Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I have a couple of things to say. To add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has just said, I live in Durham and, while there is a lot of shared accommodation available in Durham city, it is all taken by students. The demand for that is such that it drives the price up. It is difficult to imagine how someone in those circumstances could compete in that market. If they are driven out into County Durham, it is hard to find the kind of accommodation that is described, so I can add to the geographical Cook’s tour of bits of London where we think the Minister’s intentions, even if one were to agree with them, might be a little hard to implement. On one or two other categories, I read in the Telegraph on a rare occasion in June this year a comparison of runaway dads and drink drivers as people beyond the pale: they need the message rammed home to them, "““from every part of our culture, that what they are doing is wrong … All this will help make a difference. But in the end, it will be the daily habits and decisions of Britain’s fathers that will determine if we succeed. On their decision to financially and emotionally support their child even if they’ve split up from their mother; to spend time with their kids at weekends, taking them to the football or the playground””." It goes on. I am sure that the Minister has recognised the quote, from the Prime Minister, Mr Cameron. Consider for a moment how easy it would be for a father who had just split up from the mother of his child or children, possibly even because he had lost his job—we all know the research into the impact of financial difficulties in causing relationship and family breakdown—who finds himself in a position where he has to go and live in a room in shared accommodation, if he can find one. It may be that there is none nearby, and he is encouraged, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, described, to move some distance away. How then can he afford to come to visit his children when he finds himself on benefits? It may be that other people sharing the house will not be people who make him feel safe bringing his children into it. He can certainly take them to play football in the park in the summer, but there is a little nip in the air even now in October, and I am not sure that we could expect him to do that come December. So where is he to have this contact with the children? Very often—as we know, too often, especially in the early days—relationships can be quite difficult after they have broken down. To expect the parents to be in the house where the children are living is not always that easy. I would be interested in the Minister’s view when we look at the question of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. That same father may find himself paying more money towards child maintenance. If he regains a job, be will be paying a lot more of that, or else less money will end up with the mother of his children. What would the Minister like to see? What would be a good result for this? How will he help those non-resident parents to maintain contact? Is the Minister aware of any evidence about whether or not contact in the early years with the non-resident parent makes any difference to the likelihood of their paying child maintenance? He ought to be in a position to know, and I would be very interested; he might write to me if he does not. I have two other issues. First, on the position of people who have different kinds of mental illness, which has been mentioned, I do not want to go into detail but I add my voice in support of that. We must all have met people who we can see would find that kind of enforced contact extremely difficult. I urge the Minister to think hard on that. Secondly, my final word is about the position of pregnant women. I lived in shared accommodation when I was young; I suspect that a number of us have. I have spoken to friends of mine who have done it as well. Perhaps the Minister knows people who have done so, but could he for a moment imagine what it is like to be a young woman, lying in bed at night, wanting to use the lavatory but trying to work out if she can wait until the morning because she can hear the noise outside in the shared area and she knows that she will have to walk past these men, who have come home drunk, in order to get to the lavatory? I know this sounds as if I am being over-dramatic but I am aware of that happening in, frankly, not-too-bad accommodation in parts of London. It does not happen only in small, unusual, mythical kinds of poor accommodation. If someone is given little choice in a market which, as we have all heard, is going to be much more competitive, they do not have a lot of room for manoeuvre. If that young woman—she could even be a 30 or 34 year-old woman—is pregnant, what is she to do? Also imagine for a moment that she is in a job, finds she is pregnant and then either loses her job or gives it up. Is she going to move house in the circumstances that were described so eloquently a moment ago? Are we really expecting her to bring a baby back to that shared house? I am sure the Minister does not mean this. If the discretionary payments are to cover all of these groups, has the Minister done any costing as to which of these groups should automatically be covered and can he tell us how far it will go? We may be wrong. It may be that, when the sums are done carefully, it is enough to cover all of these exemptions and the others that have been considered and that the amount will be admirable. Will he agree to come back to the Committee with information on that to put our minds at rest?