Andrew
Selous: I agree with my hon. Friend. If memory serves me
correctly, that point was made by Kevan Collins in our evidence
session, when he called for more flexibility within the benefits system
and for the system to be prepared to take risks sometimes over
individuals, with benefit holidays and the ability to get back on
benefits.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Helen
Goodman): I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has costed
the options that he is talking
about.
Andrew
Selous: I am not sure that we have talked about general
options; we are talking about a general philosophical approach of
providing more flexibility within the welfare system. I do not
necessarily agree with the Minister that a flexible system is
necessarily more expensive than a rigid system. There are costs
inherent in a rigid system, if it keeps people out of the labour
market, because the Ministers Department has to go on paying
benefits. It is a complicated area. I recognise what she is saying and
she is right to make that point, but this is not by any means the end
of the debate. It will be the subject of further study by her party and
mine for many years to come. I shall move on because there are many
amendments to speak
to. Amendment
58 deals with the well-being of children, which we have touched on
throughout the Bill. This is specifically a child poverty Bill; it
looks at the income levels available to families in which children
live. It is not a Bill about childrens well-being specifically,
but we would all agree that poverty and well-being are intimately
linked. If nothing else, fostering childrens well-being is
likely to be beneficial to the outcomes of those children when they in
turn become parents. The National Childrens Bureau, among
others, has said that adding a reference to well-being would ensure
that the Government consider the breadth of services that can impact on
the quality of a childs
life. Amendment
2 covers three different areas, all of which I will speak to. The
reference to families with disabilities covers a distinct group in
which there is a particular concentration of child poverty, as every
study on child poverty shows again and again. The Equality and Human
Rights Commission, among others, has called for and will welcome
amending the Bill to refer to disability. We referred to it in our
earlier discussions on the disability living allowance. I commend the
amendment to Ministers for their consideration. The Secretary of State
will have to consider the issue specifically when she formulates her
strategy.
I make the
same point about ethnic minorities. I am conscious that we need to be
careful of the language we use, but, for example, there are
phenomenally high rates of child poverty in the Bangladeshi community
in London, perhaps for long-standing cultural reasons or due to
language or attitudes towards all family members going out to work. We
must recognise that a general UK-wide strategy may leave certain
communities untouched. Again, the Equality and Human Rights Commission
has welcomed that
focus. I
want to talk about proposed new subsection (5)(e) in amendment 2, which
refers to reducing family breakdown. I hope we can
debate this in as consensual a way as possible, and I long for the day
when this area of family policy is more or less agreed across the
House. I am always troubled that it is an area of contention, as it is
one on which I seek consensus. I was genuinely pleased when I picked up
Ending child poverty: making it happen, which was
brought out earlier this year by the Department for Work and Pensions
from the child poverty unit, which has done tremendous work on bringing
the Bill forward. All three references to strengthening families
pleased
me. Page
12 of the document
says: Family
breakdown and crisis can make searching for work very difficult and
also increase the risk of dropping out of the labour
market. That
is absolutely right; I was pleased to see that. Page 15,
which addresses supporting parents, talks about strengthening the
capabilities of parents. That is just the right the language and
something I would back completely. Page 16 sets out the famous building
blocks to try to eradicate child poverty, with the diagram that has
been produced at all sorts of conferences. I was again pleased to see
family rightly mentioned as one of those eight building blocks. I have
referred before to the impact assessment, paragraph 2.6 of which
says: Family
breakdown may have caused the family to fall into
poverty. Those
statement are all from Government documents, so I was surprised when I
looked at clause 8(5), and noticed that all the building blocks were
there and named expect one: family. Curiously, family seems to have
slipped through the net, and I do not know why. I was disappointed
because I had thought that what the Government had been saying and
their direction of travel had been encouraging.
I was also
slightly discouraged during the evidence sessions when the
Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said:
The
Government are not wholly convinced that family breakdown is a cause of
poverty. That
worried me, so I came back
with: Is
it not the case that if your parents separate you are twice as likely
to grow up in poverty as a
child? The
Minister
replied: The
data that we have show that there is a small downward blip at the point
of a family breakdown.[Official
Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c.
