UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 702-i
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
WORK AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE
CHILD POVERTY
Wednesday 17 June 2009
RT HON DAWN PRIMAROLO MP, RT HON STEPHEN TIMMS MP
and HELEN GOODMAN MP
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 88
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Transcribed
by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament:
W B Gurney
& Sons LLP, Hope House, 45 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 3LT
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Work and Pensions Committee
on Wednesday 17 June 2009
Members present
Mr Terry Rooney, in the Chair
Miss Anne Begg
Mr Oliver Heald
John Howell
Mrs Joan Humble
Tom Levitt
________________
Witnesses: Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister for
Children, Young People and Families, Department for Children Schools and
Families, Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury,
HM Treasury, and Helen Goodman MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of
State, Department for Work and Pensions, gave evidence.
Q1 Chairman: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this one-off session on child
poverty. It is about a year since we
published our report and we thought this would be timely. Welcome to the ministers. Dawn and Helen, congratulations on your new
jobs. Stephen, you are still where you
were, is that right?
Mr Timms: I am.
Q2 Chairman: Someone is going to make a brief statement.
Mr Timms: Perhaps I could make a couple of points in
opening. Tony Blair announced in 1999
the target to eradicate child poverty in the UK in 20 years. In the previous 20 years, UK child poverty
had more than doubled, up to the highest rate in Europe. Since 1999 we have halted the rising
trend. We have put it into reverse and
we have achieved, on the latest figures, a net reduction of half a million in
the number of children growing up below the poverty line. Measures in place but not yet reflected in
the data are expected to have lifted a further half a million children
above the line by 2010, but we need to do more, and our three departments have
been working closely together to do so.
The priority over the last few months has been to get the economy back
on track and to keep people in work, but we are all determined to keep firmly
in our sights the long-term prize of eradicating child poverty. That is the importance really of the Child
Poverty Bill, published last week, defining and making mandatory the
eradication of child poverty by 2020.
It aims to embed in government policy‑making the now pretty widely
supported target, ensuring that governments are held to account, and to drive
progress over the next decade at both national and local level, requiring the
government to publish a strategy for eradication by 2020, to review the
strategy every three years, and to publish reports annually on progress. My colleagues and I warmly welcome the
Committee's continuing interest in this very important work.
Q3 Chairman: You quoted a number of statistics there. The fact is that come 2010 we are going to
be still around 600,000 short of the target.
There was nothing of any note in this year's Budget. Where do you think we stand on the 2010
target?
Mr Timms: We are continuing to work towards the 2010
target. We took important further steps
in the budget last year and the year before.
The IFS estimate, as I think Committee Members know, is that on the
basis of current policy we will be about two-thirds of the way towards the 2010
target by 2010, so some way short of it, as you say, but about two-thirds of
the way there. We will look to see what
further progress we can make between now and then, but I think it is the case,
given current economic circumstances, that it will now be hard to meet the 2010
target on time on the basis of the relative poverty measure. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the
latest date for 2007-08 does show the level of absolute child poverty has now
been halved since 1999, but on the relative poverty measure I think it is going
to be hard to hit the target on time.
There has been very good progress, substantial progress, but we
recognise that there is more to be done.
Q4 Chairman: Does that not suggest that more should have
been done in better times. In
particular, we had those two years where the numbers in child poverty
increased.
Mr Timms: Particularly in the budget last year but also
in the budget in the year before, we did put in place, notwithstanding the
economic problems that were starting to become clear, substantial measures to
get us further along the track. That is
what has led to the confidence that we will see another half million children
being lifted above the line by 2010.
Nobody of course foresaw the scale of the current economic crisis, and
our priority in the budget this year has been to make sure that we keep people
in work as the overriding priority. I
think that is the right thing to do in the medium term from a child poverty
point of view. It is certainly the
right thing to do in terms of managing the economy. That was our priority in the Budget this year, but I would
underline the fact that, notwithstanding the scale of the current economic
challenges that we are dealing with, we will over this period have made very
significant further progress towards the 2010 target and towards longer term
child poverty eradication.
Q5 Chairman: The Government recently consulted on a
definition of eradication. The
implication in that consultation is that ten per cent would constitute
eradication. CPAG think it should be a
maximum of five per cent, and many other organisations disagree with the ten
per cent. How do you justify saying you
have eradicated child poverty when one in ten are still in poverty?
Mr Timms: As you say, this is one of the issues on
which we have been consulting. Of
course there is an argument that for as long as there is a single child who is
living in a household whose income is less than 60 per cent of median
income for a household of that size, then child poverty has not strictly been
eradicated. In reality, we know that
there will always be some children, even if only for a short period, who are
below the relative poverty line, and so the question that we have had to
confront in drawing up the legislation is what is the definition of eradication
that we should use. The rationale for
choosing ten per cent rather than five per cent is that no European country has
achieved five per cent on an enduring basis.
It has been achieved for a short time from time to time but not in a lasting
way, and so it seemed to us - and there was some support for this in the
consultation - that ten per cent was the pragmatic level to set. The other important aspect of the Bill is
that we are not solely looking at that measure but we are also looking at
material deprivation, we are looking at the absolute measure of poverty and we
are looking at persistent poverty as well.
In some ways I think that is perhaps the most important. We are saying that we want to make sure that
the number of children living in households that are in poverty for more than
three years out of four is kept low as well.
We are acknowledging and recognising - and this is certainly a view that
we have shared with others - that we need to take a broader ranging look at
what eradicating child poverty means, and we have come up on that basis with
the definition that is in the Bill published last week.
Q6 Chairman: Taking on your quotation of European
countries, of course not one of those has made a statutory commitment to end
child poverty, so they have not been under the same challenge that the British
Government is going to be under. I do
think - and I am sure it is the view of the Committee and others - that being
satisfied with a ten per cent rate cannot in any way be classed as
eradication. We all accept that there is
always going to be fringe poverty and various other factors, and five per cent
would, I think, be a lot more amenable to dealing with that. Ten per cent is almost an admission of
failure, but perhaps I can move on. You
have talked about legislation. Why was
it felt necessary to put in this clause of phrase "subject to
affordability"? Going back as far as
you like, politics is the language of priorities. If it is a priority, then it
should be the first call for any funds.
That suggests a dilution of the commitment.
Mr Timms: In the way the Bill has been drawn up, this
is a strongly binding target. The
obligations to hit the target will be mandatory. The only way that a government in the future could get out of the
obligation would be to introduce more primary legislation to replace it or to
repeal this legislation once it has been enacted. I think it is a very strong form of the commitment that this Bill
entails the Government taking on.
Q7 Chairman: But any future government of any persuasion
can simply say it is not affordable.
Mr Timms: I do not think it can.
Q8 Chairman: Why add that phrase in "subject to
affordability"?
Mr Timms: In the way the Bill has been drafted, the
commitment to hit those four targets is binding by 2020. As I say, the only way to avert the
possibility of a judicial review forcing a future government to take
whatever steps are needed to hit the target would be for the legislation to be
repealed. If you compare that, for example,
with the Climate Change Act, there is there a mechanism to delay the target or
to recognise that economic circumstances might make it impossible to deliver
that. That provision is not in this
Bill.
Q9 Chairman: Do you accept there is a clause in this Bill
that talks about "subject to affordability" or do you not?
Mr Timms: You would need to point out to me where in
the Bill it is.
Q10 Chairman: It is your Bill.
Mr Timms: It is my Bill, indeed.
Q11 Chairman: If it was mine, I would tell you.
Mr Timms: I do not think the phrase "subject to
affordability" is there, as far as I can see.
It does say in clause 15 that a number of matters need to be taken into
account: economic circumstances; the likely impact of any measure on the
economy; fiscal circumstances. But it
does not say "subject to affordability".
As I say, there is no way out for the Government from the targets that
are set, other than repealing the legislation.
Chairman: We will come back to that.
