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Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, it is the fact—this was my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Newby—that the people in the poorest 20 per cent of this country are as much better off under this Government as the people in the top 20 per cent. It is the effect of the tax and credit structure that is more important than theoretical argument about the tax burden. That is the point I was trying to make by reference to the poorest 20 per cent of the population.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, will the Minister be kind enough to answer my noble friend's question? Are the poorest 20 per cent of people worse off now than they were 12 months ago?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, that was not the question. But the answer is no.
Lord Northbrook: My Lords, can the Minister say why the Government have been so inconsistent in their tax policy? On the one hand they cut corporation tax and raised even more revenue, and on the other they increased direct taxation like the national insurance upper earnings limit by 28 per cent. Would it not be better to cut direct taxation as well as corporation tax?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, that is an argument that might not result in champagne swilling around the City! The question I was being asked by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, related to the effect on our economic prosperity. One element that is widely recognised as being contributory to our economic prosperity is the extent to which we have been able to cut corporation tax—after all, it is a tax on success rather than a payroll tax: it is a profit tax—and particularly the ways in which we have been able to encourage small businesses.
Child Benefit
3.59 p.m.
Baroness Buscombe asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What are the details of the plan proposed by the Prime Minister to remove child benefit from the parents of teenage offenders.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, if parents permit their children to truant, then we know that those children are far more likely to drift into crime. That is both disastrous
for them and for their local community. It is therefore essential that we explore all options to stop that happening, including the recent ideas.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her somewhat brief reply. But is that plan practical? For example, what happens to the innocent brothers and sisters within a family which has a child who is out of control? What about all the parents who do everything in their power to try to prevent the child from being unruly? Does the Minister accept that making poor children poorer is not the answer? That is not a substitute for a real, long-term and cohesive strategy to cut youth crime.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I certainly agree with the last point made by the noble Baroness, but the Government indeed have a consistent, coherent strategy to cut youth crime. That includes everything from reducing the number of days for which young people have to wait between arrest and sentencing to extra powers in the 10 areas most affected by street robbery. Since coming to power, our record is one of reducing crime by 22 per cent overall. Street crime is the problem, and what lies behind it, too often, is truancy.
Perhaps I may develop that part of the question. Obviously we want to intervene to try to keep children at school. We want to work with parents and educational welfare officers to keep children at school. But as regards those parents who will not—as opposed to cannot—co-operate with the education system to help to ensure that their children go to school and get the best possible chance, we must consider how best to take these measures forward. At the end of the day, parents get child benefit because they care for their children. Caring for their children includes ensuring that they go to school.
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the long-term policies that are already in place to address the exceptionally complex issues. There is the complexity of raising salaries in the first place and, for many families, children's disabilities in approaching and making connections with school from an early age. What contribution does she believe that Sure Start is making to lay better foundations for the future?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, it is clear that behind truancy and, later, street crime often lie problems that go back many years. My noble friend is absolutely right: if we want to invest in children's futures, we must start with children as young as possible. Hence the Sure Start programme, for which I have received support from all sides of the House. By 2004, about 30 per cent of the poorest children will be in a Sure Start scheme—there will be 500 of them. With Sure Start, which is a huge act of faith on the Government's part, we should be able to break the link between poor incomes and poor outcomes for children who are otherwise at risk.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the key practical problem at present is the
behaviour of teenage truants? Has she any suggestions as to how a 5ft 8ins parent should make a 6ft teenager go to school?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the Government have introduced an array of initiatives from parenting orders to anti-social orders for children, and so on. At the end of the day, we want to encourage parents to work with the school system, especially education welfare officers. There are many reasons for truanting, one of which is that the child prefers to drift into a life of crime. But there are others—there may be bullying or disability may be involved.
That is why the Government are not only building on pupil referral units for children already excluded from school but are seeking to keep pupils within the school system by developing learning support units—1,000 of them across the country—to ensure that children at risk of exclusion stay within the mainstream education system without disrupting the learning of other children. I am sure that that is the right way forward.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords—
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, I think that we ought to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, the Minister has not answered the fundamental question raised by my noble friend Lady Buscombe: why does she believe that making poor people poorer will reduce rather than increase the volume of crime and lawlessness?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the point about child benefit is that unlike other benefits that may be sanctioned, child benefit is universal. Therefore, irrespective of their class and income, those parents who refuse to work with the education authorities to try to ensure that their children go to school enjoy child benefit. We believe that the responsibility for ensuring that the child goes to school goes alongside those parents' right to enjoy that benefit. At the end of the day, the Government's strategy to take children out of poverty, of which I am proud, will be wrecked if those children do not go to school and as a result have no future.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, will the Minister tell us whether the proposal is really thought through and can be effective? For example, what happens where care is shared between separate parents and where the parent who was supposed to be in charge on the day of the alleged offence is not the one who normally receives child benefit?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, that is precisely why the Government have been at pains to
emphasise that these are a set of proposals to be explored, not a worked-up scheme to bring to your Lordships' House.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, as the Minister knows far more about social security benefits than anyone else, the House will be interested to know whether or not she is in favour of the proposition. Has she told the Prime Minister—and will she tell the House—to what extent, if child benefit was withdrawn, those from whom it was withdrawn would be entitled to more of other benefits?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the noble Lord knows perfectly well that everyone standing at the Dispatch Box—whether he or I—speaks for their party and, in my case, for my Government. Any government who since 1997 will have raised the rate of income support for children under 11 from £16.90 to £37 this October—more than double in cash terms and double in real terms—are a government of whom I am deeply proud.
Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill [HL]
The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in order to protect computerised systems against denial of service attacks. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Earl of Northesk).
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.
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