 House of Commons |
Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Child Poverty |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris
Stanton, Gosia McBride, Sarah Davies, Committee
Clerks † attended the
Committee Public Bill CommitteeThursday 29 October 2009(Afternoon)[Robert Key in the Chair]Child Poverty BillClause 8UK
strategies Amendment
proposed (this day): 1, in clause 8, page 4, line 21, at
end insert ‘and the promotion of
economic enterprise’.—(Andrew
Selous.) 1
pm Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
The
Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are
discussing the following: amendment 50, in clause 8, page 4, line 23,
after ‘education’, insert
‘childcare’. To
strengthen the scope of building blocks to ensure that the provision of
childcare services which are delivered within a mixed market are
included in the measures taken, and to ensure that funding for and
delivery of childcare services are safeguarded despite wider economic
difficulties. Amendment
58, in clause 8, page 4, line 23, after ‘services’,
insert ‘and improving the
well-being of
children’. Amendment
30, in clause 8, page 4, line 24, after ‘housing,’,
insert
‘transport,’. Amendment
2, in clause 8, page 4, line 25, at end
insert— ‘(e) reducing family
breakdown (f) assisting
children in families with
disabilities (g) assisting
children from minority ethnic
backgrounds.’. Amendment
20, in clause 8, page 4, line 25, at end insert ‘,
and (e) the criminal justice
system.’. Amendment
47, in clause 8, page 4, line 25, at end
add— ‘(e)
childcare’. Amendment
60, in clause 8, page 4, line 25, at end
add— ‘(e) the development of
specific policies to tackle child poverty in rural
areas.’. Amendment
67, in clause 8, page 4, line 25, at end insert ‘,
and (e) the provision of services for
looked after
children.’. Amendment
68, in clause 8, page 4, line 25, at end insert ‘,
and (e) the provision of services for
children of asylum and
immigration.’. Judy
Mallaber (Amber Valley) (Lab): I am delighted to have
discovered just now, Mr. Key, that your daughter is one of
my constituents, which is a very nice thing to
say. I am sure that you had impeccable child care
for her when she was being brought up, which brings me back to the
subject that I was talking about before the Committee adjourned. I will
not be long.
I was
supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Regent’s Park and
Kensington, North in saying that we should include child care as a
specific point in the Bill. I oppose putting in a load of amendments
that cover specific categories of people or geographic areas, but child
care, as a specific service, deserves to be put explicitly in the Bill.
I was of that mind before I heard my hon. Friend’s speech, but
after she went through some of the many complexities that need dealing
with, I was even more convinced that child care should stand as a
separate aspect of the Bill and a separate building
block. The
Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the
Member for Bishop Auckland, intervened just before the Committee
adjourned, to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Regent’s
Park and Kensington, North on her concerns about the migration of lone
parents between income support and jobseeker’s allowance and the
difficulty in relation to child care issues. That made me realise even
more one of the many complexities involved, how all the various issues
that we are talking about, including a number of the building blocks in
subsection (5), interrelate and why it is therefore important that
child care should stand as a separate item. Child care is fundamental
to dealing with the issues of child poverty and the family
relationships that we talked about earlier, and to how we deal with the
issues in the Bill and meet our
objectives. I
will not rehearse all the arguments, because my hon. Friend covered
many of them. I shall refer just to two other issues that make me
concerned that child care should be highlighted separately. The county
of Derbyshire, which is my county and that of my hon. Friend the Member
for Erewash, has been at the forefront of promoting and taking up the
Government’s initiatives on child care in recent years and of
promoting Sure Start schemes. I am deeply concerned that if child care
does not have the prominence that it needs, that could—even
though there will be good intentions and good statements from other
political parties—be under threat. That will be very damaging to
the cause of trying to eliminate child poverty.
Unfortunately,
we have just lost the elections in our county and I do not trust the
current regime. Specific ideological issues are raised about how we
proceed. I know that the Opposition say that they, too, support Sure
Start, but that would be in a very different way, because they plan to
cut money from that programme. They say that they will deal with it by
increasing vastly the number of health visitors, but by removing other
outreach workers; they will also cut that
scheme. Mr.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con): I may have
missed this, despite being a member of the Select Committee on
Children, Schools and Families, but the Government have not stated that
the parlous level of cuts as a result of their financial mismanagement
will not necessarily come down on Sure Start
centres.
Judy
Mallaber: The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that we do
not think that the recession should be dealt with through cuts. The
recession should be dealt with
through increased growth and, although obviously there will be very
tight financial regimes, it is clear if one looks at the record of last
week’s debate in Westminster Hall on Sure Start that we have a
continuing and very strong commitment to
it. However,
my point is about not the level of funding for that area as much as the
different views on how we make progress and what type of services
should be provided with regard to child care, Sure Start and the whole
provision for the under-fives and children over that age. That has been
highlighted in debates that we have had and will continue to have. It
is very important that we highlight child care as a specific area to
which attention needs to be paid. I shall raise one
other—
Mr.