Q12 Mr Heald: One of the concerns that has been expressed
to the Committee is about ethnic minority children and high poverty levels
there. I just wondered if the
Government had identified this as a problem and had any sort of strategy to
tackle it.
Helen Goodman: Of course we are fully aware of this
problem. It affects, in particular, the
Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities and that is very worrying. One of the reasons seems to be the
difficulty that the minority communities have in accessing the labour
market. People who are more highly
qualified than their white counterparts are not getting jobs or, indeed, are
taking lower level jobs than they otherwise would. I think one of the clauses in the Child Poverty Bill which will
help with this is the one which is about co‑operating with the local
authorities, because when the local authorities make their local strategy for
addressing child poverty, they can have the local employment, the LSPs and the
local economic strategies, and they will be able to be much more tailored to
the needs of particular minority communities.
Q13 Mr Heald: Do you think it is that the ethnic minority
communities are living in areas where it is more difficult to get a job, or is
it that for those communities it is more difficult to get a job?
Helen Goodman: Part of the reason that children in minority
communities face higher levels of poverty is associated with worklessness and
part of it is associated with lone parenthood, but we had a study done by
somebody called Platt and she found that there was a further ethnic minority
penalty, as it were, which, looking at the wider work which has been done
around the needs of ethnic minorities, does look as if it is, in part, about
discrimination in the labour market. As well as the Child Poverty Bill and the
work that can be done at local authority level to address local labour market
issues, of course we have further measures in the Equality Bill which is before
the House at the moment which are also aimed at addressing discrimination.
Q14 Mr Heald: Dr Lucinda Platt has been in touch with the
Committee. One of the points she makes
is that this whole question of ethnic minority poverty, particularly with
children but also more generally, needs to be better understood and
monitored. To what extent is the
department doing that?
Helen Goodman: Obviously, now that we have a clearer view,
we can focus on it more. It is not just
about the labour market, it is also about educational attainment, it is also
about English language skills - and we have separate strategies in DCSF to
address those things - and it is about affordable child care. I do not know whether we have published
this, but we are doing some pilots about affordable child care, and some of
those, particularly those in London, will be in places where there are large
minority communities. I feel this is a
multi-faceted problem. There is not one shot at goal on this: there is a whole
range of things to be done and we are looking at a whole range of things.
Q15 Mr Heald: Moving on to disability, one of the points
that is often made to the Committee is that DLA is counted as income when
looking at poverty levels, but of course DLA, by its very nature, is responding
to additional costs which disabled people face. Is there any work being done to look at the real position for
families with a disabled person and whether some of those families are in quite
straitened circumstances or in poverty and whether the DLA, which of course is
covering the additional costs, is slightly masking that?
Helen Goodman: Obviously you have raised a real issue here
and I would not want in any way to dismiss it.
We do know that for those who are out of work, the benefits which are
available mean that the median incomes of families where there is a child with
disabilities are higher. Whether they
are higher enough to take account of the extra costs associated with
disability, I think there is a question about.
We have to view this in the context of the overall strategy - which we
have. I would like to distinguish, if I
may, between those families where there is a disabled adult from those families
where there is a disabled child. I know
there are some families which have both, but I think the issues which arise in
those two circumstances are rather different. With respect to disabled adults,
we have a lot of work underway which is aimed at helping them to get into the
labour market. We have had some success
with that. The employment rate of
adults with disabilities has risen by ten per cent in the last 12 years, and the
gap between disabled adults and other adults in employment has narrowed by seven
per cent. I think we are on a journey
with that and we are making progress with that. With respect to families where there is a child with
disabilities, I think the issues are rather different. Fifty-one per cent of this group of parents
are in work, but nonetheless there I think the issue is about accessing good
quality and suitable child care.
Q16 Mr Heald: Obviously you are quite right that there are
different concerns. In our report we
highlighted the two areas. About 29 per
cent of disabled children do live in poverty, which seems something to want to
address. Equally, where there is a
parent who is disabled - the other side of the equation - often there is a
choice in the end between spending the DLA money on the additional costs of the
disability of that parent or perhaps on the children. I am asking you really whether there is going to be some
research done by the department and some monitoring which will enable us to see
this problem much more clearly. The
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, as you will know, have asked for this, and I am
just wondering if the department is doing anything.
Helen Goodman: I must admit - I am new to this department
----
Q17 Mr Heald: Yes, of course you are.
Helen Goodman: -- I am not aware of any research. Furthermore, disability and benefits are the
responsibility of my colleague Jonathan Shaw.
If I may, I will take that suggestion back.
Q18 Mr Heald: Would you be able to write to the Committee
telling us what your thoughts are, when you have had more time to think about
it?
Helen Goodman: Of course.
Q19 Mr Heald: The final issue I wanted to raise is about
lone parents in poverty. The Committee
has been concerned about how Jobseekers sanctions might work and there seems to
be some evidence that there has been a stalling in terms of tackling child
poverty where there is a lone parent.
The figure for children remaining poor went down to 50 per cent at one
stage, but it is now at 52 per cent.
Clearly you know there has been some progress, but it does not seem to
be moving on as one would hope. Gingerbread have been on to the Committee about
this, saying that they think more progress could be made. I wonder how you would respond to that.
Helen Goodman: Do you mean that more progress could be made
in general in terms of getting lone parents into work?
Q20 Mr Heald: I am talking about tackling child poverty
where there is a lone parent. Some
progress was made but now it seems to have stalled. The last three years have been very flat. Fifty per cent of children of lone parents
were in poverty three years ago and then it was 52 per cent and 52 per
cent. That is the concern.
Helen Goodman: I would like to set this in context
really. I think we can make a lot more
progress on this and I do not think there is inherently a conflict between
child wellbeing and the proportion of lone parents who are in work. If we look at the statistics from Denmark,
Denmark is right at the top of the UNICEF table. They have the highest number
of lone parents in Europe and they also have 80 per cent of lone parents in
work. We now have 58 per cent of
lone parents in work, so, you are right, I think we can make progress on
this. One of the things which is most noticeable
is the difference between lone parents without skills and lone parents with
skills. One of the things we are very
concerned to do in all our programmes is enable lone parents to have access to
skills. At the moment, I think it is the case that, of those lone parents
without skills, only 15 per cent are in work, whereas if they have a GCSE or
higher qualification the numbers are much higher. Part of the work-related activity that we are enjoining on lone
parents and part of the conditionality is about, first of all, having a skills
check and, second of all, having access to training. The Welfare Reform Bill is moving lone parents from Income
Support to Jobseekers Allowance on a phased basis: first the parents of
children aged 12 and over, then aged ten and over, and then aged seven and over,
and so we will gradually introduce the sort of conditionalities which are not
exactly the same as but similar to those which were in New Deal for Lone
Parents. New Deal for lone parents was a voluntary scheme and it had a
very, very good success rate. Through
New Deal for Lone Parents since 1997, 320,000 lone parents have moved into work
and a quarter of a million of those will have been lone parents with
children under the age of seven. We
have quite a lot of work ongoing on this.
Q21 Mr Heald: When will we see an evaluation of
conditionality and how it has worked for lone parents?
Helen Goodman: I do not know. That is another thing I will look into and report back to the
Committee on.
Q22 Chairman: You have emphasised the voluntary nature of
New Deal and how successful it was.
Helen Goodman: Yes.
Q23 Chairman: This Committee in two separate reports has
accepted the presumption of increased conditionality but rejected sanctions.
The question is where is the evidence that shows that sanctioning is working. You have shown us that the voluntary approach
works in New Deal for Lone Parents.
Helen Goodman: Yes.
Q24 Chairman: Where is the evidence that sanctions improve
the situation?
Helen Goodman: Of course it is more likely that a voluntary
approach will have a higher success rate than an approach which includes
sanctions. I would be foolish not to
acknowledge that, because obviously that is the group of people who are most
highly motivated. But the Department
feels that it is not really realistic to run a system without any backstop and
any sanctions at all. I think the issue
is more whether the sanctions that we are putting in place for lone parents are
reasonable sanctions, given the special circumstances which lone parents face. If you would allow me to, I will say why I
think they are reasonable.
