Welfare Reform Bill

Absolutely, I can use the word ““provoked”” freely because that is what has led me to rise to speak. There is a danger that this will become an emotional debate because people feel passionately about their children. I had three children aged seven and under and I know exactly the tensions that have been described. But this comes out of the construct of the application of in-work conditionality. The universal credit system imports a novel and extensive level of government discretion. What people are struggling with, because the Government cannot answer it, is how that discretion will be applied in real-life circumstances that they can empathise with. This instance arises against the background that most people who work part time are women, so they will be most subjected to the in-work conditionality on extending their hours. However, the childcare system in this country is inefficient, so there are those two background factors. Taken together with the discretionary system, which on the Minister’s own admission has a long way to go before it is fully defined and fit for purpose, three fundamental issues arise that people are struggling to get answers on. They do not think the answers lie in guidance, they want some security on the face of the Bill that constrains the exercise of the Government’s discretion. Those three issues are: trust, care of the child and the compatibility of conditionality with the reality of the childcare system. I think back to when my children were younger. Anyone who has been a parent will agree that the thought that any bureaucrat in a complex system could have imposed a sanction on me unless I agreed to put my children into a care arrangement in which I did not have confidence is inconceivable. I could deal with that, because I had a job that gave me enough income. I had enough self-confidence; I had articulacy; I had education; I could cope with that challenge. What if I had been a low paid mum, with more limited educational skills? Could I have articulated or defended my fears about being asked to put my child into a provision that I did not trust? That is fundamental. As has rightly been said, that involves the care of the child. One cannot just say, ““We think that parents are better and that attitudes to benefit or bearing responsibility are better if people work””. That has to be set against what is a fair system for the care of the child. We do not want lots of examples of people conceding under the pressure of conditionality to unsuitable care arrangements and horror stories resulting. The third point, which my noble friend Lady Hollis articulates well, is that we must make conditionality compatible with the reality of the childcare system in this country. A great deal of childcare is done by families. We have just seen the Government—well done—give grandparent credits under the national insurance system to accrue on state benefits as a recognition of the importance of that care system to the child. It is recognised as having economic and social value, so you can now accrue state pension benefits. Equally, we must recognise that here. We cannot say on one level that we recognise the importance of grandparents but that when they are addressed under the benefits system, we will subject them to one level of conditionality of the carer here; while their daughters or sons, who are using their parents for childcare, may have another adviser subjecting them to another set of conditionality discretions over there. Those are the fundamental issues. Saying that that will be covered in guidance is insufficient. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Hayter will not mind me saying that the drafting of the amendment may not be perfect, but we are in Committee. We can concentrate on the perfect drafting of the perfect amendment later. The amendment says to the Government: ““If you want to take a powerful range of discretions to apply an in-work conditionality system that on your own admission is not yet defined and refined, in the interface between conditionality being imposed on carers—particularly women—you must take into account the issue of the relationship of trust of the parent leaving the child; how you protect the care of the child against some inefficient application of discretion, because that will occur; and the compatibility of the conditionality guidance with the reality of the childcare system. That is the fundamental issue that needs to be addressed in the Bill.