Stuart: The hon. Lady is raising important points, so I am
grateful to her for giving way again. One difference in approach that
she rightly identifies between the parties relates to health visitors.
The Labour Government have dismantled the universal health visitor
system, but the Conservatives are committed to restoring universal
health visiting—not a token health visitor in each Sure Start
centre, but universal health visiting. Does the hon. Lady support that
Conservative initiative?
Judy
Mallaber: I completely contest that that is the situation.
Families do have health visitors. The question is what kind of workers
they have, for how many visits and for what ages. When I was canvassing
in a recent election, I put that point to one parent, who said,
“We as a family do not need a health visitor for a long time; we
need some other provision for my older child, who’s not an
under-five.” This is a complex area, and that is precisely my
point. I am sure that we will continue to have these debates. I contest
that taking away all the other outreach work is of any benefit
whatever. That highlights the importance of including child care as a
separate building block.
The
Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen
Timms): My hon. Friend will have heard the hon. Member for
Beverley and Holderness say that he wanted to stop overstating his
case. Does she, like me, look forward to this new era
commencing?
Judy
Mallaber: I do indeed, but I did feel that I should allow
him to intervene—he was very good at provoking me into wishing
to intervene on him, so it was only
fair. The
other example of the complex way in which all these building blocks fit
together is equal pay. Earlier this week, I was a bit astounded to hear
on the radio a Conservative Front-Bench spokeswoman who was discussing
equal pay with the Solicitor-General fall into the trap of implying
that the equal pay gap, which we all deplore—I have tabled an
early-day motion on the issue, and I hope that everybody will sign it,
if they have not already done so—was caused principally by
direct discrimination. The equal pay gap is important because it
relates to whether women, especially those who live
by themselves, have enough money to bring up their
families. It has three main causes. One is discrimination. Another,
huge reason is occupational segregation. Then, there are all the issues
relating to child care, family and living relationships, which also
affect occupational segregation. All those issues lead to an equal pay
gap, which makes it difficult for women to earn an income for their
families. That is another area of complexity, which ties into child
care provision. It is one of the key reasons why women go into
particular jobs and why they have particular types of pay.
Those are
just a couple of examples. One is Sure Start, which has already
provoked some debate about what we should be doing. The other is equal
pay, and my hon. Friend the Member for Regent’s Park and
Kensington, North spoke cogently of the complexities earlier. We should
therefore highlight child care as an important issue, and it should
have its own specific place in the Bill.
Mr.
Timms: I welcome you back as Chairman of our Committee,
Mr. Key. This is the first opportunity that I have had to do
that today.
On Tuesday,
we debated the clear focus in the Bill on tackling income poverty and
material deprivation, because of the evidence of the impact of poverty
on children’s lives—their experiences now and their
chances for the future. A strategy to tackle child poverty will need to
be wide-ranging and will certainly need to cover many, and perhaps all,
of the issues that Members have raised in their amendments. However, my
concern is that we should not lose the clear focus on income poverty
and material deprivation by, as my hon. Friend the Member for Amber
Valley has suggested, adding lots of extra things. Were we to go down
the road of putting lots of baubles on the tree, we would necessarily
end up with a strategy that tackled each of the issues, but which
perhaps did not tackle other things that, as might become clear, were
also important.
The strategy
required by the Bill will need to consider measures in a number of
broad policy areas, encompassing the main drivers of child poverty,
including parental skills and employment; financial support for
families with children; promoting outcomes for children in health,
education and social services; improving the quality of housing; and
promoting social inclusion. Those issues are set out in the clause, and
they were chosen as a result of lots of detailed analysis of the
barriers to eradicating child poverty through extended discussion and
consultation with organisations and people both inside and outside
Government.
The Bill
deliberately avoids being too prescriptive about the content of the
strategy. Each three-year strategy will need to respond to
circumstances that change between now and 2020, building on evidence
about what works in tackling child poverty. More specific measures will
need to be considered, as appropriate, for each three-year
phase.
Mr.
Stuart: I am struggling to follow the Minister’s
case. He seems to be saying that the focus of the Bill is on income
deprivation, and subsection 5(a) and (b) are about improving the skills
and employability of parents and the provision of financial support,
which go to the heart of what he is saying. However, what I do not
understand, and he has not really explained it, is why
health, education, social services, housing,
environment and social inclusion are there but not transport and other
things. If the Minister’s point was intellectually correct,
surely he should drop paragraphs (c) and (d) because inevitably and
rightly Members across the Committee will put forward other things that
they think are just as relevant and
important.
Mr.
Timms: No, and the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire
referred to that earlier on. Those broad areas have been widely
discussed in the specific context of this legislation and tackling
child poverty. Our view is that the broad areas set out in that part of
clause 8 cover the principal
drivers. Andrew
Selous (South-West Bedfordshire) (Con): I think that the
Minister will agree that subsection (5) really relates to the original
building blocks in the document, “Ending child poverty:
everybody’s business”, which his Department signed up to
earlier this year. Why has family, which was in that document, been
dropped from subsection
(5)?
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2009 | Prepared 30 October 2009 |