Q25 Chairman: Can you be brief, please.
Helen Goodman: Yes. First of all the sanctions will not
apply to people who are mentally ill.
Chairman: We know all the exemptions. The Committee is aware of those. Take the instance of work-focused
interviews. Last year, 68.000 lone
parents sanctioned for not attending a work-focused interview. That is a first
stop, not a last stop. We need to move
on.
Q26 Tom Levitt: Before I ask a couple of questions about
employment, I want to take you back to the DLA question. As DLA is supposed to cover the additional
cost of disability, why is it even taken into account as income when
calculating a poverty figure?
Helen Goodman: Because it is income.
Q27 Tom Levitt: It is supposed to offset the extra costs of
disability, costs which would not be there if the disability did not
exist. Therefore, to get a level
playing field, the DLA covers the extra costs of the disability and then the
income levels, having taken DLA out of the equation, are supposed to be
comparable, surely. You are saying that
we will give people extra money for the costs of meeting their disability but
then we will assume they do not have a disability if we are then saying the DLA
should be included as part of their income.
Helen Goodman: Patently it is part of people's income, so
patently it is appropriate to take it into account in measuring people's
incomes. I think the question is
whether it takes account adequately, is it not?
Q28 Tom Levitt: Certainly there is a question as to whether
DLA itself is high enough to meet the costs of people's disabilities, yes. Shall we leave that one lying and get on to
my questions?
Mr Timms: Perhaps I could just comment on that. The way that we have measured relative child
poverty, below 60 per cent of median income, has been applied very consistently
from the survey. As Helen has said,
that does take account of all household income. One could define child poverty in a different way for families
with disabilities, but that is not the way we have measured it up to now and I
think there would be a difficulty about trying to measure different household's
incomes in different ways.
Q29 Tom Levitt: Quite possibly, but I am not sure you get the
level playing field where they have extra costs. I have been inspired to point out that DLA is not classed as
income as far as the calculation of Housing Benefit is concerned.
Mr Timms: In the family resources survey, which is the
survey that is used to measure how we are getting on on the child poverty
measure and make some other assessments as well, all income is included.
Helen Goodman: There is another point which I would just
like to make, which is that the costs of disability vary from household to
household. It might be quite difficult
to get very sensitive and accurate figures.
Q30 Tom Levitt: That is why we have different levels of
DLA.
Helen Goodman: Perhaps it could be sensitised even further.
Q31 Tom Levitt: Turning to some employment questions, the
Committee is very supportive of the Government's intention to make sure that
nobody is better off out of work than they would be in work, and we recognise
that a lot of measures and steps have been taken, particularly with Tax Credits
to ensure that that is the case.
However, Jobcentre Plus has a fairly simple calculation, the
better-off in-work calculation, which because it only looks at the direct
impact of moving into work on Tax Credits and on benefits, misses out the
impact of passported benefits. There
will be cases where people move into work, they have a better-off in-work
calculation which shows that they should be better off but, because they lose
free school meals, because they lose free prescriptions in some cases, because
they have extra costs of going into work, they may be worse off. Why can that not be taken into account in
the better-off in-work calculations?
Helen Goodman: The better-off in-work calculations are
operated at a national level and the cost of school meals and school transport
at any rate - I accept not prescriptions, but of school meals and school
transport - vary from place to place, so you could not have a national
scheme. But when the advisers talk to
the people in the Jobcentre, they are obliged to remind them of the school
meals component so that people themselves can work out what their position is.
Q32 Tom Levitt: Would it be sensible to do what Scotland is
planning to do, to extend free school meal entitlement to parents in low paid
work and therefore address that from the other angle?
Helen Goodman: That is a rather different question. There is question about what advice they get
and whether the advice is fair. There
is a separate question about whether the entitlements are adequate. I do not have here with me today the costs
of extending the free school meal entitlement, say, all the way up the Tax
Credits scale. We would have to do that
to see whether we thought that that was a cost-effective way of tackling child
poverty.
Q33 Tom Levitt: It is clear that different government
departments have slightly different takes on what they regard as the
qualification for the different passported benefits. Is there going to be some attempt to rationalise this, so we
have a single approach to passported benefits across different departments?
Helen Goodman: I am not quite clear what you mean by a different
approach to passported benefits.
Clearly passported benefits is an area which demands and requires more
attention and we will give it more attention, but I am not quite sure why you
think different departments are treated in different ways. I am sorry.
Q34 Chairman: Because they have different income levels
which are still qualifying.
Helen Goodman: Yes.
Q35 Chairman: And there should be a uniform income level,
so that everybody knows where they are.
Helen Goodman: We could operate it like that, but that would
give us very sharp cliff edges, I think.
Q36 Chairman: You have a cliff edge at the moment, but
there are different cliffs in different departments. We are saying that it should be a single income level in all
departments, so that everybody knows where they stand.
Helen Goodman: That is a possible route through, but if it
was the same everywhere, the effect of that would be to sharpen the cliff edges
- because the marginal deduction rates are cumulative across all the benefits.
Chairman: For passported benefits there is no margin of
winning, but never mind. I am
sorry to interrupt.
Q37 Tom Levitt: No problem.
My next question is on flexible working. The right to request flexible working has clearly been successful
and a lot of parents are making use of it and employers are co‑operating. However, someone has to be in work for 26
weeks before they can request flexible working. Clearly there will be some parents of children who are living in
poverty who would be better off in work, but because they cannot access that
right to request flexible working for the first 26 weeks, that is a
disincentive for them going into that job.
Is there a way in which we can, where it is necessary to help someone
going into work, give more rights on flexible working for people going into
work, rather than having to wait for 26 weeks?
Helen Goodman: Since the Committee wrote its report, the
Government has agreed improvements to the right to request flexible working,
raising the age of the child from six to 16.
As you know, this is something which will only work well if employers
are in agreement with it. We have
arrived at a consensus around the current arrangements in negotiation with
employers and we are making a major extension by going from six to 16. It would be a good idea to see how this
works and how this beds in before we consider the further extension which you
are suggesting now.
Q38 Tom Levitt: Does the Jobcentre take it upon itself, when
acting as an advocate and supporter of someone going into work, to help make
representations to employers about flexible working?
Helen Goodman: I am not sure whether representations are
made specifically about that, but in the new support that we are giving to
people there is interaction between the Jobcentre and the employer on a range
of things and that could include flexible working.
Tom Levitt: Thank you.
Q39 Mrs Humble: Childcare issues are a key to a lot of the
questions that colleagues have already been asking, because if parents cannot
find childcare then they cannot go to work.
I chair the All-Party Childcare Group, so I know of many of the
improvements that have taken place over recent years, the Government strategy
and the huge increase in the number of places available, but - and there is
always a but - I would like you to tell us a little more about how the
Government will try to make childcare more affordable and accessible and link
that into the problems that we all as MPs encounter with constituents who work
atypical hours. There is lots of
childcare available between nine to five o'clock, but if, like many of my
constituents, lone parents or couple parents want to work before nine o'clock
or after five o'clock or at weekends, then they find it extremely difficult to
get childcare, and so they have the problem of affordability, the problem of
accessibility. There are many people
who try to get jobs in retail. If you
are working in a shop, you are often asked to work at weekends. There is a real issue about accessibility
for many parents who want to go into work.
Dawn Primarolo: Affordability, access, atypical hours,
flexibility - recognising the context that we have doubled the number of
childcare places in ten years. On
access, as well as the commitment to the 15 hours and looking at some of the
requirements, we are balancing here on the wellbeing of the child. I absolutely accept, as you do, that there
is then an interaction about the parents being able to take up either part-time
or full-time work. First, in the most
disadvantaged areas and how we are trying to take it on, we have the
commitments on three and four-year olds and we are looking at some of the most
disadvantaged two-year olds in local authorities and at drawing those very
young children into the free provision in a select number of authorities. Secondly, we want to make sure that parents
are aware of all the options available in their local authority for
childcare. I will come back to the
local authority duty - and if I forget, please prompt me. I think we can see some improvement there in
terms of how information is given to parents.
