research that we are referring to is pointing at
particular groups that are more at risk of living in severe poverty.
Large families are one of the groups but we are also talking about
families that have a disabled parent being at particular risk.
We have talked about the transition between work and benefits
and families in situations—
Q465 Mr Davidson:
I understand these other issues, I do not quite understand the
logic of this one though, that is the issue that I am pursuing.
I can understand the issue that it does not apply to most families,
I understand the issue of a disabled parent and so on, I am just
seeking clarification as to how you would respond—I know
what would happen in my area if it was clear that additional benefits
were available at a higher level or the same level for more children.
If that is then what happened you would have a situation where
there would be a kickback, there would be a reaction to that and
it would undermine the credibility of the whole system.
Mr Hamilton: We are not talking
about additional benefit, it is more in terms of equalising child
benefit, which would have a disproportionate impact on larger
families effectively because there are more children there, but
it would equally have an impact on families living in poverty
who have two children or three children. There is a system just
now where the first child gets more than the next child and it
would cost relatively little; we costed it out as being £1.7
billion to equalise the rate of child benefit but it would have
a significant impact on, in particular, children living in poor
situations.
Mr Strelitz: We are talking about
£5.70 extra per child per week. It is not very much money
to incentivise someone to go out and have another baby.
Q466 Chairman:
Can I thank the witnesses for their attendance. Before I declare
the meeting closed would you like to say anything in conclusion;
is there anything we have not covered?
Mr Strelitz: There is one thing
I would like to add on the earlier question about the cycle. Douglas
gave an answer and I want to add that we have not spoken much
about education today. One of the keys to ending the cycle is
that we need an absolute revolution in our education system, starting
from the early years.
Q467 Mr Davidson:
Why have we failed up to now? What exactly do you mean?
Mr Strelitz: Compared to other
countries I do not think we invest enough resources in education,
too much we concentrate children from different backgrounds in
the same schools and create huge barriers for children in schools
which have concentrated amounts of disadvantage, where it is very
difficult for teachers to teach and to give the children there
a quality education. We have a legacy of children leaving school
at 16 which leaves us way down the league table in terms of the
amount of years and the age at which children leave school that
we need to address urgently. We need to bring children and parents
together in the early years to start to address their cognitive
and child development issues; there is evidence that at 22 months
the social class already predicts differences in children's ability,
and from that point the differences widen, so we need to start
early, invest heavily and really give children the opportunity
to thrive. Unless there is an enormous turnaround in that we are
not going to be able to address these issues.
Mr Hamilton: I just wanted to
finish off because it was the last line in our submission and
it is important that we tried today to reflect what children and
young people have told us and to represent their needs and their
interests. They had asked Save the Children to "Make everyone
aware that it is everyone's responsibility to ensure children
have their rights". I hope that we have been able to show
that we can have a joint responsibility, everybody has to take
responsibility on that. One quote to finish off is that a young
person told us that what we need to do is fund more things for
poor families to do, it is no good if there is something good
to go to and do if nobody has any money to do it.
Chairman: Thank you, I am sure your evidence
will be very helpful and useful when we compile our report. Thank
you once again.
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