15-16,
Q44-45.] I
said that we needed to look further into the
data.
Mr.
Stuart: I found that the most peculiar piece of evidence
that we heard in all the Committee sittings was a Government Minister
saying that family breakdown was not a major contributor to poverty. It
might make
one think that the couples penalty within
the benefits system is almost deliberate, if the Government put such
little regard on supporting and keeping families together, and do not
regard them breaking apart as something
major.
Andrew
Selous: I hear what my hon. Friend says, although I take a
slightly more charitable view. I do not think that it is deliberate; it
is probably an oversight or an unintentional policy error. I completely
and utterly accept that poverty drives families apart. There is a
saying that when money goes out of the window, love goes out of the
dooror vice versa. I wholly accept that, but I think that the
relationship works the other way as
well. Let
us look at some detailed figures. The hon. Member for Northavon is a
great believer in dipping carefully into the households below average
incomes seriesno doubt he has the pack with him. I also have a
copy from the
Library. I
got the House of Commons Library to carry out some analysis of the
figures. It sent me a note in Julythat is the one to which I
referred in Committee. The note splits children in low-income
householdsthose below the 60 per cent. median
incomeinto those whose parents are married, in a civil
partnership, cohabiting, single, widowed, and separated or divorced.
The figure for all children in poverty across the UK is 23 per cent.
The likelihood of a child being in poverty if their parents are
married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting is 18 per
cent.1.8 million out of 9.8 million children. In households
headed by a parent who is single, widowed, separated or divorced, or
whose civil partnership has been dissolved, the figure is 1.1 million
out of 3 million children, or 36.6 per centslightly more than
double the figure for other households. When I said that the figure was
double, I was being cautious and had understated the figures.
Those are the
Governments own figures for households below average
incomethey are just the facts of the case. We can forget any
political baggage on the left or the right of the issuethese
are just the facts. It is staggering that we cannot get some political
consensus on the issue on doing something to strengthen and support
families and give them the best chance of keeping their children out of
poverty. Steve
Webb (Northavon) (LD): With respect to the hon. Gentleman,
I do not think that there is such a thing as just a
facthis facts were laden with inference, and that is
where there is some difference between us. The point was made in the
evidence session that many countries have comparable rates of lone
parenthood to the UK, but that that does not manifest itself in child
poverty. From the point of view of the Bill, is not the most important
question why being a lone parent in Britain associates very strongly
with poverty, when it does not have to in many other comparable
countries?
Andrew
Selous: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I would
want to look further into the particular details that he mentions.
However, as I look at the statistics across Europe, I see that this
country is off the curve. We are right at the top of the table for
countries in which there is a significant degree of separation, and we
also have a very high level of child poverty. I believe that there is a
correlation between the two. Of course, if
we give more and more financial support to single parents, there will be
less child poverty in certain areas. None the less, 1.8 million
children in two-parent families are in poverty, while 1.1 million
children in single-parent familiesthose where the parent is
widowed, separated or divorced, or where the civil partnership has been
dissolvedare in poverty.
The hon.
Gentleman is clearly correct in the sense that if we give lots of state
benefit to single parents, we can do something about the issue, and I
do not think that anyone would dispute that. However, I am making the
more general point that as part of their strategynot the whole
and perhaps not even the most significant partthe Government
must be conscious of the need to do something to strengthen and support
family life, the fragility of which leads far too many of our children
into poverty.
Ms
Buck: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that
any difference between the parties relates to a question of means,
rather than a question of principle. However, given that the
Conservative party is keen to introduce a premium in the tax system to
support marriage, what calculations have been done on the amount that
would act as an incentive to couples to marry and stay
together?
Andrew
Selous: I have not actually mentioned marriage so far,
although I am happy that the hon. Lady has done so. I do not know what
my party will do on that issue, and we have not announced that yet.
However, we have announced plans to end the couple penalty as far as
the working tax credit is concerned, and that would apply to married
and cohabiting couples. There is a separate debate to be had on
marriage, and I am more than happy to enter into one with the hon. Lady
or anyone else on another occasion, but that was not the central thrust
of my argumentI was just talking about strengthening families
in any shape or form.