We have also looked at and have funded free childcare for parents who
are not in work and, particularly in low income families, taking training. We are also looking very specifically at
affordability and access to facilities for young children with disabilities,
because that is a problem. If I might
move to affordability first, the question is always with the free provision,
where we are at 95 per cent, that take-up is incredibly popular - and we all know
why. There is more work that is
necessary and pilots are underway in looking at how the financial support can
interact to give a better outcome both for the child's wellbeing and, indeed,
for the parents in terms of being able to take up employment. Stop me if you are aware of the pilots that
are being undertaken around whether 100 per cent rather than 50 per cent
subsidy should be available. We need to
do more in working with parents, in making sure that they have confidence and
there is appropriate childcare, in looking at the question of whether paying 80
per cent of childcare costs through Tax
Credits to the higher rate for disabled children does give us a position where
we have sustainable employment opportunities.
Q40 Mrs Humble: Have you also been looking at increasing the payment through Tax
Credits to 100 per cent for the very lowest earners as well?
Dawn Primarolo: Yes.
I was coming on to that. There
are a number of pilots underway. Rather
than rehearsing every single one, I would be happy to send a brief note to the
Committee saying why we are looking at it, the question of 80 per cent or 100
per cent, what we particularly want to find out, whether it is improving
childcare and the abilities of the parent to go into work, why we are looking
at the question of whether we might pay upfront costs rather than based on an
average - so actual rather than averaging out - and particularly why we are
looking at what support we can give in terms of affordability. I think that all Members of this
Committee will be well aware of some of the issues that are raised all the
time, quite rightly, but then, also, looking on the supply side: whether it is
more appropriate for that extra support to go on the supply side. In terms of affordability: taking a lot of
work forward now building on free entitlement, on what is the best way, whether
further refinements to ensure the child's wellbeing and access to Sure Start
children's centres and then through into primary school with the support of an
extended school are helping them in their development but, also, whether they
are assisting parents. You raised the
question of access. Perhaps I could
briefly touch on that, because I realise this is a very big question that you
might want to unpack. There are two
issues here. First, there is the local
authority duty to assess in their local authority the demand requirements for
childcare alongside what they are providing, and how they come forward with
plans on how they propose to fill the gaps.
Let me give three examples where it is touched on a lot. First, access for children with
disabilities. One of the big areas,
with a lot of work going on now on funded programmes, is that there needs to be
much more discussion with the parents about what is appropriate for that
child. It can vary so much, but then it
also raises very difficult questions about the appropriate workforce and who
might be able to provide this care, and, at the local level, getting a much
better assessment of what is necessary in partnership with the parents, looking
at the educational needs and wellbeing of the child as well and taking that
forward. We have work going on in that
area and, again, if it would help, I would be happy to do a brief summary. The other area with regard to disadvantaged
communities, as Members will know, is the Sure Start children's centres, which
are absolutely fabulous. They are
really popular. We can make sure that
it is not just the wellbeing of the child in terms of educational development
but all the other things that can be centred around with regard to the health
and wellbeing of the child, and, indeed, through Jobcentre Plus, working with
parents. Nonetheless, we know we have
to do more to take the services out, reaching out to our communities, particularly
the most disadvantaged, where they are perhaps not aware or unable to access
for one reason or another the services that are there. I do not want to use the words "hard to
reach" because I am approaching this on the basis that there must be something
about the way we are delivering the service that makes the service hard to
reach for the communities we are talking about, so we are looking at the whole
area of access there. In terms of the
atypical hours and flexibility, obviously it is built on the 15 hours. There are good educational reasons for the
free offer, and we need to look at the interaction between everything that is
offered, the sessional approach that is offered in childcare, and we need to
make sure, by the type of pilots I have described, that that free provision can
be easily built on and is affordable, particularly for those groups around
which you have suggested we need to do more work. I think that raises lots of questions as well about extended
school facilities, because it is not just what goes on, important as that is,
in the Sure Start children's centres but it is when that young child goes
through into primary and whether there are extended school facilities there
that continue. The last area on which
we need to do a lot of work, seeing as we are coming up to the summer break, is
the question of extended school provision and access outside the school hours -
as you have rightly identified, at weekends and, indeed, in the school
holidays. We have some work going on on
that - and I will send you a note on that if that is - recognising where the
pressure points are and trying to take it forward built absolutely around the
principle that investing in the early years does pay off for the health and
wellbeing of that child, later to be adult.
Q41 Mrs Humble: You have covered a huge area there and you have covered some of
the other questions that I was going to ask, but perhaps I could come back on a
couple of points. In our previous
reports on child poverty, one of the things that we did highlight which you
have touched on was the importance of quality in childcare as well as
affordability. Helen's point about
Denmark is a key point. In Scandinavian
countries parents have faith in the childcare provision and so it is accepted
good practice that a parent will go out to work because their child is being
looked after in a quality establishment with well-trained staff. The problem then, of course, is paying
quality staff the rate that they should get for doing what is a very, very
important job but trying to limit the cost to the parent for that quality
staff. The Government has done a huge
amount in giving grants to organisations to train their staff. We have had all the development on social
pedagogy to raise standards in care and put the child at the centre, but the
key for government is going to be how to raise standards and give parents that
assurance whilst at the same time not increasing the cost to the parent. Are you taking that into account when you
are doing your pilots? The question is
who is going to pay.
Dawn Primarolo: That is a very good question. Yes, we are taking it into account in the
work we are taking forward. First, we
should say that parents have huge confidence, clearly, in the provisions that
are made through Sure Start children's centres. They are incredibly popular.
And now there is the provision for the four-year olds as they move
through into primary, because we are looking at take-up at maximum levels. But you are quite right that the whole
management of the workforce and the development of the service does need to be
carefully handled because at all times it has to be the health and wellbeing
and the development of that child. If
we are to break the cycles of poverty that we can see, in terms of going
through to educational attainment and then on to future employment prospects,
we have to get this absolutely right, and, frankly, I think that the Government
over ten years of the childcare strategy has done exactly that. But you then raise the question of the
interaction, the free offer topped up.
Yes, part of the work we are doing is looking at what may be necessary
for those who are on lower incomes (under £20,000 households), those who are
moving into the labour market, and what support nonetheless we need to give
them on that side and what the best way to do that is. We are trying to give a universal offer but
recognising that if we are going to close the gap in inequality, in educational
achievement, in development, feeding into the poverty cycle, we still need to
be in a position to invest more for those who really need it, so we are
balancing the two.
Q42 Mrs Humble: Local authorities have undertaken
the sufficiency study in their own areas.
I wonder how you are responding to that and what advice, if any, you are
giving to local authorities about how to develop more childcare for working
parents and for families with children with disability. So far you have been
talking about Sure Start children's centres, and, indeed, there are lots of
private nurseries and other local authority provision, but in order to have the
flexibility that we were talking about earlier, we also need to look at
childminders and other ways of providing childcare.
Dawn Primarolo: Forgive me, I did not mean to cause the discussion
and my response as if it was all about what the department does. I think the department has to set the
strategic objectives. It has to find
the money to fund pilots or work in partnership with other departments who are
pursuing the outcome of reducing poverty, breaking the cycle of deprivation,
but it has to be done in very close collaboration with local authorities, with
our social partners and with parents.
All of the provision that is being made through early years, through
primary and into secondary is how we connect all of that in working with
it. One of the interesting things about
going to the department which I have recently transferred to in the last week
is how much work is going on in order to bring everybody together and to be
focused and support. I would be happy
to do a brief note about how each level fits together and how we deliver what
you are saying, working with local authorities, it is the first year of the
duty on the rigour of their assessments and then sensibly their action plans of
how they are going to address the shortfalls that they have identified.
