Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to exempt family-and-friend carers, who are raising a child or children, from the conditionality requirement to seek work under universal credit for a period of one year. I know that many noble Lords have expressed sympathy with the problems faced by family-and-friend carers, but were concerned to define the population that would be embraced by any amendment. The amendment does that. These are children who cannot live with their parents and would otherwise be likely to be in the care system, at significant cost to the state, and against their better, or best, interest. These children include those who, for example, have to live with a carer as a result of a plan following a Children Act 1989 child protection inquiry, or because the carer has a residence order or a special guardianship order arising out of care proceedings, or following the death or serious illness of a parent. The list of legal circumstances is clearly set out in the amendment, and covers the relevant legal references for Scotland as well. The amendment specifically lists situations so that it is clear which family-and-friend carers would be exempt from having to look for work for twelve months from the receipt of the child for whom they are assuming care. The amendment is designed to recognise that the circumstances of family-and-friend carers vary enormously. It seeks to offer protection from conditionality for one year to those in the most challenging circumstances. Carers are not covered by this amendment if they do not have a legal order. There are compelling economic and social reasons for this amendment. First, there are an estimated 200,000 children in the UK who are being raised by grandparents, elder siblings, or other family members and friends. To refer to a previous comment from the Minister, this does not fall into a ““little change”” area; this is a matter of some scale. If just 5 per cent of children in such care were to enter the care system, it would cost the taxpayer £500 million each year. It costs £40,000 a year for a child to be placed in independent foster care. In the second instance, undermining such carers will impact the child. The children in such care may have suffered abuse and neglect. They are often exceptionally vulnerable. In about half of all cases their parents are misusing drugs or alcohol. Kinship carers often need to devote a lot of attention to such children, especially when they first move in. The carers themselves often feel stressed and isolated. Forty-six per cent of family-and-friend carers are raising at least one child with a disability or special needs. Research from Grandparents Plus highlights the fact that three in 10 kinship carers give up work, sometimes at the direction of social services, and often because it is the only way to meet the child's challenging needs. A further three in 10 reduce their working hours, and their role is akin to that of a foster carer. Many children they look after would otherwise be in local authority care. The children may move into a family or friend’s care at any age, not just when they are under five or seven but often when they are young teenagers with difficult problems. For some carers, a year's exemption from being available for work or additional work would give them enough time to manage the upheaval in their lives and support the child before having to juggle work and care under any conditionality requirements. Reinforcing the similar findings of a survey carried out by the Family Rights Group, a survey of grandparents and other family-and-friend carers conducted by Grandparents Plus found that 28 per cent of carers gave up work when they took on the care of the child and a further 29 per cent reduced their hours. The same survey found that eight out of 10 were under 65 and four out of 10 were under 55. Clearly, they will fall in significant numbers within the conditionality framework. Family-and-friend carers often report that social workers insist that they give up work in order to prevent the child being taken into care. However, only a minority—around one-third—receive an allowance from the local authority. One consequence of the Bill and of other policy changes being introduced is that in future many more family-and-friend carers will be affected by conditionality requirements. At the moment, single family-and-friend carers, such as single parents, do not have to be available for work until the youngest child is seven. However, Clause 57 reduces this age to five. Furthermore—this comes back to our debate on the last but one amendment—the increase in the state retirement age will mean that increasing numbers of older grandparent carers will be affected by conditionality. As that age goes up, by definition more of them will come into the conditionality framework. Therefore, an unintended consequence of the changes may be that fewer family-and-friend carers will step into difficult family circumstances. The result will be an increase in the number of children in care. Clearly this would not be in the child's best interests, and would certainly translate into an increased cost to the state. A lot of case studies have been sent to me by organisations that care about this community. I have tried to condense one powerful case study. It is a good one because it challenges the stereotype of young people. Paul is a 24 year-old man. He is the sibling carer of his six younger brothers and sisters. They were taken into care when his mother disappeared. Paul successfully secured a special guardianship order for all six children to live with him. Social workers have stated that he cannot go back to work until the youngest, now seven, is at secondary school because of what the children had been through. The problems that this community of kinship carers face do not only lie within the requirements of the welfare system; they also suffer a lack of protection in employment law. Maternity leave and adoption leave recognise an adjustment period for parents but there is no such adjustment period in employment law for family-and-friend carers, despite the fact that these children often have considerable needs and have suffered the same adversities as those who enter the care system. We have a situation where many of these carers face a potential scenario whereby, first, the local authority requires them to take time off work to care for the child; secondly, as employees they have no legal rights to such leave so they have to give up their jobs; and, thirdly, they could well face the conditionality requirements under the rules of universal credit to seek work. This is a tough Catch-22 call for many taking on the care of children in very difficult circumstances. I accept that in some circumstances it would be desirable if family-and-friend carers did not have to fall out of the labour market in the first place because this is rarely in their best interest or in the children’s long-term interests. However, they often need to take a break and that can also be a requirement of the legal order or the social services. Will the Minister agree to speak to his colleagues in BIS to urge them to look at this community I have identified, which is covered by legal order? It would be easier for family-and-friend carers to take career breaks when the child first moves in, in much the same way that adoptive parents can take adoption leave. The forthcoming employment Bill offers an ideal opportunity to provide greater recognition and support for family-and-friend carers who are working. I appreciate that we cannot address employment legislation in this Bill but I did not want the opportunity to pass to ask the question of the Minister. We can, however, address the rules of universal credit and ensure that those family-and-friend carers looking after children consequent to a legal order should be exempt from the work conditionality requirements for a period of 12 months when they take care of the child. We need to remind ourselves, because there is a philosophical dimension to the changes to the welfare system, that these carers are not avoiding responsibility. These carers are voluntarily embracing the responsibility of being the carer in the interests of the child and often in the most challenging of circumstances. As I have said, this amendment defines the population that I am asking should be exempt from the 12-month conditionality requirements. Refining this amendment to address those family-and-friend carers where they take the children into their care as a consequence of a legal order will mean that there are still a lot of carers who are not covered by such orders. I recognise that the interests of the child are paramount and we know that in some instances informal carers do not properly look after the interests of the child. I am not going to walk on to territory on which I am not an authority. With any group of people, however, it is never black and white, it is always grey. Research by Grandparents Plus shows that some carers look after a child for many years because of extremely difficult family circumstances but have no legal order. They do not apply for the legal order often because they fear that the child will be taken away from them, or they do not have the capacity or the confidence to deal with the complexity of applying for legal orders. Notwithstanding that the interests of the child are paramount and that this is not my area of specialty, it is equally important that in any guidance to Jobcentre Plus staff, or any staff in the outsource provider, there is guidance that is sympathetic to families, even if they have no legal order, who are none the less making a significant contribution to caring for children.