Mr.
Stuart: Does my hon. Friend, like me, wonder whether any
Labour Member will stand up and defend the couple penalty and say that
this is a desirable state of affairs? Alternatively, will they welcome
the fact that we would seek to get rid of it? The Minister is always
quick to point out that there are costs to all these things, but surely
we can all agree that we should seek to end the couples
penalty.
The
Chairman: Order. Interesting though that might be, it
might be more productive if we tackled the
Bill. 9.30
am
Andrew
Selous: As always, Mr. Key, I shall follow your
guidance in these matters. My hon. Friends comments are on the
record for Labour Members to respond to as they wish later in the
debate. Finally,
amendments 67 and 68 were tabled by the hon. Member for Northampton,
North. She wants to include the provision of services for looked-after
children and for those in the asylum and immigration system, which was
the subject of earlier deliberations. There are distinct issues there,
so I think that it is fair for her to raise that
point.
Steve
Webb: Good morning, Mr. Key. I have been musing
this morning as to what sin you might have committed in a previous life
to have to endure another of our sittings. It is nevertheless good to
see you in the Chair.
Clause 8 has
a slight feeling of a Christmas tree about it; we have all come along
with our baubles. A bit of me almost wants to strip the tree down and
perhaps even take out subsection (5), on which we are hanging those
baubles. Either we have a strategy that is about child poverty and we
let the Secretary of State get on with it, or we have a complete
shopping list of everything that matters to do with the welfare of
childrenand in the spirit of the debate we have added a couple
of our own. However, what we have is neither fish nor fowlwe
have some things that matter to children but not others.
We have
tabled amendment 30, which is about transport, and amendment 47 on
child care. We note that the hon. Member for Regent's Park and
Kensington, North wanted to add a provision on child care in a
different place in the Bill. We can have a high-tempered debate about
where it should go, but we would be happy if amendment 50 were
accepted. I shall explain why, if we are going to have a Christmas
tree, we would like to hang the baubles of transport and child care on
it, but I wonder whether the Ministers will reflect on whether picking
some things and not others might create the wrong outcome.
It is like
our discussion about targets when we started our consideration. Once we
start saying that something matters because it is in legislation, is
there not a risk that, when drawing up the strategy, we look at the
things that are listed, but ignore disability, ethnicity,
asylum-seeking children and all the other things that we would like to
add? I hope that the Financial Secretary will give us a flavour of why
some things and not others are included and reflect on whether
specifying particular things makes sense. If we are going to do that,
transport is clearly an important issue and it links to the amendment
tabled by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness on rurality,
because transport and rurality are closely
linked. Judy
Mallaber (Amber Valley) (Lab): I understand the hon.
Gentlemans argument and I am having similar difficulty about
what should and should not be included. Would he not agree, however,
that there is a difference between what is included and some of the
other items that are being suggested, which are subject areas and
services, and a separate category that would not fit into the existing
structure relating to individuals characteristics and groups,
such as ethnicity? A clear distinction can be drawn between
those two sectors. I think that it is right to concentrate on the
services and subject areas rather than the groups, which would be a
separate
argument.
Steve
Webb: That is a fair point. We are talking about different
categories of things today. I am not absolutely convinced that all
those on the list are of a kind. One might argue that some of them are
slightly different sorts of things, but I take the general point. If
that is the criterion for being on the list, transport services would
be an obvious example. There are three obvious links between transport
and child poverty: access to services, access to jobs and access to
leisure.
The material
deprivation standard is things like having a hobby and going
swimmingthat kind of stuff. If there is no bus and the
childs parents do not have a car, going swimming is going to be
a bit tricky. Clearly, if we are to deliver on the targets, I cannot
see why transport would not be on the list. Health matters, education
matters, social services matters and transport matters, so why not
include transport, which has a particular impact on poverty in rural
areas? One
of the problems with the Governments anti-poverty
strategyit is an inevitable problemis that it is much
easier to do things in towns and cities, as everyone is in the same
place. There might be public transport, and things could be done
cost-effectively, but that is hard if there is one deprived child
living down a country lane with no bus. Transport is
central.
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