Q43 Mrs Humble: When Sure Start was first set up, it was a very focused, directed
service to those parents who were the most disadvantaged. It has now been expanded and of course the
expansion of Sure Start children's centres has been very much welcomed up and
down the country. However, the
Government's own research has pointed out that those who are best able to
access the service are taking the most out of it, and there is a fear that that
the very group who were the first group that Sure Start was aimed at are being
disadvantaged. How can you reassure me
and my colleagues that you are still focused on those people?
Dawn Primarolo: You are absolutely right to touch on that. That is a very important point. We are at over 3,000 Sure Start centres now,
and we will be at 3,500 by March 2010.
We already have something like 2.4 million children in areas where they
can access Sure Start. The beauty of
Sure Start was that it was so fantastic everybody wanted it - and we can
understand why - for their child's development. To address the point that you are making, which is something that
concerns us - we can see the trends, that we need to do more in ensuring that
those from children and parents from disadvantaged areas are, if you like, not
crowded out - it is to fund specifically into the relevant Sure Start centres
additional outreach workers whose specific role is to ensure that they are
working with those families and parents, to ensure that their children are
getting access into the centres, either making sure they have the information,
the confidence, or whatever is necessary to make sure those children do not
miss out. You are absolutely right to
touch on it, and we do need to do more. We are seized of that and we are taking
it forward as we can.
Q44 Mrs Humble: Finally, you mentioned earlier the 15 hours a week for three-year
olds, and I will mention the ten hours a week for two-year olds, but that does
not, however, marry up with the 16 hours a week that parents need to work to
come off benefit. How can we ensure that across government departments we are
getting joined-up government, that a free offer on childcare then links up to
benefit rules and regulations and Tax Credits rules and regulations?
Dawn Primarolo: Do you want me to deal with why we settled on
15 hours and how we made the decisions about going to the two-year olds, and
ten hours in the most disadvantaged areas?
This is the sort of choice that has to be made. The 15 hours - and I know you are very
knowledgeable on this, so I will not touch on it for too long - was on the
basis of recognising the benefits of early years access for the development of
the child and, also, how that was delivered, recognising the importance of
making sure we have a policy that fits all of the childcare sector and not just
provision through state sectors - so the community/non-governmental
organisations providing childcare. In looking at questions of giving more free
access over and above 15 hours for the benefit of the child and whether or not
that would go to our core objective in relation to deprivation of getting those
children into early years, the outcomes were shown to be better, on the
information and data we had, if we were to go to two-year olds and give them
access. That gave us greater leverage,
we believe, on the question of child poverty.
The next set of questions is really the very ones you touched on, which
was if that is the rationale for the child and for tackling child poverty and
getting the development for attainment, how do we get the affordability issues
to come up alongside, both on atypical working patterns and on the question of
working more hours, because that is where the pilots took us to, looking at the
interaction between two slightly different objectives. We are trying to marry
together what is best for the child with the parent being in work and
supporting work.
Q45 Mrs Humble: In your reply, you have highlighted two separate issues. Good quality childcare is an end in itself,
it is good for the child, but the Committee's report has talked about that good
quality childcare being a means to an end (that is, to enable the parents to go
out to work). That is why I am raising
the issue of the mismatch between the hours.
Perhaps you might like to think about that and come back to us with
something in writing.
Helen Goodman: Perhaps I could add one sentence. Of course the conditionality for parents of
children under seven does not include work.
It includes work-related activity but it does not include the 16 hours
which would apply for people with older children, so that conflict does not pan
out.
Q46 Mrs Humble: The parents who want to go into work who are looking at trying to
find affordable childcare to enable them to go into work are concerned about
the hours of free provision they can get.
They then have to work out what they can afford, what their entitlement
is under the Tax Credits regime. Of
course we know that it is the poorest parents, the lowest paid who
paradoxically are the ones who are least likely to claim Tax Credits, so there
is a take-up issue. Could you drop us a
note on how you think that the benefits, rules and regulations and working hours
can link into free access and how across government departments you can be
working together to ensure that childcare does not put parents at
a disadvantage? That is the bottom
line. If parents need good quality
childcare, it should be available to them and there should not be different
rules in different departments that undermine that.
Dawn Primarolo: Yes, we will do that to show you how the
trends have moved.
Q47 Chairman: Only about a third of those entitled to
childcare tax credit take it up. Budget
2008 announced an inquiry, review, whatever, of this, but where has that got
to, do you know?
Mr Timms: Yes.
There are about 470,000 families at the moment receiving help with
childcare through tax credits. It is
certainly less than it could be, although it is better than has been achieved by
similar support in the past. You are
right, we consulted previously on how we can best support childcare and one of
the things we are doing to explore that further is the point that Dawn was
making earlier about some of the pilots that are being tried out at the moment.
Q48 Chairman: So it is underway?
Mr Timms: We are looking at it.
Q49 Miss Begg: I have a few questions on benefit
levels. When we are looking at child
poverty we tend to think of the benefits and help we give to children. There is no doubt in terms of what the
Government has done that child benefit has gone up and child tax credits have
gone up, so the benefits that go to the child have certainly increased. The problem is that children live in households
and, as Helen has just pointed out, there is no obligation on lone parents, for
instance, to go to work until the youngest child is seven. It is only once they get into work that the
work and child tax credit elements kick in anyway. If we are really serious about tackling child poverty then surely
we have to look at the adult benefits that go into that household as well. The single adult rate for Jobseekers'
Allowance is still only £64.30, so the families who are claiming out of work
benefits are still quite a bit below the poverty line, and that is not going to
change if the adult benefit rates do not change. You cannot just change it on the child benefit and child benefit
rates. Is this sustainable from a Government
that says it is going to end child poverty?
What action is going to be taken on looking at the adult benefit rates?
Helen Goodman: If we look historically at what has happened
since 1997 the position is not as bad for families as one might think if one
just looked at the indices because of the over indexation of some of the
benefits from time to time. Just to
give you a couple of examples. For a
lone parent family with one child, the change in real terms has been plus 30
per cent. For a lone parent with two
real children the change in real terms has been plus 50 per cent. If we go through the benefits, obviously JSA
is on the Rossi Index but housing benefit takes account of local rent levels as
well. IB is on the RPI. The increases in the child tax credit have
been over indexation and the index there has been earnings. In child benefit it has been 25 per cent
real. It is perhaps not the tidiest of
systems, but when you add it all up you do produce these significant increases
for the family as a whole.
Q50 Miss Begg: You have pointed out that some of the
indexation is still RPI so, therefore, as time goes on those benefit levels are
still dropping behind the indexation that you would need in order to take those
families out of poverty. So long as the
adults remain out of work, and I do not think even the Government thinks it can
get all adults into work for various reasons, whether it is incapacity, young
children, disabled children or whatever, and even the Government's target is
not going to say from six months or a year there will be obligations on lone
parents to go into work, the Joseph Rowntree Trust has projected that, in fact,
we could see a doubling of child poverty over the next 20 years rather than it
coming down.
Helen Goodman: Of course if we projected on no change, not
taking account, but the point I am trying to make is that the historic data
shows that for those families where the parents are not working, the risk of
being in poverty has fallen. In the
case of lone parents it has fallen from 63 to 55 per cent and in the case of
couples from 74 to 68 per cent. Because
the families have this cocktail of benefits, the position is not as bad for
families with children as the one that you are suggesting.
Q51 Miss Begg: So it is not going to get any worse, but from
what you have just said it is not going to get much better because the figures
you quoted have not come down very much.
If you are talking about eradicating child poverty and still saying that
over 50 per cent of children who live in lone parent households are still
living in poverty, that is an awful long way to go in just over ten years in
order to fulfil the obligations under the new Bill that has just been
published.
