UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform Bill

Proceeding contribution from Earl of Listowel (Crossbench) in the House of Lords on Thursday, 20 October 2011. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Welfare Reform Bill.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for tabling these amendments to ensure that we thoroughly think through the impact of this legislation on the various vulnerable groups that it will hit. I have three points. The first is about fathers and contact with their children. It was very encouraging on Monday to hear the Minister of State for Children and Families launch new parenting programmes and preface this new parenting support by saying that the single most important aspect for improving children’s outcomes in education is the home environment; it is what happens at home with parents that matters. It made me think of my own experience with my father, and the fact that the biggest contribution that he made to my education was that he read to us; we used to sit and read books together with him, and we always used to see him reading. It is very important that we enable parents to keep in touch with their children. Some recent research sent to me highlighted the important impact that fathers have on their daughters’ education. It was perhaps surprising to see that at certain stages of their daughters’ lives the interest of the father in his daughters’ education has a bigger impact on their performance in school than it does on that of their sons. At a certain age there is a bigger difference. So it is so important to get this right. That leads me to reflect again on a concern that concerns many others—about how far the Government are thinking across different departments on how we are going to make a difference to children and families in other areas of policy. My second point is about houses in multiple occupation. I was reminded of a visit that I made some time ago with a health visitor to a young mother in a house in multiple occupation in Walthamstow. The mother had an eight week-old baby. She was African by origin. The father was not interested in her or the child and had no family about her; she was isolated, and she was crying as we met with her. Her only support was the local church group, which would visit her. When we came to visit her, the front door was open. That is an example of what the noble Baroness was talking about—the lack of safety in such houses in multiple occupation. She was sharing a kitchen and bathroom with five other households in that setting. Then there was an 18 year-old woman in a Centrepoint hostel with whom I spoke some years ago and who described her experience of sharing inadequate accommodation with a number of others, including men. She felt very insecure, as there was not a proper lock on her door or there was not a lock at all, and she worried about that. Those are important concerns to bear in mind, particularly with pregnant mothers, who should not feel pushed to go into HMOs. Finally, there may be protection for care leavers up to the age of 21 from being hit by the shared room rate, but the issue has always been raised with me as a concern. For many of them, issues will still arise beyond the age of 21, so I would like to have further information about how we might protect them better than they are already protected. What particularly comes to mind is that it might be particularly difficult for a young woman who has been abused in her childhood by a member of the opposite sex to share with men. But I would need to think more about how it actually works in practice and what the particular concerns are. Again, I thank the noble Baroness for tabling these important amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
731 c122-3GC 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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