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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making
in assessing the bids submitted by local authorities for the
Department for Work and Pensions Local Family Offer programme
funding for relationship support services; and when local
authorities which have submitted bids will be notified of the
outcome.
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(LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name
on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as
vice-president of the charity Relate.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, 11 local authorities bid for the local family offer
funding in December 2016. They were notified in January that
their bids were successful. Each area has now been offered
£50,000 to deliver the local family offer, including a new
role as advocates, as we support more areas to integrate
action to reduce parental conflict.
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I thank the Minister for his Answer and I am grateful for
that explanation. Could the Minister explain how the local
family rollout relates to the new programme announced by the
Secretary of State yesterday of £30 million to support
parents in workless households experiencing relationship
distress and to the promised funding across the lifetime of
this Parliament of £70 million for relationship support,
which I hope will be available for everyone who needs it, not
only parents in workless households?
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My Lords, the noble Baroness has highlighted three different
aspects of work we are doing in the Department for Work and
Pensions, but the work goes across all parts of government.
She is right to highlight the different sums of money
involved in the three schemes. The one we are discussing
today is a small-scale scheme designed to offer a degree of
help to local authorities to access expertise and evidence in
order to drive forward various local strategies. I hope that
will feed into all the other programmes as well but, as I
say, that particular programme is a small-scale one to help
those 11 local authorities.
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(Lab)
My Lords, we know that money, or lack of it, can be an
important factor in parental conflict. Given the announcement
made yesterday, about which we have just heard, that the
Government’s aim is to reduce parental conflict in workless
families, can the Minister tell us what assessment they have
made of the impact of benefit cuts, including the ongoing
freeze in benefits, on parental conflict in families who are
already struggling, and will be struggling all the more with
the impact of these cuts?
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My Lords, anyone who has been involved in family matters will
know that money is one of the major causes of conflict in
parental disputes, and that can be true at all levels of
income. I do not accept that the changes and reforms we have
made to the benefit system, which will continue to roll out
this year, are making any difference in this respect.
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The (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that at the beginning of this
decade the OECD found that one-fifth of children in this
country were growing up without a father, compared with a
quarter of children in the United States and one in seven
children in Germany? We were performing poorly against our
European neighbours. I welcome the funding that the
Government are introducing. Does he agree that it is hugely
important that children see their parents in harmony together
and that, as far as possible, their fathers stay in contact
with them and stay in their lives? Do the Government plan to
put additional funding into this area in the future?
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My Lords, I agree with most of what the noble Earl says. How
much the Government can do to solve all these problems is
another matter. However, there are things that we can do and
that is why I was grateful for the opportunity to respond to
this Question and just deal with this one small scheme. As I
say, other things can be done—that is why we published our
White Paper, Improving lives: Helping Workless Families,
yesterday—and we will continue to see where we can help in
all areas.
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The Lord
My Lords, perhaps I may build on the response just given by
the Minister. The Government can only do so much and we
certainly need to see joined-up thinking and action if we are
going to help these families. What are Her Majesty’s
Government doing to ensure that when local authorities bid
for funding for the local family offers, they are working
collaboratively with grass-roots organisations—charities,
churches and so on—which are already seeking to build up
relationship capacity in families?
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My Lords, I cannot give precise details of what consideration
was taken when assessing the bids, but I am fairly sure that
the degree of co-operation that local authorities want to
build with such organisations is a factor which would be
taken into account.
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(Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to continue
with the troubled families programme, although there were
some difficulties with it. Can my noble friend tell us how
the outcome of that programme is to be monitored so that it
delivers what it is meant to do?
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I am grateful to my noble friend for that question and I can
give her an assurance that we will be evaluating phase one of
the programme, which has been completed, and then phase two,
about which I have just given details. We aim to publish an
evaluation of phase one later in the summer, whenever that
might be, and in due course we will consider an evaluation of
phase two.
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(Lab)
My Lords, I should like to return to the answer given by the
Minister to my noble friend Lady Lister. Perhaps he should go
back to his own paper entitled Improving Lives: Helping
Workless Families, which came out yesterday. Paragraph 33
cites evidence that problem debt and financial burdens can
put pressure on relationships. It attributes those issues to
persistent low income and income shocks. Will he think again
not only about the damage that has been done by cutting £12
billion off social security for those out of work? Also,
given that this is aimed at workless families, if the DWP
wants to get them back into work, why is the department
persisting in cutting in-work benefits, the very things that
make work pay? Before the Minister tells us more about the
living wage, perhaps I may remind him of what he knows
already. Most of the living wage for the poorest people goes
straight back to the Treasury in taxes and lower benefits.
Will the department look again at its strategy and make work
pay?
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There is no need for the noble Baroness to try to answer my
question because I will answer it in my own way.
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Lords
Oh!
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The noble Baroness wanted to answer my question. She can
practise those things as long as she likes. Perhaps I may
remind her just how high the rates of employment are.
Employment is the best route out of poverty for all
households, and certainly the best route out of poverty for
households with children. Since 2010 we have seen a decline
of some 590,000 children in families that are workless.