Helen Goodman: It is a long way to go, but in the Child
Poverty Bill the strategy is partly about financial support, partly about
employment, and I accept what you say that employment is not the only thing,
and also partly about the material deprivation index that covers the issues
about quality of services that families are receiving, the issues about the
environment and housing. I do not think
the position is as bleak and as mechanistic as a simple extrapolation of the
JRF numbers suggest.
Q52 Miss Begg: Even taking all of that into account one of
the poverty measures is still cash-in-hand and if all of the emphasis has gone
into the benefits that children get and not the adults you are still never
going to reach your target. My point is
that there has been quite a lot of intransigence in the Government to actually
look at adult benefit levels. I could
understand initially when the Government came in that they did not want to make
the poverty gap worse and there were huge disincentives in the system, and I am
not saying that the Government has not done a huge amount - it has - in terms
of making work pay and ending that poverty trap, but is now not the time to
look at those who are still out of work despite all of the Government's best
intentions to make sure their income levels reflect the growing prosperity that
the country does have to make sure you are going to get these families over that
hurdle and out of poverty?
Helen Goodman: I would draw a contrast between the progress
being made in the years from 2007-10, the measures we are taking which are in
the middle of a recession, taking 500,000 out of poverty as compared to the two
recessions, one in the 1980s and one in the 1990s, when child poverty was
doubled. We are moving in the right
direction. I come back to the point
that Stephen made at the beginning. In
the middle of a recession it is sensible to focus primarily on all the work we
are doing to maintain employment levels and that is the overall priority of the
Government at this juncture. I think
that is a reasonable priority to take.
Q53 Miss Begg: Again, with the best will in the world we are
in a recession and the chances of numbers of lone parents we need to get into
work getting into work and hitting those kinds of targets is all the more
difficult. Is that not the reason why
we should perhaps be looking at the adult benefit rates?
Helen Goodman: These are difficulties and dilemmas and we
live in a resource-constrained world.
Q54 John Howell: Can I ask some questions around the take-up
of benefits? This has been one of the
things that have concerned us, both in terms of the low level of take-up of
some benefits and regional variations within them. We have got some estimates from the DWP that £10 billion worth of
means-tested benefits are not claimed, for example, and even with child tax
credit there are wide regional variations.
The simple question, first of all, is what are you doing about it?
Helen Goodman: One of the good things about requiring more
people to come into Job Centres and have conversations with job advisers is
part of the advice which they get is about their benefit entitlements and that
is very much underway.
Q55 John Howell: Do you have any measures of success to know
whether you are going to have done well in increasing the take-up of benefits
or is this just left as a variable factor?
Helen Goodman: I am not entirely sure that the position is
as bleak as you are suggesting.
Obviously the take-up of child benefit is 96 per cent, exceptionally
high, and the take-up of tax credits is in the 80-90 per cent zone which is
way, way above the 30-40 per cent that we had with family income supplement 30
years ago. I think we have done a
lot. Obviously the more we can do, the
better. For every ten per cent
improvement in take-up we lift 40,000 children out of poverty. I am not saying that this is not important
but I do not think the position is as bleak as you are suggesting.
Mr Timms: Could I just add a word from the tax credit
point of view. Helen has mentioned the
take-up of tax credits. It is perhaps
worth mentioning, and I am sure the Committee is aware of this, the report that
Sir Trevor Chinn wrote which was published last Friday, Take Up The Challenge, which drew together a taskforce of benefit
experts, and we welcome the conclusions they have produced. A big focus of that report is on encouraging
different agencies to work together, as Helen was just saying, to promote
take-up. For example, one of the things
HMRC has been doing is placing tax credit advisers in Children's Centres. The area I represent is one of the places
where this has been done. That does
seem to have given some very good results in making it easier for parents
thinking about returning to work to find out what their benefit entitlement is
and what their tax credit entitlement is, to access and apply for help. I think that will contribute to a higher
level of take-up in the future than we have seen in the past.
Q56 John Howell: But there are no targets that are guiding you
as to what you think would be the best measure of success in that? Do you have an estimate of what you would
like the take-up to improve to?
Mr Timms: In some areas we do. We announced in the Budget a target for
households not with children because the take-up of the tax credit element that
is received by childless households has been low. We did announce a target for raising take-up there but we have
not got a comprehensive set of targets across the board on take-up.
Q57 John Howell: One of the specific benefits that does not
appear to have been taken up well is DLA in relation to children with
disabilities. Every Disabled Child Matters estimates that is only at 50 per cent. Given the additional cost that it requires,
which you have already raised this morning, for a family with a child with a
disability, is there not something that specifically needs to be done in terms
of an initiative with some measurable targets to show that you are actually
getting there and giving the help where it is needed?
Helen Goodman: My understanding is that we do not have any
statistics on take-up of DLA at all because we do not have adequate information
to measure the potential pool of beneficiaries. That is something which attention is being put to. You will probably remember there was a
private Member's bill last year about the numbers of children with disabilities
in different local authority areas and that will provide us with information
which can be used for that. On take-up
generally, of course, one thing that makes it easier for people to take-up
benefits is if the system is simpler rather than more complex. That is something which we have very much in
mind in the forthcoming review on housing benefit. It is also a factor which informed the reform of incapacity
benefit and the replacement of two benefits by the new ESA benefit.
Mr Timms: Can I draw to the Committee's attention that
in Sir Trevor Chinn's report one of the case studies is of a project with
Hertfordshire County Council specifically about take-up of benefits for
children with disabilities drawing out some good practice principles from that
case study.
Q58 John Howell: I do accept that there is a difficulty in
assessing the starting point with DLA, but I do not accept that as a reason for
hiding behind it given that both the CAB and Every Disabled Child Matters have gone out of their way to try to
make estimates which actually come out reasonably close to each other.
Helen Goodman: No, I was not trying to hide behind it, I was
just trying to describe the situation.
Q59 John Howell: One of the other points that has been put to
us is that one of the great difficulties for people in taking up benefits is
the extent of means-tested benefits. Is
this something that you have looked at?
Helen Goodman: It was ever thus. There is always a conflict between effective use of public money
through targeting benefits, and that inevitably means taking account of
people's levels of other income and earnings, and the simplicity in
administrative terms of universal benefits like child benefit. I am not going to sit here and say that we
have reached the perfect moment and the perfect balance in these conflicting
areas but you are as well aware as I am that there is inevitably a tension and
we are always managing that tension.
Q60 John Howell: Let me pick up just one last point in
relation to that complexity and the issue of joining things up. It is in relation to people who have been
overpaid in their tax credit which has then affected their ability to claim
other benefits. When those overpayments are recognised and the amounts have to
be repaid there is no ability to go back and reassess the benefits that they
could have been entitled to. Clearly
the best thing is not to make the mistakes in the beginning, but surely this is
an example of where there is no joined-up thinking and where the complexity
involved does not lead to an outcome that is favourable to the individual.
Mr Timms: I think this is the tax credit issue that you
are raising. What we need to do in the
tax credit system in order to make further progress in reducing the number of
overpayments, and we have made a lot of progress halving the incidents since
the system was introduced, is to make sure that people notify the tax credit
office of changes of circumstances as quickly as possible after their
circumstances have changed. It is the
delay between the change happening and the notification that generally is what
leads to an overpayment. We are looking
at the issue that you have highlighted and in addressing it what we must ensure
is that the incentives for people to tell us promptly are maintained. If you ended up with a system where it would
not matter very much if you did not tell about the change on time because you
would end up getting the same amount of money anyway then there would not be an
incentive, or at least not as strong an incentive as I think there should be,
for people to inform us promptly. That
is the tension that needs to be managed in addressing that particular issue and
it is something we are looking at.
Q61 John Howell: I fully accept that there is a balance
between getting it right on the HMRC side and some responsibility on
individuals, but here we have something that is almost a technical issue in
terms of the system where you cannot go back having recognised that you have
got an overpayment and readjust the other benefits. That seems to me to be a
fairly good example of some of the excessive complexities within the system.
Helen Goodman: With respect to the other benefits, could I
offer a note to the Committee? Could I
offer to go away and think about that and come back to the Committee?
John Howell: Yes, thank you.
Q62 Greg Mulholland: If I could turn to the wider, very important
issue of education and learning which has already been acknowledged has a huge
part to play in the issue of child poverty and preventing it. The first question relates to the new league
table of child wellbeing which are the EU 27 countries plus Norway and
Iceland. They are embarrassingly poor
results for the United Kingdom: 22nd in the educational domain and
24th overall with only Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and
Malta doing worse. Even more
significantly, the UK scored well below countries with GDP per capita. We are doing very badly compared to
countries of similar wealth. Why?
Mr Timms: Dawn will comment on the education points and
how we think we are doing relative to others on education and then I can
comment on the wider issues about that table.
Dawn Primarolo: On all of the attainment levels, particularly
over the last ten years, whether we look at 11, 14, 16 or 19, they are at the
highest levels they have been and that was an indication of the task facing us
in 1997 in terms of ensuring from early years, where there was barely any
investment, that we doubled the number of places building on the wellbeing and
sustainability, giving that child the best start. If we look at Sure Start and the work that has gone on in the
early years we can see that not only are we seeing an improvement in the
development of the child, we are also closing the gap. There has been some really interesting work
and figures coming out of Derbyshire, for instance, which have shown that. If we then move across into primary schools,
we have seen that there is a rise of 19 per cent particularly in the most
disadvantaged areas in English at age 11.
If we look at secondary schools between 1999 and 2000 we see schools
achieving a 19 per cent rise in the proportion of pupils getting 5 A*-C GCSEs,
including English and maths. The first
point is to say the investment has been necessary and how we are approaching
that in early years, primary and secondary, we are seeing the achievement
levels, but you are quite right, hence the discussions around the 21st
century school, looking to carry on building in the Children's Centres in terms
of the investment into our young people, there is more we are to do, but at
least the Government has invested something like 25 billion in early years in
order to get us to where we are. Do the
comparisons, but acknowledge that and the test is whether we can carry on
making progress and we are absolutely sure that we can.
Q63 Greg Mulholland: I have really got to pin you down on
this. Twelve years of this Government
and we are 24th out of 27 in terms of child wellbeing which is
supposed to be a priority. A simple
question: are you embarrassed?
Dawn Primarolo: You are not giving any acknowledgement for
the progress that has been made.
Q64 Greg Mulholland: I am not asking you about progress.
Dawn Primarolo: Progress is what counts.
Q65 Greg Mulholland: I am asking a simple question: after 12 years
of this Government saying that child wellbeing was a priority, we are 24th
out of 29 countries and doing very badly compared to countries of a similar
wealth. Are you embarrassed by
that? That is a yes or no answer,
Stephen. Are you embarrassed by that?
Mr Timms: No.
There are a number of reasons for that.
Firstly, there are some methodology questions here about how the data is
compiled. Inevitably, in putting
together a basket of indicators there are some quite subjective judgments about
what weight is placed on what. I would
certainly query some of the way that particular table was compiled. Secondly, if I remember rightly, it does not
take account of some of the most recent improvements that we have been able to
make. Thirdly, of course, and this goes
right back to what I was saying at the beginning, in the Child Poverty Bill we
are explicitly seeking to achieve in the UK the lowest level of child poverty
that has ever been sustainably achieved anywhere in Europe. We are doing this work taking account of
what has happened and what has been achieved elsewhere in Europe. Once the benefits of what we have done are
taken fully account of, once we have seen the improvements in child poverty
that we expect to see over the next year or so, then the comparison with others
in Europe will look rather more favourable than the one you have referred to.
Q66 Greg Mulholland: You say you are not embarrassed but I hope
you are at least concerned. Certainly
the Committee are very concerned about the placing in that league table and it
is something that should concern you as well.
Mr Timms: I certainly agree we do need to take account
of what is happening elsewhere in Europe and make sure that in the UK we are
doing well by comparison with others.
Q67 Greg Mulholland: Staying with the educational side of this,
you will be aware of the study by the Sutton Trust showing that although
nationally 14.3 per cent of children are entitled to free school meals, only
three per cent of pupils in the top 200 schools are eligible. It is clear that we have concentrations in
the poorer performing schools of children from lower income backgrounds and all
the studies have shown that the biggest indicator about your future life
success is the income of your parents and that remains the case and is
something that is disappointing after 12 years of a Labour Government.
Dawn Primarolo: But the figures show the improvement for
those receiving free school meals in both English and maths and attainment is
improving and improving faster. Whilst
not for a minute would I not wish to acknowledge the challenge that still faces
the Government in reaching these attainment levels, there is very positive
progress being made and we have got to continue that and redouble our efforts,
you are quite right. It is not that we
are at a standstill or going backwards.
Q68 Greg Mulholland: With respect, that is not the point if you
wait until I ask my question. The
simple reality is that children growing up in poverty are much less likely to
stay on in education, the whole issue of the NEETs, and that is a huge part of
why we are so low in that European table.
Apart from general attainment, what specifically is the Government doing
and what can it do more to improve educational attainment and participation of
those poorer children? At the moment,
from those figures it is not working.
Dawn Primarolo: We know, and I am sure you acknowledge the
total number of young people in that group at any one time can fluctuate, there
are many complex reasons why they would be in that group in terms of choices
they are making: gap year, caring for children, young mothers. You are quite right that in looking
particularly at the disadvantage that happens early on that locks a child to
become a young person who is not achieving educationally and, therefore, stops
attending school or ends up neither in employment nor training is something
that is of huge concern. In primary
school and in looking at the role of primary school there are absolute
guarantees to intervene early where that young child is falling back. For instance, in my own constituency I have
seen, and I am sure you have probably seen it in yours, the Reading Recovery
Project. That is very early
intervention on a one-to-one basis making sure that child does not fall
behind. The first one has got to be to
make sure that we are intervening on a one-to-one basis where it is necessary
to get that extra help. Secondly, it is
the wider issues around apprenticeships and alternative qualifications as
opposed to the academic qualifications, encouraging young people to stay in
school for a longer period and improving that educational offer to them. Apprenticeships are key in this. You are absolutely right, when we look at
what happens in the life journey of young people before they get to being the
young person who is not in employment or training that is just as vital as
dealing with those now. Offering and
working with them on alternative qualifications or training is important and
something that we have to continue to redouble our efforts on. I put my hand up to that and say you are
absolutely right and that is what we are doing across the school curriculum
across the age range.
Q69 Greg Mulholland: This question relates to some of the
questions that have been asked previously about the additional costs of
passporting benefits, et cetera, because state education does still carry
significant costs for families. Recent
research in England showed that families spend an average of £684 per child at
primary school rising to £1,195 per child at secondary school. That can present an issue for poorer
families and the research shows that not enough is being done to deal with
that. What is the Government doing to
better support families with those costs related to schooling? Of course, if they are not met then those
children will be disadvantaged in other ways by not being able to go on trips
and all the other things.
Dawn Primarolo: Absolutely.
I am happy to give a more detailed note to reflect on that. Firstly, the School Admissions Code is very
clear about a statutory duty on all governing bodies to ensure that their
policies do not disadvantage children particularly from lower income
backgrounds. On the whole question of
what is offered in the school, there are requirements with regard to charging
for school trips, for example, and also questions around the extended school
offer to try and take the pressures off that parents often feel to make a
contribution to the school or feel under pressure that their children are
missing out on education opportunities, particularly trips and extended school
offer. We are focused on this. This is a very interesting interaction
between local authorities and the schools and government, but there are very
clearly policies in place to try and mitigate that. I say mitigate because I am not going to sit here at the moment and
claim that it will eradicate those pressures, we need much more work in that
area.
Q70 Greg Mulholland: I think the Committee would appreciate it if
you could give us more detailed information.
Dawn Primarolo: Of course.
Q71 Greg Mulholland: The figures between 2003 and 2007 showed that
the costs faced by parents did not reduce despite the improved guidance to
schools. It would be interesting to get an update from the Department for
Children, Schools and Families.
Dawn Primarolo: Obviously it is early days but I will do my
best to get that information because the revised School Admissions Code was
February 2009.
Q72 Greg Mulholland: Exactly.
It will be interesting to see what effect it has.
Dawn Primarolo: It is very much recognising exactly the fair
points that you are making and was very widely consulted on before the then
Schools Minister took the decision about how to amend that. I will give as much as I can but it may be
early days to see how that is taken forward in the next school year starting in
September.
Q73 Chairman: If we can return to the Child Poverty
Bill. The proposed Child Poverty
Commission, is this going to be a high profile, well researched, well staffed,
good budget organisation or is it going to be kept in the background?
Mr Timms: I do not think it will be kept in the
background. It is referred to
explicitly in the Bill and it will be an obligation to establish the Commission
and support it. It will be an advisory
body. It will not set targets
itself. I think it is important that is
a task which Government and Parliament undertake. I will expect it to be a high profile organisation and we will
certainly need to make sure that it is well supported. Can I just go back to the point you raised
with me right at the beginning.
Q74 Chairman: I am going to come back to that, I have not
forgotten. Yes, it is an advisory body
but part of that advice will necessarily involve having a good research budget,
being able to call for evidence and everything else. Do you envisage all those being in?
Mr Timms: Yes. We have not set the budget for it but I
agree it will need to have the resources to do the job the Bill requires it to
do.
Q75 Chairman: To what extent are you involved in
discussions with the devolved administrations in getting to this?
Mr Timms: We have had very good discussions with the
devolved administrations. That is one
of the major successes of the Bill. We
have had very good discussions with the Scottish Government, with Northern
Ireland and with Wales. In Wales the
position is a little bit different because the Welsh Assembly has already
introduced legislation on this front and the Bill reflects that
difference. It is a very welcome
feature of this Bill that it does set a UK-wide target with all the countries
of the UK participating.
Q76 Chairman: Just to return to the Welfare Reform Bill,
and again the Select Committee has highlighted this in the past, the proposed
changes to conditionality for lone parents are predicated on adequate childcare
being available, which of course is a statutory requirement in England but that
statutory requirement does not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland, so you
have a UK law on conditionality but only an English law on the supply side.
Helen Goodman: Perhaps I have not understood this as well as
you, and you have been thinking about this for longer than me, but my
understanding about the conditionality is that people have to find work if
there is childcare. If there is not
childcare then the person cannot be sanctioned or anything else.
Q77 Chairman: There is a statutory duty in England for
local authorities to provide the necessary childcare identified in their
area. That statutory requirement does
not apply in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and perhaps even Wales. You have a UK law on conditionality but not
a UK-wide statutory need to provide childcare.
Helen Goodman: I do not think that will necessarily lead to
unfair sanctioning of people in the devolved areas and we could coordinate
better, that is undoubtedly the case, Chairman, but when we have devolved some
things and not other things, the fact that not every single edge is neat and
tidy is not entirely surprising.
Q78 Chairman: Where you have a UK-wide conditionality
regime you would expect a UK-wide supply side to match it. It is the UK Child Poverty Commission
presumably, it is not England and other bits for certain parts.
Mr Timms: It is UK-wide.
Q79 Chairman: There is a very serious issue there. Everybody recognises that childcare
provision is absolutely key to solving child poverty and particularly in
relation to lone parents. It is accepted in the regulations that childcare has
to be available, affordable and accessible, it is a statutory requirement that
is provided in England but not in Scotland and Northern Ireland. That is not a
devolution issue, that is a straightforward UK policy issue. Can I come back to the point I was making
earlier. If you were kind and read
section 15 you would say that is just standard wording, and if you were a cynic
you would say that is the get-out, but in the explanatory notes to the clauses
it says: "As regards clause 15, Ministers to have regard to budgetary
constraints". As far as I am concerned
that is subject to resources.
Mr Timms: I am very glad you have come back to
this. I have taken the opportunity just
to reflect since you first raised the point.
Clause 15 describes what elements need to be in the Government's Child
Poverty Strategy when it is published and, as you say, absolutely rightly,
those matters do need to be addressed in the strategy but the targets are not
subject to any sort of get-out. The
targets are not subject to affordability.
I am keen that I should make this absolutely clear to the Committee
because I know there has been a bit of confusion about this, not least because
we did consult on the possibility of having a Bill which did indeed have a
get-out - if I can describe in that way - clause of that kind. We took the decision on the basis of the
consultation not to include such a provision in the Bill, so there is no
affordability exclusion or let-out for the targets set out in this Bill.
Q80 Chairman: With respect, setting a target is easy but a
strategy to deliver it is another matter.
Mr Timms: Yes.
Q81 Chairman: It is the strategy, not the target, that must
have regard to budgetary constraints.
Mr Timms: Of course it does. Clearly, when the Government publishes the strategy it does need
to be an affordable strategy. I do not
think that is controversial or difficult.
That does need to be reflected in the strategy and the strategy for
tackling child poverty needs to be consistent with the Government's overall
economic strategy, that is what clause 15 requires. The point I want to underline is that the targets are not subject
to any affordability exclusion.
Q82 Chairman: There are many people who would dispute that,
particularly in your own publication which says that ministers have to have
regard to budgetary constraints in developing the strategy. Can I just say that we have had many years
in Dawn's Department of targets being set for attainment levels but never, ever
has the phrase "subject to budgetary constraints" been put against those
targets and the strategy to deliver them.
I really do think that you need to go away and have a reflection on this
because I think, and so do many other people, that is quite an efficient
get-out clause.
Mr Timms: I genuinely think there is a bit of confusion
here. We did indeed talk about the idea
of having such a clause in the Bill, but there is no such clause here. The Bill does say that the strategy needs to
take account of the Government's wider economic strategy, but there is nothing
here that says in the case of financial or economic difficulties the targets
can be relaxed. I think your criticism
would apply if there was such a provision, but there is not.
Q83 Chairman: Let us just try and keep this simple. The target is to eliminate child poverty by
half by 2010, which you are not going to do, and in total by 2020. Then we have an argument about whether
getting to within five or ten per cent is eradication. You then have the strategy to deliver that,
but if the strategy is not resourced you do not get to the target.
Mr Timms: The strategy will be resourced.
Q84 Chairman: No, because the strategy is subject to
budgetary constraints.
Mr Timms: The strategy does need to represent value for
money, that is very important, and that is what the Bill requires, but it will
have to deliver the targets, that is the purpose of the strategy.
Q85 Chairman: To come back, never, ever in all the targets
and strategies that DCFS and its predecessors have had about attainment has the
phrase "subject to budgetary constraints" ever appeared.
Mr Timms: The targets in this Bill are not subject to
budgetary constraints, that is the point I want to make sure is understood.
Q86 Chairman: The target was there for 2010 and you have
not met it because the strategy was not right and the resource was not put
in. The resource was not put in to
deliver the target. The target remains
for 2020 but if the strategy is not there and resourced to deliver it then it
will not happen.
Mr Timms: That is true. The strategy will have to be resourced.
Q87 Chairman: It is either a priority or it is not. I do not want to have an extended debate
here, no doubt there will be fun and games in Chamber and Committee, but I
think somebody needs to reflect on that particular phrase and whether it adds
to what the Government is trying to achieve because I seriously think it is a
drawback.
Mr Timms: I am very happy to reflect on it, Chairman.
Q88 Tom Levitt: Maybe if it were to say, "The strategy will
deliver the target in a cost-effective manner", but that is not what it says.
Mr Timms: That is indeed the intention.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
